Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Resolve to move on

Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001 | 7:51 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WE HAVE WITNESSED a time of national disaster. We have joined in a time of national mourning. It is time to move ahead.

How easy that is to say, how hard it is to even comprehend the words. Like many Americans, I watched the National Prayer Service from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., last Friday. There weren't many dry eyes in that church. There weren't many dry eyes in America. There weren't any dry eyes in my house.

I listened to the various representatives of the many religious denominations which make this the land of the free. While the words should have been more important, the message I took from their efforts was the fact that in this country, in the midst of this horrific destruction, a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim cleric could help lead our country in its healing.

Beyond that, I was mostly struck by the young people in the church who were obviously mourning parents, of parents who so clearly grieved for the loss of a child and of the men and women in the uniform of this country who were trying to make sense of their own personal losses from the attack on the Pentagon.

It will be months, I suspect, before the final death tolls are known. It could be years before the rebuilding of lives is accomplished, businesses restored and confidence in our security is re-established. And it will be a long time before this country, fully supportive and behind the efforts of President George W. Bush, and cognizant of the pain to come, rids this world of the scourge that unleashed such terrible pain and suffering upon a nation of good and honorable people.

We will, however, endure and we will succeed because that is the lesson of the ages. Good triumphs over evil.

It is easier for us to accept that simple statement of fact when we consider the religious celebration that starts on Monday at sundown. For people of the Jewish faith, the holy day of Rosh Hashana begins. It is the Jewish New Year and it is the time that Jews the world over pray to God to inscribe us in the Book of Life.

We have been observing Rosh Hashana for 5,762 years. They have not been uneventful.

The Jews have been shut out, chased out and beaten. And that's just for starters. Six million of our number were destroyed by Hitler's madness and a world's indifference. And since the formation of the state of Israel, at least five wars for survival have been fought and won.

The point of this little story is that it is not so easy to make it through 5,762 years of history unscathed. It has taken perseverance, dedication to principle, a willingness to risk all and, above all, a belief in the rightness and justness of the cause to withstand the ugliness that an ugly part of our world sends our way.

But here we are about to celebrate another year in the continuum of Jewish life. It will be a heavily guarded and an apprehensive service, to be sure, but it will happen.

This 5,762-year-old message is appropriate today as our 225-year-old country digs its way out of a terrorist attack of unprecedented proportions. Our president is firm in his resolve, our Congress steadfastly behind him. And our people are hard to hold back in their demand for justice and a full measure of punishment for anyone involved.

America is right in its cause to free the world of this cancer. We are right and just in our demands for punishment. And we are determined beyond question to do whatever it takes to win this war.

In short, we have the attitude and willpower it takes to survive. And, if ever we lose faith in our mission, we have the lesson of the Jewish people to embolden us.

To my Jewish friends, a happy and healthy New Year. To my fellow American citizens, may we all go forward with the knowledge and resolve required to overcome this great challenge. And may all of us be inscribed in the Book of Life.

There is no such prayer for the people who started this war.

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