The Meaning of Four

Daniel Libeskind speaks at the 2004 Downtown Seder

It's really very moving to stand here with a view of the Statue of Liberty and it is really the reality of freedom that this city represents. Freedom for every immigrant and all those who have been oppressed. One must think of the great competition for the insignia of the United States, between the eagle and design of Benjamin Franklin, the staff of Moses. Of course, the eagle won, but the spiritual essence of freedom, is this trek, this exodus out of oblivion, into a new light.

It is no coincidence that in the days of creation, that the 4th day is right in the middle. It was the middle when God creates the Sun, the moon and the stars. Its in the middle, the 4th day, in the middle, which is the summation of all numbers, 1,2,3, 4 is 10, which means all the numbers. Thinking of 4 as the middle of the story, its important to think of 4 as entering the middle, we are indeed in the middle of NY and if I think of ground zero as inscribed in a quadrangle of four sides.
I think of 4 things that touch on New York.

• The heroes who fell in the city and who represent all of us.
• The resurgence of life of in the city—that is New York. It is a light to humanity, to all of us.
• The slurry wall of ground zero which is an eloquent piece of construction which speaks to the bedrock and stability in the face of attacks against democracy.
• The Statue of Liberty, with its spiraling and dynamic movement taking us beyond the quadrangles which stand all around us.

(Daniel Libeskind delivered these comments at the 2004 Downtown Seder on the 4th day in the 4th month in the 4th year of this millennium, 04/04/04)