9/11 remembrance ceremony a calling for Rabbi Joshua Lief
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The first remembrance ceremony for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that Rabbi Joshua Lief of Wheeling’s Temple Shalom was part of came one year after those attacks in 2002. He was still in the seminary as a student rabbi, with a small congregation in Lafayette, Louisiana, as his student pulpit.
He helped coordinate that ceremony with faith leaders and community leaders across the spectrum. And wherever his travels took him afterward — from Tennessee to Florida back to his hometown of Wheeling — he has made that ceremony a part of his mission in the community.
That mission continues today, as faith leaders and community leaders from throughout the Ohio Valley will join together with first responders at noon at Wheeling’s Heritage Port for the annual remembrance ceremony. This year’s edition will reflect on the 25th anniversary of the attacks on New York City, Washington D.C. and the hijacking of Flight 93.
Lief said President Franklin Roosevelt’s calling the Dec. 7, 1941, attack of Pearl Harbor “a day which will live in infamy” an inspiration for coordinating these Sept. 11 remembrance services. As the years have passed, Lief said, and as those who lived through Pearl Harbor pass on, the urgency of remembering Dec. 7 continues to fade.
“Roosevelt called on all of us as Americans to remember,” he said. “And if we are not careful and are not diligent and thoughtful and planful, the same could certainly be said about Sept. 11.”
These ceremonies are not just to remember those killed in those attacks that day, Lief said, but also to remember those who died later of the diseases contracted by workers at the New York attack site in the aftermath, and those who were killed and wounded in war in the Middle East in the years after.
“It is up to us to remember and recapture the sense of unity we felt on Sept. 12,” he said. “That’s a real opportunity for healing our relationships with our neighbors and fellow citizens, to remember that what binds us together ought to be stronger than the things that tear us apart.”
The most important aspect of these ceremonies, Lief said, is unity, the realization that everyone hurts, everyone mourns and everyone can help each other climb out of sorrow. So many corners of the community come together to help with these ceremonies, from civic leaders to first responders. But Lief appreciates that faith leaders from different religions and denominations unite on that day.
Religion, Lief said, is meant to give meaning and direction in lives. Religious leaders are called upon for baptisms, weddings, funerals and other life events in between.
“As such, this seems like an appropriate occasion for religious observance,” he said. “We all suffered a tremendous loss that is, in fact, beyond measuring. And we need help and support to move forward in the shadow of that loss.
“From where should that help come, if not from the divine and the support of our neighbors?”