avid is Saul’s son.  I have never met Saul.  But I have taught his son.  Yet, this blog entry is much more about the man whom I have never met than the son whom I have had the pleasure of teaching.  Please do not misunderstand.  Davd, the son, is quite a respectable young man.  Indeed, he does his father proud.  Truly, he does.  But this blog entry is about the man whom I have never met.  What do I have to say about Saul?  The answer is quite simply that the evidence would suggest that he is a very honorable man—nay, a morally upright individual.  (The real names are not being used.)

Here is the story: While interviewing David for a letter of recommendation for medical school, I asked him about the things that had made a positive impression upon him.  I wanted him to convey to me an experience that had been enormously influential in his life.  His answer moved me emotionally.

David spoke about the occasion when his father had received a ticket for DUI (driving under the influence).  David spoke about the enormous shame that his father displayed.  As I heard those words, I thought to myself: What an extraordinary moral lesson Saul had taught his son, David. 

Let me explain.  You see, one of the most important insights ever that I have gleamed from life is that Good listening involves listening not only to what a person says, but also to what the individual does not say.  This insight comes from the novel The Color Purple.

As I listened to David describe his father’s situation.  David did not say a single word about his father using profanity or becoming angry or seeking to dodge the charge.  Nor did David say a word about his father being disgruntled or trying to make excuses for himself.  What is more, as he spoke of his father’s shame, he did so with great admiration. 

To live morally, Aristotle would say, is to have the right feelings about the right things in the right way.  And so on.  As David spoke about his father, Saul, it was clear that David marvelously grasped that his father is a man who lives morally, and who had displayed considerable moral excellence even in the face of a wrongdoing.

I am now in my 18th year as a professor at Syracuse University; and I cannot recall any student ever conveying to me a like story of morally upright behavior on the part of her or his parents.  No doubt some student has witnessed such behavior on the part of her or his parents; and the circumstances for telling me simply did not arise.  But I teach roughly 800 students a year; and I have had conversations with countless many students: spontaneous, free-falling conversations about the good, the bad, and the ugly.  And still, I cannot recall any student recounting such a beautiful story of moral excellence on the part of their parents.

To be sure, Saul did not save the world or some such laudable thing.  Just so, he did something ever so significant and quite laudable.  For he modeled before his son, David, a truly marvelous lesson of moral excellence. 

David was present for every one of my Philosophy 191 lectures; and he was manifestly attentive.  David did not make excuses for himself.  That was evident from his very demeanor in my classroom.  And when he asked me for a letter of recommendation, I made it very clear to him that this would take some work on his part, since I needed to have greater insight into his character.  He returned the compliment, as it were, by informing me that he could have three short essays by his return to campus from the Thanksgiving break.  And so he did.  Like his father, David is not in the habit of making excuses for himself.

Saul, sir, you do not know me, though I understand that you have seen me lecture.  What I should like to convey to you, though, is that you have truly been a moral beacon for your son.  And that is fatherly love at its very best. 

While talking with David, things like the number of family trips that are taken a year or the exotic places to which the family goes never came up.  In general, you should know, Saul, that the ways in which or, for that matter, the extent to which your family is well-off never came up.  This is to say that your son, David, never ever sought to impress me by reference to materialistic things.  And that, needless to say, is precisely the way that it should be. 

Most significantly, Saul, your son grasped this quite intuitively.  And that is ever so impressive.  Not only that, it does you proud, Saul. 

It goes without saying, Saul, that you know your son better than I ever shall know him.  But with this essay, I am bearing witness to the moral excellence that you have wrought in your son’s life by the moral excellence that you have lived before him.  And in that respect, I can at this point in time speak to your success in a way that perhaps not even you can do.  I am looking at the branches of that human tree that you helped plant.  I am beholding the fruits of that tree.  I am seeing the depth of its roots. 

Oh what a metaphor.  Bringing life into the world is so very much like planting a tree.  And raising a child is, in so very many ways, a kind of moral pruning.  It is just that instead of knives, the pruning is inextricably tied to the examples of excellence that the parents live before their children.  At the time of the incident, Saul, your son was but 16-years old.  But that single example on your part, Saul, give rise to a mighty branch of excellence on your son’s part, which showed ever so magnificently as he recounted the event to me some 4 years later.  And today, I got a chance to behold the majestic splendor of it all.  

Saul: Thank You.