Rabbi Alvin Fine wrote a poem that begins with the lines:

Birth is a beginning
And death a destination
But life is a journey . . .

In the Jewish religion, these philosophical words are read every year during the somber observance of the High Holy Days.

In 2001, the New York Times froze a horrifying, yet hypnotic, moment in time as they voyeuristically displayed photos of people leaping from windows of the World Trade Towers. Like a car crash from which rubber-neckers cannot look away, these images of death captured a nation . . . and the individual’s “journey.” Those photos, combined with the reading of this poem at the High Holy Days in 2001 inspired this piece.

THE SECOND PIECE, And Death a Destination, again depicts the attack on America and the Trade Towers as well as the resulting human tragedy. However, a subtle, yet extraordinarily powerful meaning has been added to the second piece. As the bodies descend from the once-safe windows above and make their final journey to earth below, they are slowly enveloped in a dust that represents one of the enduring images burned into our memories as the tallest buildings in New York City crumbled to the ground like a frail house of cards and bellowed out a gray dust storm of death. The dust that is used to coat these human figures is actual dust collected from Ground Zero. The victims, having made the journey, now rest with their fellow travelers on sacred ground below.