It was 50 years ago.  Also on a Friday.  The day President Kennedy was shot. And, as I’ve described the situation with my kids- how 9-11 is indelibly imprinted on their psyche- so is this date for me and my generation: 22 November 1963.

I was going to a yeshiva in West Hempstead (NY) at the time.  Which meant that our Fridays were very short.  Since it gets dark really early this time of year.  (Shabat starts today at 4:33 pm.   Which, if I were still going to HANC would necessitate classes to end no later than 2:30 pm, because it was a good hour’s trip to get home from school.)   And, around 1:30 PM, my favorite teacher began shrieking.  I was not in her class at the time (I was in Math; Ms. Katzman taught English and History).  And, as I am typing this, I can hear that sound running through my body.

We had not a clue.  Until a minute or so later, when the intercom announced that classes are to stop immediately and we are to enter the prayer room- NOW.  Consider this an emergency.  We – all 400 or so kids in that school  (HANC now educates some 5 times that number a year)- followed the rules.   And, once in that room,  we were told that the President had been shot and we were going to say T’hilim- Psalms- and other prayers for his safety.

We did.  For more than an hour.  I recall that carefully, since the bus drivers began coming into the hall and were most anxious.  Our principal, the esteemed Rabbi Meyer Fendel, was seemingly prepared to rule that we could break the Shabat by a few minutes to keep up prayers.   (You have NO idea how important such a decision could be- unless you are an Orthodox Jew.)  But, he didn’t have to- because right about then it had just been announced that JFK had died.   My trip home was the longest bus ride of my life.  Even longer (mentally) than the one I took to go South to help register folks to vote- a right denied those people for so many decades.  (And, starting anew…)

Now, in practical terms, Kennedy was the preferred guy- given the other choice was Richard Nixon. But, I had already learned that to be a citizen of this great nation, we have to choose among the lesser of the evils- because perfect rarely comes.  (By the way, that is true for all of life- get used to it.)

President Kennedy had promised us the “best and the brightest”.  There is nothing wrong with that- it’s what I look for in associates and employees all the time.  But, I also know that it’s naïve to think that finding miracle workers will let one solve business- or even national or international- problems.  We need teams of them- working together, capable of overcoming oppositions-  to get that to happen.  (Don’t get me started about what’s going on in America or the world right now.)

But, all of America lost something that day.  For our generation and the one or two generations preceding ours.  Just like my children’s generation lost something on 9-11, along with the preceding ones.  (The fact is I was much older than most of my children’s parents – so I was virtually equivalent to that second preceding one.)

Up until that moment that we realized that Kennedy was dead- our country had a loyal opposition.  With that bullet, Oswald shattered the “we”, leaving an “us” and a “them”.   It may help explain to you younger folks how people like me in less than 5 years time would seem transformed, would stop any entity we could to insure that Blacks could vote, that the Viet Nam War would end, that Nixon should resign.

And, while 9-11 united Americans for one brief moment (don’t you remember all those waving flags?), the choice to NOT opt for the best and the brightest by our leader(s) made that but a fleeting moment in time.

As I wrote on the 150^th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, we need to find a way to make the concept of the United States and the concept of America one- to be the United States of America.

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