Reflecting on the Sept. 11 Attacks, 25 Years Later

In the past 25 years, Greg Epstein has spoken to massive audiences and small groups. He has published bestselling books, appeared on television shows, and written for major news outlets. 

One speech still stands out: the one he made on the Diag on the evening of September 11, 2001. 

“I can’t even tell you how many audiences I’ve spoken to since that day, but if I had to think about what are the most meaningful remarks I’ve ever given? It would have to be the spontaneous remarks that I gave that day,” says Epstein (A.B. ’99, M.A. ’04). The two-time LSA alum, who studied religion and Chinese as an undergrad and earned his master’s degree in Judaic studies, is now the humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT. 

Epstein spent the morning of the terrorist attacks in 2001 at Michigan Hillel, where he had a meeting and then stayed to watch the TV news updates. He also used the landline phone to call his mom and stepdad, who lived in an apartment building right next to the World Trade Center. He eventually learned that they were safe.

As the day went on, Epstein—then the co-chair of the Campus Religion Network—received a phone call from his friend Rachel Tronstein (now Rachel Tronstein Stewart, CEO of the furniture retailer Gardner White), who was then the LSA student government president. She was gathered with a couple of top U-M administrators, and they talked about how they could respond to the tragedy.  

Their plan evolved into a campus-wide vigil on the Diag, where as many as 20,000 people gathered to share their grief. Epstein was the last speaker of the night. As the Michigan Daily recounted, he told the crowd: Take one hand, and hold onto your culture and family, he told the crowd. With the other, reach out to the people around you. “He sang a song and stepped off the stage, his own hands shaking so violently that he had to hang on to fellow speakers [Professor Sherman] Jackson and Hillel Director Michael Brooks for support,” the Daily reported.

That year, that day, that moment—they all built much of the foundation for his life’s work. “It really paved the way for what I’ve done since,” Epstein says. “It was a confirmation for me that I was on the right track because I could see and feel viscerally that day that there was a need for the kind of work that I was doing and now continue to do. On a day when everyone is shocked, everyone is reminded of our mortality and how uncertain our lives and our fate really are.”

Read about the U-M alumni who lost their lives on Sept. 11 in this story about a plaque that honors them at the U-M Alumni Center. 

Top photo: Sept. 11, 2001, vigil on the Diag. Photo by Martin Vloet/Michigan Photography. Greg Epstein photo by Cody O’Laughlin/NYTimes.