defining in a nutshell Harry Truman.
the truth that they thought hell he won their trust.
did uncommanded and quite unrehearsed.
Morley Safer had a segment on David McCullough on “60 Minutes” two days before a presidential election. What the country needs, he implied, is someone like Harry Truman, a man who dealt with problems, preparing to do what was unpopular.
McCullough says: “He told the people the truth—can you imagine? People said; ‘Give them hell!’ I didn’t give them hell. I just told them the truth.”
He spoke of the founders’ notion of the pursuit of happiness — which, he said, did not mean “long vacations or material possessions or ease.” Rather, he said, “as much as anything it meant the life of the mind and spirit.”
“It meant education,” he added, “and the love of learning, the freedom to think for oneself.”
Personally, he said: “The reward of the work has always been the work itself, and more so the longer I’ve been at it.”
David McCullough’s statement “The reward of the work has always been the work itself” reflects the Rabbis’ statement שכר מצוה מצוח, the reward for a commandment is the performance of the commandment. Avot 4:2 states:
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
