Young Faces. Infinite Ripples.

Over the past week, I have had the privilege of speaking with more than 2400 students about September 11. I entered each room believing I was there to share something with them. I left each one realizing that, in ways I never expected, they had given me much more.

Today, I spoke to the largest group, more than 1050 students and 200 faculty. In many ways, this is also where this journey began.

Twenty-five years have passed since September 11, 2001. I was a younger man then, a husband, a father, and a volunteer EMT who responded to the World Trade Center because people needed help. I could not have imagined how profoundly that morning and the people in my life would shape the next twenty-five years of my life.

Today, I am a grandfather, a retired EMT, and a survivor looking back through the lens of twenty-five years. I have spent those years living with the consequences of that day, learning, healing, stumbling, and continuing to move forward. I have no great answers to offer, only lessons learned along the way and a growing belief that whatever good we can carry forward must ultimately be entrusted to those who come after us.

That is why the young faces in the rooms I visited this past week affected me so deeply.

The students I spoke with were not alive on September 11. For them, 9/11 is history. Sadly, their generation has its own tragic date to remember: October 7. For many of the students sitting before me, 10/7 is not a chapter in a history book. They lived through it. They remember where they were, what they heard, whom they worried about, and the questions that followed.

I did not want to hand them the fears and trauma of my generation in addition to those they already carry. I shared what twenty-five years have taught me about faith, chesed, accepting help, including others, and taking the next good step, even when we cannot see where that step will lead.

The ripples of this story have traveled farther than I ever imagined, only to bring me back to where they began.

On September 11, 2002, exactly one year after the attacks, I spoke publicly about my experiences for the first time. Earlier that day, I had attended the first anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero. Later, I stood before a group of students and tried to put into words events that were still painfully raw.

Last evening, I came across a copy of the thank-you letter I wrote after that first presentation. In it, I shared that telling my story and answering the students’ thoughtful questions had been both meaningful and therapeutic. I also wrote that I hoped something I said might inspire someone to bring more goodness into the world. That first group of students, and the opportunity I was given to speak with them, gave me the confidence to continue telling my story.

Twenty-four years later, and twenty-five years after September 11, my final presentation at this year’s anniversary brought me back to the same school where I first shared my story. This time, I stood before more than 1050 students plus faculty, the largest audience of the week.

The rabbi who first invited me to speak in 2002 was then the Director of Student Life. Today, he is the Head of School. His title has deservedly changed. The caring heart behind it has not. His warm welcome, words of strength, and kindness helped carry me through that first presentation, and I felt that same support again today. His presence in my life, both personally and through his work, has served as a beacon and a constant source of strength.

There was something quietly powerful about marking the 25th anniversary and moving forward in the very place where, twenty-four years earlier, I was first given the opportunity and strength to tell my story. I began there in 2002, speaking to a group of students while still trying to make sense of what had happened. I returned today, surrounded by more than 1050 young faces, reminded of how far a single opportunity, offered by one rabbi through a simple act of kindness, can ripple across twenty-four years.

Since that horrific Black Tuesday, I have lived with various PTSD triggers from September 11. A sight, a sound, an odor, an image, or an unexpected moment can transport me back to that dark day. But these past several days have given me a new and very different kind of trigger.

I now see their faces.

More than 2400 young faces listening, thinking, and asking questions. I find myself replacing some of the images that pull me backward with faces that encourage me to look forward. Those students have become a positive trigger for me. When the darker memories return, I now have another image to reach for: rooms filled with young people willing to listen, learn, and think about how they might bring their light into the world with the lessons of a day they never experienced.

That has been an unexpected gift, one that has renewed my hope and given me the strength and momentum to move forward.

During my talks, I asked the students to start a ripple that can create the change you wish to see in the world.

I was not asking them to solve the world’s problems. I was simply asking them to recognize that even the smallest act can change someone’s world and, in turn, become a catalyst for further change.

The same lesson applies to me. My own efforts are small. I am one survivor, twenty-five years older, trying to take what life has taught me and put some of it toward the future. I cannot fix everything. None of us can. Perhaps our responsibility is not to solve everything, but to recognize the good that is within our reach and simply do it.

My generation has September 11. This generation, sadly, has October 7. Neither date should define an entire generation. Part of what defines us is what we choose to do afterward.

Twenty-four years ago, in 2002, I wrote that I hoped my first talk might inspire someone to bring more goodness into the world. I never knew whether it did. Today, twenty-five years after September 11 and after speaking with more than 2400 students, I still cannot know where a particular word, thought, or conversation will lead.

But perhaps that is the point of a ripple. We begin it without knowing how far it will travel.

For twenty-five years, September 11 has given me many reasons to look backward.

Those young faces gave me another reason to look forward.

And perhaps, somewhere in those rooms, we started a ripple together.