And memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to Heaven
And bring you home again.
-Unknown
On the eve of the tenth anniversary commemorations of the September 11th attacks. At the World Trade Center. Standing, silent. Fighting the tears, losing.
Frustrating: an inability to understand the magnitude of horror. Wanting, burning, screaming. Sighing, breathing, sighing. Finding the words always remains a challenge. And amid the clutter of conversation busying the mind, a jolt of lightning. From the past. Collapsing the illusion of silence. Collapsing the illusion of being unable to hear the silence.
Audible silence at Ground Zero.
And then a fire truck zooms by waiving red, white and blue. It departs from Ladder 10, where "All Gave Some and Some Gave All." Where heroes were born, and from where they left everything they ever knew to help strangers they would never meet.
It passes with force. Its lights, blinding, penetrate a dark street where family members and friends gather to mourn under the sky. Its lights ignite memories. They give life to the chaotic emotions which swallowed that day turned night. That clear, beautiful day, when everything turned to black. When we lost so much life and so much innocence.
But all around me on this night I see messages of hope. Of possibility. Of defiance. Of still a dream that is our brotherhood. I turn away from the truck and follow its lights across the pavement. There, on a Wall of Remembrance dedicated for the first time, thousands of inscriptions remind and rouse me. One reads: I miss you so much. I love you more than you know.
It's an eerie night in Lower Manhattan. Wreaths join the company of people who stare blankly into a space that's no longer there. A plane flies by overhead, and then the images appear.
One, by one, by one.
Impossible images. Like an image of a falling man from a burning building. Like an image of a falling building where around it are fallen men. Like a bullet to your mind and to your heart.
And you remember.
I was not yet living in America on 9/11/01, but growing up on the streets of Jerusalem, in the shadow of war, amid the pandemonium of two intifadas, I was well sensitized to tragedy on an unbelievable scale. Similar impossible images were conspicuously reflected in marketplaces. Busses were blown up. The shards remained alongside the aid workers, fighting to save life where the very value of it was so indiscriminately desecrated. Hatred for no apparent reason.
And yet, I was incredulous. Terror does not become easier to digest simply because you are accustomed to it. Man will always grimace when pinched. That day was no exception. Across the Atlantic Ocean, in my childhood home, I watched the twin towers burn on television. The shock reverberated; its waves reached human hearts around the world. And still, some men danced.
The realization that my enemies are not only my own was a strange form of liberation. But in no way did it mean freedom. It meant a struggle for freedom. It meant, maybe, a stronger resolve. A common thread through a woven dress. A donning of jerseys. A shattering of naiveté. A new commitment to Aung San Suu Kyi: fear is not the natural state of civilized people, and we will not live in fear.
An understanding, a re-awakening: our democracy will not be given to us. We must take our democracy. We must take it from those who are sworn to our destruction. Who detest human dignity and who mask their contempt in a masquerade of religious indignation. Who conceal hatred in a veil of love.
Love for hatred. We cannot leave this trickery unchallenged if we have any hopes for an end to bloodshed, but we also cannot only speak of it. While our right to life and our right to freedom may be self-evident, these rights are by no means impervious. They may be trespassed, broken. And so we need them protected.
But guns and wars across the world will not protect them. We, the individuals, carry that responsibility. Through our actions. Through our unity. Through kindness one towards another.
It begins with finding common ground, with tearing down the walls which separate us—the walls which fell parallel to the towers, and which have helped us build so much due their collapse. On that fateful day, we demonstrated to the world that we cannot be defeated not because of our military or missile capabilities, but because of our undying spirit. Because as much as you try to kill us, we will not die. And as much as you try to strip us of our humanity, we will continue to preserve it.
And we did. Our firefighters sprinted into infernos with at least a suppressed awareness that they might never again see their children. For many, if not all, the mission must have been clear. The dangers must have been communicated. If not that, encountered. But they were unphased, unambiguous, our heroes. Al-Qaeda may have succeeded in dampening their morale, but they could never defeat their tenacity and their sense of sacrifice.
We are reminded, too, of the passengers aboard United Flight 93, and of a virtuous battle to storm the cockpit of a plane likely bound for Capitol Hill. A field in Pennsylvania today bears witness to these brave souls, who in a time of desperation chose to think outside of themselves. Their legacy assures us that tragedy, in its manifestation, uniquely intersects with hope—and that there is hope, within us, insofar as we keep it alive. Moral responsibility is dressed in civilian clothing: it is neither cloaked nor costumed; it is bare, naked, and ordinary.
It's true what they say. We are the 9/11 generation. It has typified our teenage years and will undoubtedly impact the rest of our lives. It forced us to expand our imagination of what is evil, while at the same inviting us to expand our imagination of what is good, and of what binds us. And it does one thing more, today: if we are to honor the memory of those who perished ten years ago, it bestows upon us an obligation to live in their stead—as they had lived. To act as they had acted. To dare as they had dared.
To return an attack on our dignity with a reclamation of it.
