The Slowest Time - The Greatest Race

It was a race to save a competitor's life.

During a recent race, Seth Goldstein, a 17 year-old cross country runner from Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys in Memphis Tennessee, saved the life of a competing runner.

Soon after the race, which was held in early September, Jessica Chandler, an eyewitness, sent this email describing what happened to the Yeshiva's dean, Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl, who then posted it on his blog:

"I had to write you after observing the actions of one of your students from the Cooper Yeshiva School this afternoon at the USJ (University School of Jackson) cross country meet. I was watching my son's team, Germantown High School, run the race when one of his teammates suddenly collapsed. Your student, Seth Goldstein, stopped racing when he saw the boy was in trouble having a seizure. He called for help and I ran over there and he guided me and others through what we needed to do as this boy was in distress, reassuring us along the way that this young man was going to be alright.  I kept thinking he was maybe someone's dad, maybe a doctor or an EMT. I realized he was a race participant only after the ambulance arrived and my son's teammate was in the hands of professionals. Seth only then excused himself to complete the race. And I realized he was a race participant."

Chandler goes on to say how impressed she was with Goldstein's "unselfishness" and that she was "was equally impressed by his perseverance and determination to complete the race after tending to the needs of a student from another school."

Apparently several other runners had passed the fallen runner by.

"His lips were turning blue and his eyes were rolled back in his head," said Goldstein in a story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

"I was terrified. But then I thought to myself, freaking out isn't going to help any here," said Goldstein.

"He had bitten his tongue and was bleeding pretty bad," he said.

"I feared he was going to choke on his blood. I rolled him on his side so he wouldn't asphyxiate," said Goldstein who is a senior.

Goldstein's action goes far beyond sportsmanship. A principle of Jewish law, pikuach nefesh, holds that the preservation of life overrides almost every other consideration. It's not just an idea, but an obligation telling us to stop looking the other way, and instead come to the aid of another. It's a lifesaving principle that apparently Goldstein had internalized from his Jewish studies, family, or both.

As for the rest of us race runners, we all like to think that we would stop too, but for many it's pretty easy to just run by. Besides, we are not often faced with life or death situations. Yet short of those, there are other life's emergencies to which we are sometimes called.

How many of us would stop to return a competitor's lost cell phone or notebook? Or attempt to return mis-delivered mail; even when it looks important, like a bill or notice from a doctor's office?

Seth Goldstein, part of an age group that usually takes the often unjust rap for being obsessed with video games and texting, instead presents us with an example of how to run our own races.

How did his race work out? He eventually finished--though well below his usual time, he was still a winner.