The author extends his conception of emotional trauma as a shattering of the tranquilizing “absolutism of everyday life” that shield us from our finitude and our existential vulnerability, to a consideration of collective trauma. Using the collective trauma of 9/11 and its aftermath as his prime example, he illustrates how traumatized people fall prey to “resurrective ideologies” that promise to restore the sheltering illusions that have been lost. He suggests that an alternative to these grandiose illusions can be found in our “kinship-in-finitude.”