Dear Birthday Boy,
As you approach your birthday, here’s a thought. Genesis 23 tells us that Sarah died at the age of 127, an impressively long life, but not all that unusual according to accounts of the deaths of other biblical figures. What is striking is the way that number is presented in the text. Instead of writing the number 127, it is broken up into components that a wonderful Midrash explains in this way: When Sarah died she had the wisdom that comes from 100 years, the inner beauty and vitality of a 20-year-old and the awe and innocence of a 7-year-old. In other words, she was 100+20+7, a combination of the people she had been at different times of her life.
Isn’t that true for all of us?
Describing this passage to a recent undergraduate class, you asked the students to look forward to when they turn 50, a daunting task for any 18- to-22-year-old. You suggested they might be 2+18+30, keeping the sense of wonder they had as they first discovered the world around them, the mixture of confidence and apprehension they had when they set out on their college journeys and the person they became at age 30 when, I hope, they are able to cast aside many of their earlier insecurities in order to set out on a bold path during the subsequent two decades.
So Mort, my message to you is to learn from that insightful depiction of Sarah’s age, always recognizing the stages of your life that together explain who you have become.
Happy birthday.
Morton
Morton Schapiro is the President and Professor of Economics at Northwestern University. www.northwestern.edu/president
