9/21/01 Philip W. Bennett bennettp@optonline.n 

Attached is something I wrote yesterday prompted by the attack.  If you want, I will mail you a hard copy. And, of course, I would love to hear your reactions to this piece. Best wishes, Philip

Stairs

I used to climb stairs for exercise. It was my aerobic activity of choice ten years ago before my accident and the loss of a fully functional hip. I’m not talking Stairmaster; I’m talking stairs, row after blessed row. My friend Michael had introduced me to “doing the stairs,” and our field of dreams was Schoellkopf Stadium at Cornell. We weren’t the only ones running up the steps, though certainly the oldest ones. Some mornings Wendy and I would go together; sometimes I’d go alone; sometimes I would meet Michael. A workout that left one feeling righteous.

I got into stadiums international. At that time, I was spending close to three months of the year in the former Soviet Union, teaching counseling. When I would get to a city, I would inquire after the biggest stadium, and my students would indulge what to them was a rather bizarre request. Off I would go, to climb the stairs.

Once in Ithaca, during a particularly rainy week, Michael and I decided to do the stairs indoors. We walked from College town up to a new laboratory building at Cornell. It had a glass enclosed stairwell, ten stories tall. This was significant, as we always wondered just how many flights we were climbing when we ran the Stadium. Here we could measure. Ten stories. We set out to do it ten times. One hundred flights, followed by sitting in the steam room in the old gymnasium. Good, clean exhaustion.

One hundred flights easily came to mind last week in imagining what it was like in the World Trade Center. But their staircases were not enclosed by glass; they did not look out on one of Ithaca’s beautiful gorges. Theirs were dark, smoky, crowded. You are going down, the firemen are coming up, poor folks in wheelchairs are trying too, and you are not doing this to get some exercise, to stay in shape–you are doing this hoping to survive, to live, to breathe.

Many got out. How many died in those stairwells we will never know. If I still did stairs, if my hip would only allow it, I would climb a set in their honor.

Fundamentalism

I was sitting in synagogue during Rosh Hashanah services Tuesday, thinking about religion and trying to grasp some modicum of meaning and understanding of all that is happening. It occurred to me that fundamentalism is the issue, the belief in some literal translation of chosen texts, the narrowness of insight and understanding that goes with a kind of simple Manichean image of light and dark. Would that things were so easy. 

We have heard much about Muslim fundamentalism, as it has manifested itself in Iran under the Ayatolah Khomeni, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, etc. We have reason to believe that some of those fundamentalists are also suicidal terrorists, believing that their act of martydom brings them to a Heaven to be surrounded by virgins to serve them. It isn’t clear to me if this is a promise of sexual favors for those celibate in this world, or a promise of food, or both or neither. In any case, it is the dogmatic belief system coupled with a healthy hatred of the great Satan, of the infidels of the secular West, that together make up part of the stew that yields 9/11.

But fundamentalism isn’t limited to Islam. Though you don’t hear many references to it in the popular media, it shouldn’t be ignored that the hatred of the US is not unrelated to our seemingly acritical support of Israel, whose current treatment of the Palestinians is seen by those in the Moslem world as totally oppressive. And it is oppressive. Some people seem afraid to say that for fear of appearing anti-Semitic; I guess it is left to progressive Jews to name it. And at least part of the issue are the settlements in what we, despite the objections of many in Israel, still call the occupied territories, the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the Jews living outside of Israel proper are fundamentalists, many from the U.S., ironically, many from neighborhoods in Brooklyn not all that far from the World Trade Center. Many believe that the Bible guarantees them the right to live everywhere in Palestine, and it is such fundamentalists who often chant “Death to all Arabs, Death to all Palestinians,” at rallies that occur after the most recent atrocity.

The elimination of these settlements would be a major step towards ending the conflict between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors, but don’t count on that anytime soon, given the important political block that the fundamentalists represent in the Israeli government. And their number is rapidly increasing–the ultra-Orthodox is the fasting growing segment of what was once a rather progressive secular society.

And then there are the Christian fundamentalists at home. You know, the ones who argue that the ACLU and Planned Parenthood were responsible for the bombings at the Twin Towers, because God wouldn’t have withdrawn protection of our country had we been toeing the line. Fallwell and Robertson have apologized for this absurdity, but such a loose comment aside, these folks do believe (and welcome) a war in the Middle East, since it is what, according to Biblical prophecy, will begin to herald the Endtime.

I’m sitting in services thinking about all of this, occasionally putting myself in the stairwell, sometimes watching again as the plane hits the south tower. I drift in and out, sometimes following along the Hebrew text, sometimes just watching faces, sometimes returning to the stairwells. I become more present after the Torah portion when the scrolls are paraded through the synagogue.

For those of you who are not familiar with Jewish practice, a word about Torah scrolls. Basically, they are treated like people. They are dressed and, when read, undressed. When they are no longer able to be used, they are buried. They are honored, one manifestation of the connection between Jewish culture and the love of learning, the love of books, the love of the Book. After the appropriate weekly portion of the Torah is read, in most congregations the Torah is paraded through the sanctuary. People then show respect by kissing it indirectly. They either touch their prayer book to the cover and then kiss the prayer book (most bring it close to their lips as if to kiss it), or touch their prayer shawl to the cover and kiss it.

I was sitting on the end of a row. I got out to let others also get close to the aisle. The aisle was crowded as the torah scrolls (in this case two of them) came forward. Just as I was about to reach out to touch the first one, I was shoved aside, by a woman who was further down in our row. (She pushed Wendy; Wendy pushed into me.) My immediate reaction was anger. Here, I’m in the aisle itself and I didn’t get to kiss the Torah! Why, because of some obnoxious person who just had to do it. (As we returned to our seats, I overheard my fervent sister say to her companion that some people just don’t know how to make room for others!)

