The Best of Men

A discussion I've often had with friends turns on the relevance of ancient Jewish learning to modern life. In short, after two millennia can the mishnah still offer anything worth knowing? This discussion inevitably heads towards Pirkei Avot, where I can point to the fact that, while every generation has its own customs, fashions and conventions, the broader characteristics of human nature do not change.#

With this in mind, I found myself thinking about Ben Azzai's teaching (Avot 4:3) that we should not be scornful of any person, since there is no-one who does not have his hour. The trigger for my thoughts was the approach of the 16th Summer Paralympics in Tokyo later this month.

The Paralympics are a massively evolved version of the Stoke Mandeville Games, a set of sports events for paraplegic competitors which by 1952 had attracted as many as 130 participants from overseas (Stoke Mandeville being the name of a British hospital that specialises in treating spinal injuries). The origin of the Games is depicted in a movie, The Best of Men, that portrays the horrors of paraplegic injuries and the struggles of patients to overcome physical, emotional and other problems.

At the heart of the movie is an ongoing battle between German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann (a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany) and his protagonist, Dr Cowan, as to how best to treat paraplegic patients. Dr Cowan's position is that they should be allowed to die in comfort and dignity since they are of no further use to society or to themselves; Dr Guttmann's view, in keeping with Avot 4:3, is that no man should be written off; everyone has a potential that he should have the chance to realise -- even if it is hard and painful for him to do so. It is this view that prevails.

Dr Guttmann's position is not however an absolute one. If a person is to be valued and assisted by others, he must take the first step by being willing to take responsibility for his own life and to value himself. This position chimes in with Rabbi Akiva's enigmatic statement (Avot 3:19) that, while everything is foreseen, free will is given. Framed in terms of Stoke Mandeville's patients, this can be understood as meaning that, while a person's permanent loss of his ability to walk is foreseen, he still has choices to make about how he reacts to his loss and moves on from there.

Much of the movie makes uncomfortable viewing, particularly the bits involving bedsores, but it provides much food for serious thought regarding the way we regard and behave towards our fellow humans.