~ One Hundred Words on the Parsha - Nitzavim

.כי בשררות לבי אלך... אז יעשן אף ה' וקנאתו...

“…I will go in the way that my heart sees fit… then Hashem’s anger will be ignited….”

The word the פסוק uses for “will be ignited” is “יעשן”, derived from the root “עשן” – “smoke”. The events of 9/11/01 fell out during Parshas Netzavim. In a speech after the catastrophic event, R’ Don Segal shlita applied the פסוק in Tehillim (104:32), יגע בהרים ויעשנו – “He will touch the mountains and they will go up in smoke,” to the “mountainous” edifices of the Twin Towers going up in smoke. Previously, five months before 9/11, at the levaya of R’ Avigdor Miller zatzal, R’ Simcha Bunim Cohen shlita, R’ Miller’s grandson-in-law, related that, in the months leading up to his פטירה, R’ Miller would frequently and worriedly comment, “I hope that Hashem does not destroy Manhattan, the seat of so many עבירות.”

Perhaps the events of 9/11 were a fulfillment of the igniting (lit. “smoking”) of Hashem’s anger mentioned in our פסוק in Parshas Netzavim.