| Day 10: 10-Year Anniversary of 9/11 Confrontation with death deepens our appreciation of life. This weekend, our nation again confronts the tragedy of 9/11. We mourn the loss of life and can never fully recover or recapture the world before September 11, 2001. Yet, the commemoration of the 10th anniversary also affords us an opportunity to strengthen our resolve and remain hopeful. We are touched by stories of survival and heroism and the strength of our country. Our forty-day journey culminates with Yom Kippur. The holiday captures the mixed emotions of 9/11. More than any other holiday, Yom Kippur simulates the sobering experience of our own mortality. We do not eat or drink or engage in physical pleasures. The garments of the High priest on the holiest day of the year parallel the shrouds traditionally worn for burial. However, Yom Kippur is characterized as the most joyous of days in the Jewish calendar. Is this not counter intuitive? How are we to feel on September 11th? I believe the poem "Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay provides a perspective. The narrator complains that the world is so small, so restricting and so filled with pain, suffering and evil. She laments that there is no hunger she does not herself experience. Unable to cope with the pain, the poet begs G-d to take her from this world and she soon finds herself lying peacefully in a grave. Here, a full six feet under ground, she is finally free from the travails and pains of life. Suddenly the rain begins to fall and the raindrops are heard pattering on her roof. She suddenly seems to love the sound far more than ever. She writes, "...for rain it hath a friendly sound to one who's six feet underground." From her grave the poet hopes she can once more see the rain again and smell the fresh and fragrant breeze that appears from the drenched and dripping apple trees. "How can I bear it, buried here, while overhead the sky grows clear and blue again after the storm?...Shall I never, never again see again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold.... O G-d, I cried, give me new birth, and put me back upon the earth!" Suddenly, a great thunderstorm strikes the grave and she senses a fragrance only a living thing can sense. She exclaims, "I know not how such things can be; I breathed my soul back into me." Jumping up from the ground she hugs the trees and proclaims "Oh G-d, I cried, no dark disguise can e'er hereafter hide from me thy radiant identity. Thou canst not move across the grass but my quick eyes will see Thee pass, nor speak, however silently, but my hushed voice will answer Thee...G-d, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart." Edna St. Vincent Millay was only 20 years old when she wrote one of the most inspiring religious poems I have ever read. May we all possess the inner strength to enable our "brush with death" to motivate our communities and country to push the grass apart and lay our fingers on our hearts. With blessings, Rabbi Daniel Cohen Join 40 days to a Better You! Click the link below 40daystoabetteryou.com/ | 
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