During the High Holy Days, we recall the story of the Rabbi who admonished his students to repent and improve their ways one day before their death. The students asked him: “But Rabbi, how do we know on which day we will die?” The Rabbi replied: “You don’t. Therefore repent and improve your ways every day, as though it were your last day on earth.”

Morrie Schwartz, a retired psychology professor at Brandeis University, took this admonition seriously. In the book, Mitch Albom, his former student, wrote about him, with the title Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie recalled the similar advice of the Buddhists. They counsel that each day we should have a little bird on our shoulder, which asks: “Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the best person I want to be?”

At age 75, Morrie was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. This is a brutal, merciless, fatal malady that destroys the entire neurological system. It melts the nerves of the victim and leaves the body like a pile of wax.

Morrie Schwartz knew that his days were limited and that his physical future was grim. Yet he chose to embrace life as fully and richly as possible in the remaining time he had left. He even became a popular celebrity on Nightline, Talk of the Nation, and other national radio and television shows.

Shortly after Morrie received his devastating diagnosis, Mitch Albom re-entered his life. Morrie had been Albom’s favorite teacher at Brandeis twenty years earlier. They had spent much quality time together during those college years. Albom had become a popular sports journalist with the Detroit Free Press and a media star in Detroit.

One night, while flipping through television channels, Albom heard Ted Koppel open with the question: “Who is Morrie Schwartz?” Having lost contact with Morrie for twenty years and having learned that he was stricken with ALS, Mitch felt compelled to reconnect with Morrie again.

Mitch had been living on the fast track, by pursuing fame, power, and money. He had felt a void in his life because of the skewed priorities that he had set for himself. How fortuitous it was that, at this critical juncture, he would re-encounter Morrie! Every Tuesday, Mitch flew from Detroit to Boston to meet with Morrie for a final class after breakfast. The course centered on the theme, “The Meaning of Life.” In this class, there were no exams nor textbooks. It was taught from experience.

As Morrie imparted his insights and wisdom about living to Mitch, Mitch faithfully recorded them. He then assembled these valuable lessons he had gained from his Tuesday interchanges into the book, Tuesdays with Morrie. The opening chapter headings of the book reflect an academic culture. They are: “The Curriculum,” “The Syllabus,” “The Student,” “The Audiovisual,” “The Orientation,” “The Classroom,” and “Taking Attendance.”

Then the author, Mitch Albom, describes the lessons that he has gained on fourteen different Tuesdays. Each title opens with the phrase, “We Talk About.” Let me share three stunning examples.

The subject for the second Tuesday was, “We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself.” On this day, Mitch observed that Morrie’s disease had made ruthless progress. Morrie’s fingers were still working well enough to write with a pencil or hold up his glasses. Yet he could not lift up his arms much higher than his chest.

Morrie kept a bell near his side. When his head needed adjusting or he had to go to the bathroom, he would shake the bell. His wife or small group of home care workers would then come in to assist him. However, it wasn’t always easy for him to lift the bell and he often got frustrated when he couldn’t make it work.

Seeing these disabilities, Mitch asked Morrie if he felt sorry for himself. To that question Morrie said the following:

“Sometimes in the mornings, that’s when I mourn. I feel around my body, I move my fingers and my hands- whatever I can still move- and I mourn what I have lost. I mourn the slow insidious way in which I’m dying. And then I stop mourning. I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear. On you- if it’s Tuesday because we are a Tuesday people. Mitch, I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears come, and that’s all.” (pp. 56-57)

Mitch commented that he knew people who spent most of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would for them be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Let them reserve a few tearful moments each day, and then get on with the day. In fact, Morrie acknowledged that it was horrible to watch his body slowly wilt away to nothing. Yet it was also wonderful because all of the time he had left to say goodbye to so many friends and dear ones.

On the seventh Tuesday, Morrie talked about the fear of aging. Mitch commented that, on his way to the Boston Airport that morning, he had observed an inordinately large number of billboards featuring young and beautiful people. He saw a handsome young man in a cowboy hat, smoking a cigarette, as well as two beautiful young women smiling over a shampoo bottle, and a sultry looking teenager with her jeans unsnapped. Every one of them looked under 35.

Mitch told Morrie that he was already feeling over the hill, as he was approaching 40. He worked out constantly, he watched his diet, and he checked his hairline in the mirror. He feared becoming 40 and suffering professional oblivion.

Morrie corrected Mitch’s perspective about aging. He told Mitch that he didn’t buy all this emphasis on youth. He knew that being young can be miserable. He recalled all the kids that came to him at Brandeis with their struggles, their strife, their feelings of inadequacy, their sense that life was miserable, so bad they wanted to kill themselves.

Morrie did admit that he envied the young for being able to go to the health club, to swim, or especially to dance, because Morrie loved dancing. But he also realized that one has to let go of that envy and separate from it. It is more advisable that people accept who they are and revel in that.

He told Mitch that there was a time to be in his 30's and that he had his time in his 30's. Now is the time to be 78. We have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in life as it is now. Looking back makes us competitive and age is not a competitive issue. Also, Morrie asked rhetorically how the old can be envious of the young, since they had already been there themselves. After all, they once were young.

Then, on the eighth Tuesday, Mitch held up a newspaper to Morrie so that he could see the headline. It was a quote from Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of CNN. Turner had been lamenting his failure to snatch up the CBS Network in a corporate megadeal. Ted Turner said: “I don’t want my tombstone to read, ‘I never owned a network.’”

Morrie observed that people like Ted Turner put their values in the wrong things. It leads them only to very disillusioned lives. Unfortunately we have been brainwashed over and over again with the motto, “More is good.” More money, more property, more commercialism!

Morrie said that people who crave material things are really hungry for love. However, they are accepting substitutes. They are embracing these material things and expect a sort of hug in return. It won’t work. We can’t substitute material things for love, or gentleness, or tenderness, or companionship.

As he sat there dying, he advised:

“When you need tenderness and love the most, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you are looking for, no matter how much of them you may have. Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

And then he added, grinning: “You notice, there is nothing in there about a salary.”

These three Tuesday lessons are just a few of Morrie Schwartz’ brilliant insights into loving and living. Mitch Albom learned a great deal when he returned to study with his favorite professor twenty years later, infinitely more than he had acquired as a student at Brandeis. Mitch also gave all of us, with the publication of this book, a sound guide for living our lives fully, by abandoning the trivialities and superficialities so many of us pursue and by loving generously. Amen.

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