New York City's World Trade Center. Photo by Joe Woolhead
I was given the fortunate task of piecing together a feature story on the “10-year anniversary” of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I hate the word anniversary when dealing with tragedy; the word conjures up images of celebratory events, but this event was anything but. Rather than debate terminology, my goal was to piece something together that would somehow honor the nearly 3,000 casualties from America’s darkest day.
There was no way I could write an effective story on 9/11 without first reviewing the images, news clips, and videos from that day. (I soon discovered the awful fact that only a little more than half of the bodies of victims at the World Trade Center were ever identified or recovered.) YouTube is a great resource when you want to find any and all videos of 9/11 in a pinch. But watching the breadth of videos–one after the other–can leave curious viewers like me in a depressed state–videos showing all angles in which the planes impacted the WTC towers; 911 phone calls to emergency dispatchers, including a screaming man in one of the buildings as it collapsed; WTC “jumpers”; newscasters trying to hold it together as the NYC skyline changed before their eyes–and in front of terrified global audience.
Overtime, I had to distance myself from the clips since I was getting emotionally ill and incredibly angered. I couldn’t help but ask a question I’ve asked time and time again: Why? Why do these awful things happen to people, whether it’s death or pain spurred by human hatred or natural occurrences? It might seem like an absurd question to some, since I know it’s something that will likely remain unanswered, no matter how hard I search for justification.
I did a cursory search online for others who demanded an explanation, and came across a website that answered reader questions from a “Jewish perspective.” I’m not even Jewish, but was intrigued by the response.
Here’s a summation of the response, found on chabad.org:
“If this ultimate question were answered, then we would be able to make peace with the suffering of innocents. And that is unthinkable. Worse than innocent people suffering is others watching their suffering unmoved. And that’s exactly what would happen if we were to understand why innocents suffer. We would no longer be bothered by their cry, we would no longer feel their pain, because we would understand why it is happening. We can tolerate suffering when we know why it is happening.
And so, if we could make sense of innocent people suffering, if we could rationalize tragedy, then we could live with it. We would be able to hear the cry of sweet children in pain and not be horrified. We would tolerate seeing broken hearts and shattered lives, for we would be able to neatly explain them away. Our question would be answered, and we could move on.
But as long as the pain of innocents remains a burning question, we are bothered by its existence. And as long as we can’t explain pain, we must alleviate it. So keep asking the question. But stop looking for answers. Start formulating a response. Take your righteous anger and turn it into a force for doing good.”
Maybe a lack of an answer is the answer I’ve been looking for.
THE ETERNAL OPTIMIST
