A Chinese proverb claims: Heroes create circumstances; circumstances create heroes. But I’d like to think it is more than that. I think heroes, and even just the concept of heroes, are vital to our functioning as a society.

Perhaps Bernard Malamud said it best: Without heroes, we are all plain people, and don’t know how far we can go.

So, today I am adding to my list of heroes thousands of people, whose names I will never know. People who have given aid to victims and their families in the aftermath of September 11th. People who have given aid to all of us as we struggle to make sense of the senseless. People, who have, without asking, become heroes. People who are helping us all to realize just how far we can go.