As we commemorate September 11, 2001, the events of that day continue to challenge many survivors, even 25 years later. One such person is Virginia Buckingham, who was the head of Boston’s Logan Airport on 9/11, the origin of the two planes that crashed in New York City. After the terrorist attack, many people, including the media, politicians and some families of victims, looked to blame Logan Airport, and Buckingham specifically, for a “failure to prevent” the terrorists from boarding their flights. In the aftermath of an unprecedented catastrophe, people want to find a scapegoat, someone they can blame so that they can feel more secure that once that person or problem is taken care of, they do not have to worry about it ever happening again and they can go on with their lives as before. Buckingham was asked to resign and was sued by several families. She began to question herself: maybe I am guilty. Maybe I should have known about the threat and stopped it from happening. Ultimately, the 9/11 Commission found that Logan Airport was as secure as every other US airport. Both the airport and Buckingham were blameless, and the lawsuits were dismissed. But that did not lead Buckingham immediately to forgive herself and move on. In her memoir On My Watch, she describes trauma, grief, depression and resilience. As she puts it, she can never “move on,” only “move forward.” She does not expect to ever fully recover from her experience. She hopes that she can use those experiences to grow and become a better person. Buckingham lives in the coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Through her many walks along the shore, she came to see herself like a piece of sea glass. “Sea glass comes from a broken bottle that the sea has tossed about. It’s completely unrecognizable from what it started as. But it still has value. It’s still beautiful.” 9/11 tested our resilience, both as individuals and as a nation. Merriam-Webster offers two definitions of resilience: “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation,” and “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” The second definition is particularly important. Resilience is not simply about returning to what we were before. Sherri Mandel, the mother of Koby, wrote about this in her book on resilience. In Hebrew, the word designating resilience, chosen, means to be inoculated, impermeable. But neither of these terms describe the Jewish concept of resilience. Judaism teaches us that we always need to become greater, bigger, better. You have to expand in order to be able to contain the new you, shattered though you may feel. Resilience is about becoming, not overcoming. When we face a trauma, we are in danger of breaking apart; we may even fear that we will lose our sense of self. Yet that same sense of vulnerability and fracture can lead us toward connecting to something greater than ourselves, connecting to others and to the Divine. Mandel concludes that resilience is connected to the word for silence and also the word for salience. What silenced you, what felt beyond language, now propels you to find salience: a heightened sense of meaning and significance, a deeper conversation with God. Sometimes, after the tear, we can actually come back better. In 2006, casino owner Steve Wynn accidentally poked a hole with his elbow in Le Rêve, a 1932 Picasso painting he was in the process of selling for $139 million. The painting was restored for $90,000, and seven years later Wynn sold it for $155 million, $16 million more than he had originally been offered. While some may think that this time of year is meant for beating ourselves up over our shortcomings and our mistakes, Aseret Ymei Teshuva are really about tapping into our resilience. Let us be reminded that we can become stronger and even more valuable after the tear.
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