Last Respects

Shopping period sure feels like the best time to be a student. What could be better than education without commitment? Going lecture to lecture, I pick up bits and pieces of all kinds of things--history, biology, philosophy--that pop up later in the sort of cocktail conversation everyone is supposed to find impressive.

The Coop is the best place to be during shopping period. More than professors, more than CUE Guide numbers, it is the books that matter. Every shopping period I devote an hour to wandering the aisles, taking down course numbers with interesting books and then seeing if they fit into my schedule. Notebook in hand, I start in African-American studies and end in Social Analysis, trying not to miss this semester's sleeper hit. Last week, I came away with something more important.

In the midst of the history section, I saw it: a perforated Coop book card, enclosed in its yellow plastic square, velcroed to the bookshelf: "Hist. 1155. Twersky. no order rec'vd" was its curt message, as it lorded over an empty shelf, never to be filled with books for a class that would not be offered.

Twersky's name reminded me of conversations with friends at other schools who had read his work and had asked if I had met him, and of the fond words my Hebrew professor had used to describe him. I had never met him. My plan to search him out in office hours went by the way-side, like my unfulfilled pledges to exercise at the Malkin Athletic Center and do the New York Times crossword regularly.

Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy Isadore Twersky passed away last October at the age of 67. Twersky, described in The Crimson's obituary as "a pioneer in the study of Jewish thought," was an internationally renowned scholar who helped build Harvard's Center for Jewish Studies into a leading institute for the study of Jewish texts. A leader within the local Jewish community and within academe, Twersky seemed to have left everyone with a positive impression. He is sorely missed.

Both within Judaism and in Harvard's worldview, there is a healthy respect for the dead. We are constantly educated with and measured against the scholarship, philosophies and lifestyles of those who came before us. The slate headstones of Harvard presidents and professors, slanting with age, cast long shadows, as do the names on the room histories distributed to every first-year: Emerson, Roosevelt, Kennedy. Sometimes it feels like they are watching over us. Sometimes we have to watch over them.

The card hung alone on the shelf, almost funny if it wasn't so sad. As most Harvard students would agree, it is hard to teach a class once you have died. The Coop, though, simply going through the course guide, had seen the class and put up a tag. "no order rec'vd."

I had not known Professor Twersky, but last Tuesday, seeing that tag, I felt I had an obligation to those that had known him and appreciated him. Having your course scrawled on a card in a yellow plastic holder is not a way to be memorialized; it is cheap, gaudy, insensitive, insulting. The fluorescent lights bounced off the pressed wood shelf, mocking the empty space as students rushed by, arms full of books.

I ignored the card the first time I saw it, not sure exactly what to do. But the more I thought about it, the more my responsibility became clear. I cornered a busy Coop staffer and told them that the class had been canceled and that they should take down the card. I didn't need to burden him with the whole story, of unfortunate illness and talent lost; my question was short and so was his answer. He thanked me for the information and told me to take the card up to the desk.

Many of us know from personal experience how hard it is to reach out to one another, to show people how much they matter and how much you appreciate them. This task is made almost impossible by death, the great curtain that does not let us peek at what lies beyond. Last Tuesday, I saw my chance to do something for a respected and missed Harvard professor I had never had the chance to know, but who had touched me by touching those around me. Maybe it was small, but it was something, a minor affront removed.

As I marched to the shelf and tore down the card, it made a loud noise ripping away from the Velcro. I hope Professor Twersky, somewhere, heard it.

Adam I. Arenson '00 is a history and literature concentrator in Lowell House. His column will appear on alternate Fridays.