In order to appreciate this more fully, you need to know that our congregation, B’nai Jeshurun, is one of the most politically progressive in the City, if not in the country. While there is emphasis on traditional worship (almost the entire service is in Hebrew), there is the liberal use of song, chants, and even dancing in the aisles. This is combined with an explicitly gay friendly atmosphere, women rabbis as well as male ones, a strong position on the need to settle the conflict in the Holy Land peacefully, including a recognition of the needs of the Palestinians. It is one of the few large congregations (and it is very large) that welcomes critics like Michael Lerner to its sanctuary. This is no fundamentalist haven; the woman who pushed us aside is no doubt a good liberal. And my anger? Had I gotten so caught up in the iconography, that I was ready to push back?

Shrines

Later that same day, Wendy and I went downtown, to see just how close we could get to what is now known as Ground Zero. We walked along Canal, passed the police barricades. We then headed further south, in the pedestrian-only zone. Unfortunately, we hadn’t read that morning’s paper, or we would have known that we needed to get down to Nassau Street. After some wandering about, we gave up and headed by Subway north to Union Square.

I don’t know how the national media has handled this, but the park at Union Square, a park with a long history of political activism, and then a more recent notoriety as a drug haven, but now a park that has been cleaned up and is heavily used–Union Square had been transformed into one huge shrine to the dead, and an expression of the hope for the living. Here there were anti-war sentiments openly displayed; here there were signs exhorting people to look after their Muslim neighbors; but above all, here there were the images. Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. The shrine of pictures, many in color, printed out by photocopying machines, hung at first in the vain hope, now hung in tribute to the dead. Next to the picture a name; missing from floor 103, Tower I. Call such and such a number.

When the images first started to appear, they served a purpose perhaps: there was a brief period when some survivors had not yet been identified and connected with family or friends. But now, it was clear that the pictures were no longer part of some vision that a passerby would recognize someone in the photo and call the listed number to say, Oh yeah, I saw so and so down the block. No, they served a different role. They served to honor; they also, one can only imagine, helped family and friends cut through any remaining denial.

These shrines are not limited to Union Square Park or Washington Square Park, 10 blocks south. They began anywhere victims might have been taken. One wall of St. Vincent’s Hospital, the nearest trauma room that did receive the few people found alive, is covered in images. When I walked by yesterday, there was a sign on one wall saying the posters had been moved around the corner to protect them from the elements. The Armory at Lexington and 25^th, a place where family members initially went to seek information about the missing, has its Wall of Hope, covered with images that spread around the corner and across the street. They are on bus shelters, phone booths, and near Ground Zero, literally covering entire vehicles. Out in front of Lang College (where I worked until recently) street barriers are on the sidewalk, with images attached, with clear plastic draped over them for protection. One wonders how long these fliers will remain.

The shrines are not limited to public places, plastered with pictures of the dead. I went to see my trauma therapist yesterday. I’ve been seeing Jan to work on the accident. She lives near the West Side Highway, which in her neighborhood is used exclusively by people going into or out of Ground Zero. People line the roadway to cheer, applaud, wave flags, and offer water to those leaving the area. Her entranceway has been turned into a shrine. A huge board has been erected; next to it sits a box of markers. People have been writing their feelings. Candles burn. Xeroxed prayers sit on a ledge, along with helpful tips on facing the feelings of terror and anger that all this is generating. This in a building, according to Jan, where people never talk to one another outside of certain narrow circles.

Cheering Crowds

In this therapy, there is an emphasis on working on trauma by accessing resources of healing. One does talk about the trauma, but only sparingly; one mainly focuses on the sources of comfort, the places where one goes for help, where one feels held. On this view, dwelling on the trauma can lead to further injury. (If this is correct, think of the consequences of seeing those images over and over again, you know the ones.) It is not about denial, but rather about not being totally absorbed in one’s pain. (It is analogous to the idea in Re-evaluation Counseling of putting one’s attention off the distress as a way of discharging it.) As I sat with my therapist, we can hear a crowd cheering in the background. Jan and I talked about sources of healing, sources of comfort, places where I had noticed people being cooperative and connected rather than narcissistic and self-absorbed. In that context, she asked me what I thought about the cheering crowds.

I confessed ambivalence. On the one hand, I loved seeing people coming together in community. I said that the hard-working fire fighters and others deserved our support and appreciation. But I confessed trouble with all the flag-waving. It was hard for me to see the cheering crowds as not having a darker side. I went off into a bit of a tirade: everyone was volunteering to help, but where were the volunteers on Monday the 10^th, addressing poverty, working in overcrowded schools, cleaning up the environment?

Jan understands all that, but suggested that perhaps I was missing something. Jan: “I don’t usually advise people to do things, but I think it might be useful if when we are done, you went out and joined the cheering crowd.”

Me: “You mean, yell and stuff? I can’t remember the last time I cheered for something. Let’s see, I once went to a Knick game back in the old Garden, 1970, 1971...”

Jan: “Give it a try.”

When the session was over, I went to the corner. I stood across from the cheering crowd and sobbed. Finally, I went over to join them, applauded some, couldn’t quite get a yell out of my mouth, but also felt out of place, disconnected. But when I again crossed the street I could feel. I could see their sense of comradeship; I could feel their pride, appreciation, even joy, especially when a police car going by would sound its siren.

There too I watched truck loads of WTC debris head up river to the barges that would carry it to Staten Island. I stood and watched and wept.

I don’t see Jan for two weeks. Who knows what new horrors we may need to address. But when we do, we will think of the resource, of the joy, the glimpses of reality, the human connection that remains always at our fingertips, the human love, and the love of the divine Force that infuses the universe.