This picture of a US warship built out of metal salvaged from the Twin Towers blown up on 9/11, is on the cover of today's New York Times and papers all over the nation. As I saw the picture of the ship, I could not help but think of what might be the Bible's best-known teaching on recycling, Isaiah 2:4, "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks".
Are Isaiah's words relevant to this picture? Is it, and the entire story of how scraps recovered from the worst terror attack on American soil were used to build a new ship for the navy, offensive? Beautiful? Sad? Empowering? I think the answer is "yes".
I appreciate the empowerment and even the beauty of repurposing metal dipped in the blood and ash of murdered victims, and turning it into a tool which could be used to prevent further victimization. But if that is the end of the story, then I think we should all be a little sad, if not offended.
I would love to see other scraps repurposed as ploughshares, libraries, voting booths, and other symbols of civil society in the contemporary world. I would love to see front page images like that, at least alongside, if not instead of the one pictured above.
We do not yet live in the perfected world about which Isaiah spoke, but I think that having more pictures like that would move us in that direction.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
"There is no way to peace; peace is the way." -A. J. Muste
And, similarly, a bumper sticker I've seen: "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."
I would like it to have been built into a library detailing the nonsense of Mohammads religionism and the violent history of what it has actually done throughout time up to an including whatever the days date is.
I was in, what evolved to be, a very physically abusive marriage. I tried to “love” him out of his beating up both the children and me. He did NOT stop. One day I defended myself. I did, of course, “lose” the physical fight but he left the house with wounds of deep scratches on his face.
In an instant I understood Deterrent Force.
Before the divorce was finalized, there were other attacks from him – but both the frequency and the intensity were greatly reduced and I continued to defend myself. It pained me greatly that we had come to this point but it helped me understand the bullies of the world. They MUST know they do not get free reign.
Love does not conquer all. Ask Neda, the woman who was murdered in Iran. Ask all the other innocent women and others who have been stoned or had their throats cut for “honor’s sake.” We need to honor and remember the innocent who have fallen. Otherwise, just take a bulldozer and cover over all the WWII concentration camps and let history repeat itself.
I like the reading in the Mishkin Tefillah that suggests that after we beat the swords into plowshares, we beat the plowshares into musical instruments so they're even farther away from weaponry.
I also think that if Isaiah were here, the list of things that would offend him is so long he might never get around to this warship.
I also hope that "Bobby Fisher" is making up the stuff about being in the armed forces. Being a "JEW" myself, although not living in New York, I can only shake my head at the ignorance of people like him.
We each have our opinions about the use of the debris from 911, and they do differ. But I am glad to know that the human and non-human wreckage from that horrific event was used to make something which will last for a long time. The alternative of letting it just lie there or be plowed under to prepare for new construction on the site would be the real tragedy.
To me, that is what Isaiah was saying; use your weapons of war to create something else, so where the new item(s) come from will not be forgotten.
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