In a conversation with a friend the other day, we began to speculate what September 11, 2001, would have been like had the Social Platforms we use today been available. Think of the tweets, the images, the chunks of data that would flow in . . .
I live with social media. Save for the 24-72 hours of shabbos and yom tov, I stop checking up and checking in only when I sleep.
Platforms like twitter shine during these international moments of trauma: Mumbai, Haiti, Japan, the Arab Spring . . . The world has shrunk, our horizons have broadened, the stream of media has compounded and multiplied beyond what anyone could ever hope to process. Experiences are shared across national boundaries with friends colleagues. And yet . . .
And yet I'm glad there was no Twitter or Facebook during the attacks on September 11.
It was Elul - not any Elul mind you, but an Elul in Yeshivah, an Elul in Lubavitch. The time of year when everything is fresh. The excitement over the approach of the High Holidays is tangible in the air. It's so thick that the air can be cut, and like natural honey to sweeten an apple, spread across bread with a knife. There are farbrengins at night, the zal, the study hall, is packed in the mornings for chassidus. Then Slichus comes. We get up early in the morning.
It was there, as I stood undressed - exposed to all as I prepared to immerse myself in penitent waters, that a friend came rushing in to tell us what he had heard in the radio. A plane had struck the twin towers. A freak accident? A Cessna gone out of control? Someone else came in - he had heard that the empire states-building had been struck . . . Something was amiss.
There was no TV in Yeshivah. The cooks kept the radio playing in the kitchen at full blast that day. Information spread through word of mouth - updates from families in Brooklyn, rumors spread by the guy with perennial mustard stain on his jacket (the president is in hiding, all planes have been grounded, the Mosad has been called in to assist, they caught a dozen more planes with terrorists on them . . . the stories grew ever wilder.)
After breakfast we had a better idea of what was going on . . . yet even still no one had seen any pictures.
That evening I went to visit my friend, Z.
"How are you?" I asked his father.
"Horrible!" He answered.
Then I saw the endless loop of the planes flying into the towers. Over and over again - cinematic in its scope. So utterly terrifying.
I printed out pictures of the devistation on Z's computer and brought them back to yeshiva.
Back on campus everyone was still up. One rabbi called us all in to tell us that this was a sure sign that Moshiach was coming. A Zohar had been found that spoke of falling towers...
Another called us in to tell us (if I recall correctly - the details escape me) that this destruction did not a necessary predication of Moshiach's coming . . .
I say all of this - because with social media these experiences, etched in my mind, would not have been possible. Not in my world, and not - I believe - in anyone else's. Had the Tweets come in, we would have lost the forest for the trees. We would have been unable to grasp the unadulterated enormity of the situation - unable to step back and experience the tragedy in its totality.
On September 11, there was a sense of community shared not based on constant updates, but rather one based on shared emotions and experiences.
.....
May those murdered on this day be remembered for the good that they lived for and serve as guiding lights for us all . . .
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