To My Dear
Students,
In 1912, marathon runner Shizo Kanakuri was chosen
to represent Japan in the Summer Olympics at Stockholm.
He began
the race with the rest of the runners, but along
the way was overcome with heat. He stopped
at a garden party for some refreshment, but he
stayed a little too long -- more than an hour.
It was now, he thought, too late to get back in
the race. He took a train to his hotel and
caught a boat back home, too ashamed to tell anyone
he was leaving.
For
more than 50 years Shizo was listed as a missing
person in Sweden, until a journalist finally found
him; he had spent the last several decades living
a quiet life in southern Japan.
In 1966
the Swedish Public Television network called him
with an offer: Would you like to finish
your run? The 85 year old Kanakuri accepted,
and he traveled to Stockholm to finish the race
he had started so many years before.
This time he did cross the finish line; his final
time was 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8
hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds.
In the
Book of Ecclesiastes, we read that "The race
is not to the swift." Rather, the race
is for those who know three truths about the race
of life: that each of us must run at our own pace;
that it is not when we cross the finish
line, but how we conduct ourselves in
the race; that even more important than physical
conditioning is our moral strength.
Shabbat
Shalom and Chag Sameach,
Your Rabbi |
