Act Like You Have NEVER Been There Before

Genesis 23:1 tells us that Sarah died at the age of 127.  Instead of writing out the number 127, the text breaks it into three components: 100, 20 and seven.  Why separate an age into its parts?  

A midrash explains that when Sarah passed away she had the insights that come from a century of experiences, the energy of a 20-year-old, and the unbridled enthusiasm of a seven-year-old. 

Wisdom and vitality are of course important in anyone’s life, but it is the childlike sense of awe that I find most striking.

Coaches often tell their players to “act like you have been there before.” In other words, when you win a big game, don’t get too excited.  While I’m all for being gracious in victory, it seems to me that it would be an awful mistake to apply that attitude to the rest of your life.

Some might think that you are demonstrating your lack of sophistication when you revel in your success.  That’s their problem. Why not take the time to step back and appreciate all of your accomplishments, even if others may roll their eyes at your behavior? The Torah doesn’t condemn such actions; in fact, it encourages us to serve G-d through our joy and our gladness.  So don’t be afraid to put your passion on display.

In my four decades in higher education, I always cautioned students to avoid becoming jaded. It is common for high achievers to focus on their disappointments while dismissing too quickly the gratification that should accompany their triumphs.  I know that there were folks who thought it strange when I would dance on the sideline when we won a bowl game in football, or shed tears of joy as I observed a student embracing her family during Parents Weekend. And I was reminded the other day of a commencement ceremony I presided over when I was President of Northwestern. After awarding honorary degrees to several luminaries, I went to the microphone and exclaimed with pure glee to the 25,000 people in the audience that “I just hugged Stevie Wonder!” Yes, I realize that wasn’t exactly “presidential,” but I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.

One of my greatest teachers was my mother-in-law, Marcy Rothman. After my mom and dad died, she told me that she would be proud to be my parent. And she meant it. A brilliant and highly engaging woman, she became a newspaper reporter at eighteen and she published her first novel at sixty.

It was Marcy’s enthusiasm that I admired most.  Up until shortly before passing away at the age of 92, she accompanied my wife and me on several international trips each year.  College presidents regularly travel around the globe in order to hold alumni events, visit partner institutions, and raise money.  I would arrive in a city and learn that the president of a peer institution had been there the week before, and another one was coming the next.  But, as a government official once said to me, while he was accustomed to hosting the heads of the world’s preeminent colleges and universities, I was the only one who brought along his mother-in-law to a state dinner!  

Wherever we went, Marcy made it abundantly clear that she was having the time of her life.  If anyone had retained over many, many years the youthful enthusiasm and sense of awe ascribed to Sarah, it was Marcy. No matter how well-travelled she became, she NEVER acted as if she had been there before.

If you are in the market for a New Year’s resolution, try this one: pledge to yourself that you will do all you can to rekindle the appreciation you once had for the glories of being alive.  

These are obviously exceedingly trying times for Israel and for the entire Jewish people.  But we must not lose heart and stop celebrating moments of happiness and success. If you are in the market for a New Year’s resolution, try this one: Pledge to yourself that you will do all you can to rekindle the appreciation you once had for the glories of being alive.  If, at the ripe old age of 127, Sarah could approach life with curiosity and joy, so can we.

Morton Schapiro is the former president of Williams College and Northwestern University.  His most recent book (with Gary Saul Morson) is “Minds Wide Shut:  How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us.”