The Rashi in Shoftim That I Lived on 9/11

Friends, Baruch Hashem, we are once again at Parshas Shoftim.

There is a Rashi in this week’s parsha that I can say, in a very real way, contributed to my life being saved on September 11, 2001.

The Torah describes the Jewish people preparing to go out to battle. I have to imagine that going to war is terrifying. You don’t know what you’re going to face. You don’t know if you’ll return. You don’t know if you’ll ever see your loved ones again.

And in that moment, the Kohen addresses the people:

ואמר אלהם שמע ישראל אתם קרבים היום למלחמה על איביכם אל ירך לבבכם אל תיראו ואל תחפזו ואל תערצו מפניהם“

Hear, O Israel, you are approaching battle against your enemies today. Let your hearts not be faint; do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not be terrified of them.”— Devarim 20:3

Rashi focuses on the words שמע ישראל — Shema Yisrael and says something extraordinary:

אפילו אין בכם זכות אלא קריאת שמע בלבד, כדאי אתם שיושיע אתכם“

Even if you have no merit other than reciting the Shema, you are worthy of Him saving you.”

September 11, 2001

If you don’t know my 9/11 story, I worked on the 79th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. The second plane went through the floor where I worked.

When the first plane hit the other tower, I had already begun making my way out. Seventeen minutes later, when the second plane struck my building, I was on the 33rd floor.

At that point, I had only very recently begun becoming religious.

When the plane hit our building, I knew our lives were in danger. And suddenly, I had a flashback to Hebrew school some 20 years earlier. A teacher had taught us the Shema and told us that Jews say it when they believe they are about to die.

So I began saying it.

Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad

Over and over and over again.

I had never learned this Rashi. I didn’t know what Rashi said about a Jew going into danger and crying out with the Shema.

But look at Rashi’s words:

“Even if you have no merit…”

That was me.

How much merit did I really have at that point? I wasn’t keeping Shabbos. I was eating non-kosher. I wasn’t putting on tefillin. I wasn’t wearing tzitzis. Maybe I was a decent person, but I certainly wasn’t living my life according to Torah and mitzvos.

And then Rashi continues:

“…other than reciting the Shema.”

That was also me.

That was all I was doing.

Shema Yisrael… Shema Yisrael… Shema Yisrael…

And then Rashi concludes:

“You are worthy of Him saving you.”

What Does Shema Really Mean?

Looking back, I think I understand a little better what I was saying that morning.

I was crying out to the Ribbono Shel Olam:

I may not be following Your laws. I don’t even really know Your laws yet. But I know You are there. I know You control the world. I know that everything ultimately comes from You.

And, as Rashi teaches us, sometimes that recognition itself is enormously powerful.

Obviously, if I’m here telling you this story today, you know the rest of the story.

I was saved.

I don’t claim to understand why I was saved when so many others were not. Those are questions far beyond me. But I do know that in the most frightening moments of my life, when I had almost nothing else spiritually to hold on to, I had the Shema.

And years later, I discovered that Rashi had already described exactly what I experienced.

My Takeaway From Shoftim

It doesn’t matter where you are religiously.

It doesn’t matter how much you know.

It doesn’t matter how distant from Hashem you may feel.

When you find yourself in a crisis, call out to the Ribbono Shel Olam.

And that doesn’t mean the crisis will necessarily be resolved the way we think it should be. Emunah means recognizing that ultimately Hashem runs the world—even when His plan is different from ours.

My bracha to everyone reading this is that you should never find yourself in the kind of dangerous situation described in this parsha, or the one I experienced on 9/11.

But whatever situation you do find yourself in—for good or for bad—use it as an opportunity to call out to Hashem.

Sometimes all a Yid has is:

שמע ישראל

And Rashi tells us just how powerful that can be.