Squad 18, NYC Fire Department, 9-11-2019

Squad 18 of the NYC Fire Department is housed om West 10^th Street in Greenwich Village, a few blocks from where I live.  When the call came in on the morning 9-11, all 6 members of the 18^th Squad responded. None returned.

In the days that followed, the building remained closed but the street in front was filled with an outpouring of love and sympathy from the community,  bouquets, balloons, stuffed animals, cards and signs and personal notes.

 In time the station was  reopened with a new crew and a plaque was place to honor those 6 firefighter. When I passed this afternoon it was also closed, this time the members of the unit were out on another call. There had been a small gathering there earlier to remember the lost heroes and several bouquets of flowers were set off to one side of the door.

Today there was also a reading of the names of the rest of the victims of that day. It was held at Ground Zero. This year I found a particular meaning of that ritual, oddly enough - for me, anyway – a religious one. I am a Jew, not particularly observant and probably more of an atheist than anything else. But a Jewish one. And there are still a couple of traditions that I observe. Like my Wife and I observe Hanukkah even though she's not Jewish - she loves the idea of exchanging the 8 presents, not to mention the latkas. Also, I kind of remember promising my father that I would observe the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, on Yom Kipper. I am not really sure that I made an actual promise to him, but it sort of seems like something I might have done. Maybe should have done. Anyway, each year I find my way to a temple and repeat the appropriate prayers.

Now, back in those dimly remembered days of my religious schooling, I recall being told the significance of those particular prayers was the tradition that as long as a person's name was spoken, their spirit would live on. Seemed fair enough a deal.

There is also yet another bit of that old superstition at work this year. In the old Hebrew system of counting, letters were used as numbers much like Roman Numbers, but unlike Roman numbers, the letters were not repeated. The result is that numbers could be made into words and words into numbers. This has given rise to some weird mystical stuff that I won't even attempt to go into except for the number 18. Remember that this was the 18^th year since the 9-11 attack. In Hebrew, the number 18 can also be read as 'chai,' which translates as 'life.' As in the toast L'chaim, to life. Cool, huh?

So today, as I listened to the names of the dead being read, I found myself, the Jewish atheist, musing over the dual meanings.

18 years later, who is not to say that by speaking their names, their spirit lives on.

So, to those members of Squad 18 who never returned and to the nearly 3000 others who died that day, we repeat their names that their spirits may live on and add:

L'Chiam, To Life!