This year, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 converges with the onset of Rosh Hashanah.
What are the odds that marking 25 years, a quarter of a century — a number considered symbolic in marking a generation, and in America’s 250th anniversary year to boot — Rosh Hashanah and 9/11 would be interwoven.
And yet.
What could be a more meaningful way to commemorate 9/11 — that day that forever changed our American world and lives?
The inherent themes of Rosh Hashanah are about life and death.
It Is a solemn holiday.
Yes,there are the festive meals. And especially the sweet and wondrous tradition of blessing many symbolic foods as appetizers, as we lift each special culinary symbolic food and utter our deepest wishes and hopes for the new year. The most classic and famous is dipping the apple in the honey, as an omen for a forthcoming year imbued with sweetness.
But more important and deeper are the intense prayers of this solemn holiday. Indeed, who shall live and who shall die.
Yom Ha-Zikaron. A day of remembering. Or, rather, the Day of Remembering. This is one of the official names of this holy and intense day. Memory, remembering — an essence of this auspicious day.
So the confluence of this ancient, reflective Jewish holiday, defined by prayer, vulnerability and charity for our fellow man, with the anniversary of the American tragedy of our time, may be quite fluid a synchronicity.
When the piercing sound of the wordless cry of the Elul shofar cuts the air and penetrates our soul, this Rosh Hashanah eve, this 9/11, along with so many other souls who have since that fateful year been added to the pantheon of our prayers, we will hold the tragic loss and consequence of 9/11 in our hearts.
Rosh Hashanah is one of this season’s centerpiece days — this season of accountability, when we endeavor to right wrongs, repair what has broken, and redouble our efforts to do better in the future. All this is framed by poignant remembrance as the springboard to change. All this is a time charged with profound emotion and calling forth great effort to put our best, kindest selves out into the world.
What then can be a more powerful reminder of the meaning of Rosh Hashanah than thinking about the sacrifice — and the heroism — of so many people whose names and inspirational legacies have been bequeathed to us out of the smoke and ashes of 9/11?
Tom Burnett. Todd Beamer. Daniel Lewin. Avraham.
Sadly, thousands of others.
Let us say their names this erev Rosh Hashanah. Let us pause to remember their sacrifice and heroism. Let us read their stories to elevate the holiness of this day — a collective yahrtzeit for thousands of our fellow Americans — fused with one of the holiest days on our Jewish calendar.
Perhaps, it is not a quirk of the calendar. Perhaps it is the destiny of this quarter-century commemoration for the torch of 9/11 memory to be passed on to the next generation this coming Rosh Hashanah.
© IJN 2026
