I returned home last night after celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) in the streets of Jerusalem with seemingly all of Jerusalem. The congestion in the streets resembled the crowds trying to leave a stadium after a game or a concert, with the distinction of loud music blaring, Israeli flags waving and fireworks flying everywhere. I turned on The West Wing, as has become our bedtime custom, to the next episode. To my surprise, we had already reached season three - time flies when you're watching the West Wing. Season Three, Episode 1 is Isaac and Ishmael.

The episode was written and filmed in the aftermath of 9/11, where The White House is on lockdown after it is discovered that a Muslim White House employee has the same name as the alias of a known terrorist. Meanwhile, a group of high schoolers on a trip to the White House discuss terrorism with the staff in the mess hall, while waiting out the lockdown.

Having learned about the senseless violence in Boston just minutes before we took to the streets of Jerusalem to celebrate Israeli independence, the joy of the holiday and the sorrow over this tragedy were battling for position in our hearts. "The West Wing knows," I thought.

Indeed, the lessons from the episode are as important today, if not more so, then they were 11 years ago in New York City. Many of the problems illuminated by the episode still haunt us today: racism, intolerance, ignorance of other religions. Problems that nearly 12 years after 9/11 we, as a nation, still need to address.

When the students jump to stereotype Arabs & Islam as terrorists, Josh (Deputy Chief of Staff) quickly corrects this misconception. "Islamic Extremist is to Islam* as KKK is to Christianity," he explains. As islamophobia and antisemitism are on the rise, we must remind ourselves that religion is distorted by a tiny percentage of extremists, and 'we must remain united against extremism.'

Sam Seaborn, Deputy Communications Director, states emphatically: "It's a 100% failure rate. Not only do terrorists fail at what they're after, they pretty much always succeed in strengthening whatever it is their against." Runners of the Marathon ran straight through the finish line to Massachusetts General Hospital to donate blood. The courageous men and women of the Boston Police & Fire Departments, along with marathon runners and good samaritans, ran towards the explosion to help the injured. Thousands of names from all of Massachusetts flooded a Google spreadsheet offering shelter and a home cooked meal, ultimately becoming a powerful sign of solidarity. Though too frequently our nation has experienced trauma over the past few years, we always rally together, we always look past our differences and we always show the world what America is truly about.

Later in the episode, a student asks Sam, "What do you call a society that has to just live everyday with the idea that the pizza place that you're eating in can just blow up without any warning?" Sam responds, "Israel."

A few scenes later President Bartlett responds to a question about respecting the conviction martyrs hold, that they are willing to kill themselves for their cause: "We don't need martyrs right now, we need heros. A hero would die for his country, but he would much rather live for it."

In the last scene with the students, Dr. Bartlett (the First Lady) delivers a compelling d'var on how it all started: "Sarah was getting older, and she was getting nervous, because she didn't have any children. So she sent Abraham to the bed of her maid, Hagar. And Abraham and Hagar had Ishmael. And not long after they did, God kept his promise to Sarah, as he always intended to. And Abraham and Sarah had Isaac. And Sarah said to Abraham, 'Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of the slave woman will not be heir with my son Isaac. And so it began. The Jews, the sons of Isaac, the Arabs, the sons of Ishmael. But what most people find important to remember, is that in the end, the two sons came together, to bury their father."

These lessons, written over ten years ago, are as relevant today as they were in the wake of 9/11. We must know that terror is carried out by terrorists and never condoned by religion. We must know that in the face of adversity, Americans will not waver. We must know that we are all brothers and sisters, united in eradicating senseless hatred.

On this day, one of irreconcilable despair and celebration, we read:

Not the One of an armistice,
not even the one of the vision of wolf and lamb,
but,
as in your heart after an excitement:
to talk only of a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
I am grown up.
and my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say "Mama."
Peace
without commotion of turning swords into plowshares,without
words, without
the sound of heavy seals; let it be light
on top like lazy white foam.
Rest for the wounds
not even healing.
(And the scream of orphans is passon from one generation
to another, as in a relay race: the baton won't fall.)

Let it be,
like wild flowers,
suddenly, an imperative of the field;
wild peace.

Yehuda Amichai, taken from the Yom HaAtzma-ut service in Mishkan T'filah.

A few other things I found while wandering dumbfounded around the internet:

*I edited the quote from the West Wing, changing Islamic to Islam, to reflect the parallelism of religion.

Boston's West Wing