The Last Lecture
D'var
Torah: Shabbat Ha'Azinu
October 10, 2008
I got an E-mail the day after Rosh Hashanah, first thing Thursday morning. Eliott. Good morning and great sermons........so far! Great Sermons.....Let's see what happens on Yom Kippur.
Since we were last together on Rosh Hashanah, the Phillies won the National League Eastern Division Championship. They are waiting for the Shofar Blowing before they play but that is only on the east coast. A good sign. We had the one and only Vice-Presidential debate and another presidential debate and I'm still with the same person... T. Boone Pickens and energy independence.
This past spring someone was Hocking me a chinick. Do you know what that means hock a chinick. It's a little like dreying my cup but not exactly. Literally it means banging on a tea kettle. One way of saying No is saying Stop hocking me a chinick already. All spring someone was hocking me to read a certain book. People are often recommending books that I wish I had time to read and they mention it once and fartig... genug. They don't ask if I read it yet, am I going to read it. Well, I read this book. What motivated me most was not the hocking. People were reading this book and even more were talking about it all over. It became a sort of sensation. The book is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.
Before Janie and I left for Israel I bought a copy of The Last Lecture and brought it with us. The first time we went into a bookstore in Israel, I thought if this book is really so popular, it would have been translated into Hebrew and so I was prepared to walk over to the counter and ask for a book called something like Hahartzaah Haacharonah and I expected to get a gazed look in return. Before I got to the counter I saw the book right away on the shelf, there it was Hahartzaah Haacharonah The Last Lecture in Hebrew. I bought it and needed no more hocking to sit down and read it.
Why are people reading this book and watching the YouTube of the lecture itself and why are people talking about it so much. The author of the book Randy Pausch is diagnosed with a form of cancer that has a 95% mortality rate. I always prefer to talk in survival terms but 5% doesn't sound any better. He was told that he had but a matter of months to live. So why are people reading this book and talking about it and blogging about it. This past year some one came into my study, sat down on the couch, looked straight at me and asked how do I die? What does one do when one is told that he/she has but a matter of months. We would understand someone who rolls over and cries themselves to death but that wasn't Randy Pausch. He has the personal energy within him to begin a whole new project while he is still alive There is something compelling about a man being told that his days are numbered and he lives life to the fullest. He is able to look death in the face and go on. Randy Pausch was a young man of 46 when he was told this terrible news.
Randy and his wife Jai had different visions of what he should do or would do with the time he had. His wife Jai wanted him to spend more time with the kids, Dillon, Logan and Chloe ages six, four and eighteen months so that they would have the most memories possible of their dad. Maybe that's what many moms would like their healthy husbands to do and we men, especially in America, find our worth so much in our work so we spend more time in the office, or wherever we work. Rabbi Harold Kushner makes the point in one of his many books "ask any man what matters most to him and he will say family. Ask him where he spends most of his time and he will say at work. Rabbi Kushner writes that he never heard anyone say on their death bed "I wish I would have spent more time at work, but that's what we do when we're not on our death bed. We men work and now many women do too, and Rabbis are amongst the biggest offenders here. Maybe there's another way for us before it's too late.
Randy had a different idea of how he would spend his days. One might say he decided to spend it working, but that wouldn't be totally fair. He reasoned that his children were so young that they probably would not really remember well the hours and days together though he did spend wonderful time with each child. Instead of purely playing with his young kids, Randy decided to write a legacy for them that they would read and see when they grew up and so be able to transmit to them his values and ideals and life lessons. He would create this living legacy for his children yet transmit it to another group of people who meant so very much to him, his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University where he was a respected and even loved professor of computer sciences. Randy writes, "We knew from the beginning none of this is a substitute for live parenting but an engineer does not operate with perfect solutions but rather with the best that is possible to do within the framework of limited resources and this is exactly what I try to do with this lecture and with this book." That is all any of us can do. In our own imperfect world of limited resources, we can try to achieve the best possible solutions."
In his lecture, he is filled with vitality and good humor and a great deal to say about life. He begins the lecture doing a number of one armed push ups and he says that if anyone pities him, they should come up and do some push ups too.
The basis of the book, to say the least, is sad. Not far into the book, I sat in Jerusalem and thought why in the world am I reading this? I have a few weeks away from the reality of my working year and this story takes me back to the most difficult of what I deal with but I somehow could not put the book down. It wasn't because the book grabbed me like a great mystery can. I couldn't put it down because this man with a terminal diagnosis had a story to tell and I had his book in my hand and I was committed to reading it.
Very early on I was struck in the introduction Randy writes "Every day I ride on my bike in the neighborhood - it is physical exercise that is positive for my health" I thought if a guy with a terminal illness can ride his bike every day and take time to take care of himself physically, I ought to read his book and see what he has to say about living. You and I ought to ride our bikes every day. We should surely be doing something for our physical well being each day. I hope I hear myself saying this. Actually during each of these 53 long rides he talked on his cell phone, using blue tooth, with Jeffrey Zaslow who turned those conversations into this book The Last Lecture. My apologies to Jeffrey Zaslow each time I quote from the book because my quotes are all translations from the Hebrew. I somehow left the original book in English in Israel. Someone in Israel is saying, Wow look at this, they translated this book into English.
The book The Last Lecture and the lecture itself turn out not to be sad at all. The book and the lecture are focused on living rather than dying. Actually there had been a tradition at Carnegie Mellon of a retiring professor giving a Last Lecture.
