For What it’s Worth: Warren Hecht

When there is an ending of an era, I try to go to the last event. I was at the last game at Shea Stadium on September 28, 2008, and on May 21, 2017, I went to what was supposed to be the last Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, held at Nassau Coliseum.

At 2:00 a.m. on Yom Kippur morning, the carbon monoxide/smoke detector near the upstairs hallway went off with three loud beeps. It woke everyone up. I went to check it out and found nothing. Then, in the afternoon during the break, the same alarm went off again with the same three beeps, and this time added the word “fire.” Again, there was nothing unusual that would warrant the alarm going off. (This detector is only a few months old, does not require battery changes, and has a 10-year lifespan.) This has never happened before. My theory was that this was a message that at least one of the people who were home needs to step up on Yom Kippur because what they are doing so far is not enough. If you do not improve, something bad could happen. Hopefully, we got the message.

On October 7, I went back to my law school, Cardozo, for a program entitled From Silence to Hope with Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, sponsored by the Cardozo Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA). When I went to school, there was no need for a Jewish Law Students Association. Unfortunately, in these times, even at a school under the auspices of Yeshiva University, there is a need for such an organization. Before the program started, they had a representative from the school make an announcement that no one should try to disrupt the event. Also, the school made sure to limit publicizing the event. They were afraid of a counterprotest and a group coming inside to try to disrupt the proceedings. That is a sad commentary on the times we live in.

When an event is commemorated, there are certain milestones. Those tend to elicit more emotion. During the time between milestone years, the feeling is not the same. Time has an impact. Normally, when 9/11 would arrive, I would spend time watching videos of that day and watching some of the events commemorating the day. I would need that to put me in the right frame of mind. Even then, the feeling was not so strong. For example, 4 years ago I went to the animal shelter to adopt our guinea pig, Squirrel. It was 21 years after the attack and was not a milestone year.

I remember how I celebrated Chanukah before my father passed away during Chanukah. It was a joyous holiday. It is not the same since he passed away. The joy is tempered with sadness. It is the same with Shemini Atzeres. Until three years ago, it was a joyful day. Then came the attack by Hamas on Shemini Atzeres. It is known by most people as October 7. Now every year, I remember those who were murdered. It was the highest number of Jews killed on a single day since the Holocaust.

It is appropriate that the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attack is when Rosh HaShanah starts in the evening. The last thing on anyone’s mind when they went to work in the Twin Towers on the morning of 9/11 was that they would never make it home. The same could be said for those on the three planes that were hijacked that day. It is a reminder that we cannot take anything for granted, including being alive.