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September 11 archive

Interfaith Prayer Service 9/11/01

Dean William Scott Green:

We are a community of learners. We believe that humanity's best hope for growth and progress lies in our capacity to think, to know, and to understand. The tragic and terrifying events of today make our collective mission more pressing and urgent than ever.

Learning is a great equalizer. It overcomes background; it triumphs over inherited prejudices. Because learning opens us to all that can be known, it also opens us to one another. Look at us! Tonight we come together from all over the globe, from nearly every nation, region, culture, and religion, from every political persuasion, with every point of view. Look at us! We are simultaneously each of us and all of us.

We gather here to transcend ourselves and offer one another consolation, support, and understanding. In this house of reflection—where the traditions that mark and identify us also work to connect us and display our commonality—let us resolve together to think our way through this awful tragedy and to use our minds and our wills to see that it never happens again, to any of us, anywhere, ever.

—William Scott Green
Dean of the College
Professor of Religion
Philip S. Bernstein Professor of Judaic Studies

President Jackson:

Thank you for coming to this affirmation of individuality and community at a time of tragedy. A university is, above all else, a place of ideas; a place where we learn. And because a belief in the centrality of ideas to humankind knows no boundaries, we are an international community, united by that common, and incredibly important, thread. If there is anything decent, anything good, that can come out of today's horrific tragedy, it is in our ability to reassert a university's core principles—above all else the idea that reason and thought contribute to our betterment and that we can—and must—learn, in our own ways and according to our own beliefs, even from life's deepest misfortunes.