“The remnant are in great distress. The wall of Jerusalem is broken. It’s gates are burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3)
As I get older, I tend to forget a lot of things. However, there are two events I lived through that I remember well. I remember the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was a junior in high school, sitting in Mr. Watt’s history class – as history was being made. I also remember well the day terrorists struck our nation on September 11, 2001. It was the opening day of Ladies bible study for Alabaster Jar Ministries. I was beginning a year’s in-depth study of the Old Testament book of Daniel. Just before I greeted the ladies to open the study, someone informed me that a plane had struck the north tower of the Twin Towers in New York City. I remember thinking, how could an air traffic controller allow that to happen? A few moments later, I was informed of the destruction of the south tower. I knew then that something was wrong – very wrong.
Perhaps you too are old enough to remember exactly where you were the moment you learned of President Kennedy’s assassination. But probably none of us have forgotten exactly where we were when we learned of the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11. It is forever etched in our minds.
This week we will mark the 20th anniversary of those attacks. We will mourn the lives that were lost. We will continue to scratch our heads, wondering how such a great nation as ours could have allowed such a tragedy to happen. But there are two interesting facts about 9/11 that I would like to share with you. One of them is historical, the other spiritual.
The center of the 9/11 attacks was New York City. New York Bay was first entered by the explorer Henry Hudson, hence the Hudson River. The most interesting information about his discovery is the fact that the day he entered the bay was September 11, 1609. Exactly 392 years to the day before the devastating attack on what became New York City.
The other interesting fact has to do with the inhabitants of the metropolis known as New York City. It is home to the greatest population of Jewish people in the United States. About 13 percent of the city is occupied by those with a Jewish heritage. There are a series of prayers recited by the Jewish people called the selichote, which means “forgiveness”. These prayers lead up to the Jewish high holiday days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The prayers constitute pleas to God for his mercy for a nation who once knew the ways of God, but then departed from them. They are a reference back to Israel being taken captive by Assyria and Babylon for their sin. These ancient prayers were to be spoken at the appointed times, during the last days of the Hebrew month of Elul. The month that led up to the Feast of Trumpets. In 2001 these prayers began at midnight Saturday and continued through the breaking of the day on Tuesday morning, September 11th, the day of the terror attacks. In the early morning hours of 9/11, these were the words from the selichote that were prayed all over the city of New York: “They cut off our life…..They spilled our blood in order to destroy us…..violent men drove them to destruction…..My city is reduced to a lasting ruin heap and my high places are brought low.”
Daybreak came to New Your City at approximately 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001. The prayers appointed for the selichote were at that time completed. Within fifteen minutes after those prayers ended the terrorists arrived at Logan Airport in Boston, from which they would launch America’s great calamity.
Darlene