And so without any sadness, I want to ask you to think about writing right now your Last Lecture. Who is it for? What do you have to say? Do you have anything to say? Have you accumulated any wisdom, guidance, teachings that can enrich others. Randy Pausch talks about dreams he has fulfilled. Have you fulfilled any of your life dreams. Have you dared to dream? Are you dreaming still?
Some of Professor Pausch's favorite lines are, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." One of the dreams he wanted never fulfilled was playing in the NFL but he learned a lot from his old school Coach, Coach Graham. What life experiences do you have to transmit that can enrich others.
Randy Pausch "Brick walls are there for us to show how badly we want something." When he applied to college he had been put on the waiting list at Brown University. He says he was finally admitted because he kept badgering them. He kept hocking them a chinik until they couldn't take it anymore. He was accepted to all kinds of great Ph.D. programs but was rejected by Carnegie Mellon but that's where he wanted to go and they finally let him in. He says, "Brick Walls are to keep other people out and are there for us to show how badly we want something. What brick walls have you met and scaled in life?
How about having fun and enjoying life? How many pages in your book or minutes in your lecture could you fill with having fun?
He talks about regrets "It's not the things we do in life we regret. It is the things we do not do. Dr. Pausch spoke at Carnegie Mellon's graduation this past spring and told the graduates, "Find your passion and follow it. You will not find that passion in things or in money. Passion comes from the things that fuel you from the inside. Your passion will be grounded in people." In your lecture can you talk about things that fueled you in life that had their bases other than in things or money, the things that fuel you today and give you that personal energy.
I want to tell you about my favorite chapter of the book. The chapter is entitled "The Man in the Convertible." Randy Pausch writes about how he arrived at his office one morning some months after his diagnosis and he received a one paragraph e-mail from a colleague by the name of Robbie Kozak at Carnegie Mellon. She writes about how the night before she was driving home and she saw a guy driving in a convertible, the music was playing and he was kind of tapping to the beat of the music. She was somehow drawn to drive closer to the car and saw the man had a smile. Somehow she saw the smile before she saw the face. This is Robbi's e-mail to Randy "Finally, the car turned and then I caught the face of the man in the car. Oh my G-d, she said to herself, It is Randy Pausch." Randy writes this sight amazed her. She knew that the diagnosis of the lethal form of cancer was not good news and with this, the image of my utter contentment touched her heart. At that moment, I was clearly in a great mood. Robbi wrote "You are not able to imagine what you did for me in this one quick look. It reminded me the reason for living." The reason for living.
I like to see people in convertibles. I always sense they're having fun. Whenever I see one of you in a convertible I say "good for you." If I could get rid of my allergies I would get one too. There is so much that get's in the way of us having fun. There is so much on our minds that weighs on us. My advice to you today is go out and get a convertible or whatever your own way will be for you to have some fun and enjoy life more. If a man who was living on borrowed time could be enjoying life, we can too. And so in your lecture, what will you say about having fun. Is it o.k. to be having fun in life. The psalmist says come before G-d in joy. G-d does not want to see us ungebloosen. Reb Nachman, the great Hasidic master teaches it is a great Mitzvah to be happy always. It's fine to have fun.
In an interview Randy Pausch said, "I don't know how to not have fun. Right. I'm dying and I am having fun and I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left." How is that as a lesson for us who pray for a full year of life and more years yet to come. "I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."
Another great chapter is about never giving up. He new the reality and prepared for it even to the extent of moving from Pittsburgh to Virginia to be close to Jai's family and he never gave up hope. Maybe a miracle... until the very end.
Sadly and yet proudly we have had our own Randy Pausch in our synagogue this past year. Last December Joan Weiss was told that after three good years, her cancer had come back with a vengeance and it was a matter of time. Joan was also a professor of business at Bucks County Community College. She had touched the lives of hundreds and thousands of young people not only in class but as an advisor to young people in an organization In Free Enterprise. Joan's students competed in national and international competitions against mostly 4-year colleges and won more than once. Joan was also that uniquely special teacher that we never foget. Joan was given the poor prognosis in December and she and Fred with to Disney World with their children and little grandson Darrien. They went to have fun and they did. Then she came back and went back to work because that's what Joan did and that's what gave her meaning. Then Joan and Fred went to Bermuda, Atlanta. She had never seen the Boston Pops but wanted to so they did and went on a three week cruise to Italy, Spain and France in July and then she went back to work for the fall semester. Joan's approach was, The end is going to come but not today. Today was to live and like Randy Pausch, Joan always had a sense of hope. Hope doesn't always come true but hope can sustain us today. Joan told me some months ago, she wanted to go back to Israel but just days before this new year began Joan journeyed to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Joan had a great passion in life. Her passion was not grounded in money. She showed she could be a real success in the business world but she chose instead to teach young people how to find success in the world of business and her passion was grounded in people. One of Joan's dearest friends told me that she thought she was Joan's best friend until she saw how many best friends Joan had.
Randy Pausch never made it to the NFL but he learned from coach Graham how to do a head fake and it served him well. At the very end of his one hour and sixteen minute lecture Dr. Randy Pausch tells his audience that he's got a head fake. He says by the way all of this is not for you, it is for my children Dillon and Logan and Chloe.
And so I also end with a head fake. I really don't want you to write your lecture. Don't write your last lecture or any lecture. Live it instead. Hear the Shofar sounded tonight, go out from here and begin to live it as long as we are given this great gift of life. But know that how you live is itself a lecture that others are following closely.
Live it and have fun and so may you be sealed in the book of Life. Amen.
Shabbat Shalom,
