Five Years After the September 11, 2001 Attacks

Five years after September 11, 2001, it is difficult to not weigh how one's life has changed since that day (for those of us fortunate enough to have survived it).

Five years ago, I was living in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. I will spare the reader intimate details of my experience, because it is similar to that of so many others who lived in New York at the time, but were not physically present at the scene.

Rather, two specific experiences are worth noting. I woke up to NY1, the local television news channel, showing a fire in one of the buildings. Having intimately followed Israel's experience with terrorism, I sensed that this was more than a mere horrific fire. I immediately called one of my friends, who had experience dealing with mass emergency situations. After brief confirmation of what I was seeing, I asked him how he thought we'd react as a country. One thing he said in reply stands out: he noted that this would be a very different country a year from that day. Aside from the enormous human loss evident from witnessing a massive building burning, the gravity of what I was seeing began to hit home.

That evening, a friend and I got in my car and attempted to do something to help. We collected water from local merchants -- supermarkets, bodegas -- loaded them in the trunk of my car, and headed downtown. A remarkable experience (repeated numerous times) was asking a store employee to give us water that we'd bring downtown. Without questions, without asking for credentials or even our names, store employees repeatedly agreed to donate bottles of water (often cases) to our effort. We were able to fill my car to the point where we could fit no more water.

We are, indeed, a very different country today than we were five years ago. Five years ago, in the immediate aftermath of that attack, the people of New York stood together and simply tried to help one another. Everyone seemed to do their share. In the midst of numerous massive changes, I'd like to believe, five years after September 11, 2001, that we are better able to grasp our ability, as a people, to maintain our humanity in the face of barbaric evil. The challenge is summoning the will to maintain it.