Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem: The opening words of today's sedra tell us that when Jews stand, we stand together. Through the covenant of Sinai we stand together with our fellow Jews. Through the covenant of Noah we stand together with our fellow human beings, all those who respect the covenant of Noah and its insistence on the sanctity of human life.

Today our hearts and thoughts are with the people of the United States, who this week have suffered the worst peacetime tragedy in the history of terror. Many of us will never forget, as long as we live, the images we saw on our television screens. The 11th September 2001 will be remembered for centuries as the day when the world witnessed the naked face of suicidal evil, blind in its hatred, global in its reach, and devastating in its effects on human lives.

First and foremost, we say to the people of the United States: we share your shock and your grief. Today, throughout our community, we have said prayers for the injured and the wounded; and we send our deepest expression of distress, sympathy and condolence to the bereaved. It will take weeks, months, years, for the physical and psychological wounds to heal. And we pray that God be with you, healing those wounds and giving you strength. Amen.

The assault which took place this week affects us all. It was directed, not against America alone, but against the very fabric of freedom, against open and democratic societies built on the rule of law and security, respect for difference and the sanctity of human life. We have witnessed the full depth of what terror has now become: a real and present danger to life and safety throughout the world. Terror is worse than war. In war, people know the rules and the risks. In terror, there are no rules, and everyday life becomes a risk.

Those who went to work on Tuesday morning in New York were part of no political conflict. They were workers, bystanders, pedestrians, innocent citizens. And yet they found themselves suddenly caught in the vortex of destruction. Thousands lost their lives. And for many thousands of others, their lives will never be the same again.

There is an ancient rabbinic teaching that resonates today. It says that Abraham began the Jewish journey, when he saw a birah doleket, literally "a building in flames." How, he wondered, could there be these two contradictory phenomena? A building represents order. Flames represent disorder. On the one hand, the world is full of beauty and design. On the other, it is full of violence and terror. How can these things coexist? It was then that God called him, saying: I created order but man creates chaos. I made a world of goodness, but human beings make a world of suffering and evil. I made the building, but you must put out the flames. The Torah is G-d's call to human responsibility. And this week, as we watched a building in flames, that call has come to us again, and we must need it.

G-d's covenant with Noah, and through him all mankind, was that human societies should be ruled by justice and the rule of law, not by bloodshed and the rule of force. That principle must unite all those who care for freedom. We remember the Torah's command, Lo taamod al dam re'echa, "You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour," and Edmund Burke's famous words, that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. The free world must now join in a concerted battle against terror, because terror respects no boundaries. It may begin one day by being directed against Jews or against Israel, but it spreads like fire, and if it is not extinguished it blazes beyond control.

And let us not forget what terror is. It is the rejection of all rules and all moral principles. It is the attempt to destroy those with whom you disagree. And it has taken the world thousands of years and millions of lost lives to learn that violence solves nothing; it begets only more violence; and all that is left in its wake is ruin and destruction. Nothing has ever been achieved by it - because though it may prevail for a while, it never wins in the end. It never wins because it is directed against the very image of God that is mankind. And something in the human spirit is stronger than any attempt to crush, intimidate or terrorise the human spirit.

In our own community, thanks to the vigilance and professionalism of the CST, aided by the Police, we will stay calm; and unless there are specific directives to the contrary, we will continue with communal events as normal. We will be careful; we will take no needless risks; but we will not be intimidated. We will not give terror that satisfaction.

And in the meanwhile, atem nitzavim hayom kulchem, we stand in solidarity with the people of America, sharing their trauma, their loss and their tears. When president Bush, on Tuesday night, addressed the American public, he searched for words to give them strength. He found them in one of the great verses of our tradition, from Psalm 23. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." Those words, which we recite every Shabbat afternoon at the third meal, have given courage to generation upon generation of Jews; and we pray that they now give courage to the people of the United States and the free world. May G-d give strength to humanity as we fight the flames of evil and destruction, and may He send peace to this troubled world, speedily in our days. Amen

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