Tears on Pavement: An Essay and Poem Inspired by September 11, 2001

From the Forward, "I am an Orthodox Jew; and I love the land of the free. That essential observation is undeniable, and has left me with pressing questions about what and how do I know the world, recasting the immutable strange experience of being Jewish and American. What follows is an attempt to reconcile this experience." In the process, I have attempted to define a path to identifying, understanding, and articulating universal truths.