St. Louis Post-Dispatch April 6, 2003 Philosophically facing death By Cynthia Billhartz (Reprinted with permission from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) The shadow of death won't stop this teacher from teaching A year or three ago - he doesn't remember when exactly - David Hadas, an English professor at Washington University, was diagnosed with colon cancer. Hadas, 72, had two surgeries to remove the cancer, but his doctors couldn't guarantee him that they had got it all. Without chemotherapy, they said, Hadas had a 60 percent chance of surviving five years. His chances would improve with treatment but he would probably be too weak and too sick to teach while the chemotherapy coursed his veins and did its job. So Hadas declined treatment. To him, a life without teaching is hardly a life worth extending. "Teaching is the most important thing in his life," said good friend and former Washington U colleague Naomi Lebowitz. "I retired, but he said, 'I am never retiring. I will teach until I die.'" And if he must die a little sooner to do so, well . . . "There are oodles of people who take risks all the time, because they want to climb a mountain or do something they love," Hadas said. "I bet you take risks, don't you?" This is Hadas' way of drawing out a visitor, just as he does with his students. His Socratic-style, his propensity for engaging others and exploring the crevices of their gray matter, is legendary on campus. It's one of the many reasons he's admired and beloved. So much so, that on a recent Friday evening, more than 100 students and former students, as well as faculty and friends, paid tribute to him at a reception at the University's Holmes Lounge and is naming a classroom in the English department Hadas Hall. More than once, teaching assistant Victoria Thomas has had lunch with Hadas while a student or faculty member wandered by. "They would look kind of cross when I was there, like 'Oh, you have another friend,'" she said. "You can see that he means so much to so many people. He doesn't have just a few friends. There are so many people who use him as a sounding board." He is the most popular and dedicated teacher in the English literature department, Lebowitz said. Students walk into his class, sense his warmth and generosity and instantly feel invited to say something. "He listens well," she said. "He listens very well, which is a rare quality in a teacher that good. He has a Socratic suspension. Most of us are too impatient. We can wait a little while but then we have to come in with our own opinion." "Bible as Literature" is a legendary class Hadas rarely talks about his illness with students and when he does, he's intentionally vague. One day, while walking to his office after class, he joked about a rumor circulating on campus that he was going into the hospital the very next day. "I didn't even know it," he said. "It doesn't seem very polite not to tell the patient himself of such a thing." He grinned, and a twinkle flashed in his gentle eyes. Hadas had just finished teaching his legendary "Bible as Literature" class, where he and his students discussed the value of proselytizing. One student stated that, to save non-believers, she was obliged to at least try spreading the word of Christ. Another said we should respect each other's beliefs and not meddle with them. Hadas wanted to know what that student would do if he warned a friend who was fishing on a railroad trestle that a train was coming. And what if, Hadas asked, that friend firmly believed the railroad line hadn't been used in years and refused to move. Would you just walk away and allow that friend to incorrectly believe he was safe? Hadas asked. Hadas loves using analogies and anecdotes to illustrate his points. His students and colleagues are awed by his breadth and depth of knowledge. He's a voracious reader, they say. His yearning to continue learning is as strong as his desire to continue teaching. When discussion in class focuses on the book of Ecclesiastes and the futility of altering the course of events in life, Hadas tells the story of a polar bear charging a nature photographer. The photographer, realizing there was no way he could outrun the polar bear, accepted his fate, stood his ground and continued snapping photos. When his body was discovered and his camera recovered, the amazing one-of-a-kind images captured what it looks like to be attacked by a bear. "OK, you see that's living to the hilt," Hadas said. Students chuckled at his understatement. Mention his modesty and he'll tell the story of Winston Churchill losing an election to Clement Atley after World War II. "Churchill was very deprecating and very angry about Atley," Hadas said. "So one day, he asked one of his aides, 'What is it people love about Atley?' The aide said, 'For one thing, he is very, very modest.' And Churchill said, 'Well, he has much to be modest about.' "And that's the way I feel. That I have much to be modest about," Hadas said. Ask him how his friends and family feel about his decision to forego chemotherapy treatments and accept death . . . "I will tell you a joke and you will understand," he says. "Two soldiers are told to take a prisoner out and walk him 15 miles and then shoot him. So they set out on their way and they're walking and walking and the prisoner says to the soldiers, 'What kind of job is this? First, you walk me 15 miles, then you kill me?' One of the soldiers responds, 'What are you complaining about? We have to walk back.' "So the question is, 'What do you owe the people who are alive after you are dead?" Students love the way he challenges them Hadas, who spent two years at Yeshiva University studying for the rabbinate, is oblique about his own religious beliefs. But Stephen Johnson, 18, a Washington U freshman with devout Christian predilections, thinks Hadas is skeptical of Christ, religion and the Bible. "Professor Hadas and I have different views," Johnson said. "But we have a really good time arguing in class. He has said that he is very suspicious of people who agree with him all the time." Even though his religious values haven't changed a bit, Johnson loves that Hadas has taught him to think differently and to challenge his own beliefs. "I am pre-med, and this is my favorite course," Johnson said, referring to "Bible as Literature." "He is probably the most knowledgeable person that I have been challenged by." On the last day of class, if someone asks, Hadas will recite his religious autobiography. Otherwise, what he or anyone else believes or practices simply doesn't matter. "He believes a lot of people have a kindergartner's understanding of their own religion," Kennedy, his former student, said. "They were taught these stories of their own religion and never really moved past it. And he doesn't care what your beliefs are, but you should have a critical understanding of them." Franklin Boyer, a senior and former student of Hadas', sat alone in the second tier of the lecture hall one afternoon listening to Hadas. Boyer sits in during the Bible class periodically because he finds the teacher and topic so fascinating. "He is the man!" Boyer said. "This guy is absolutely one of the best professors at this university. He is Socratic and incredibly encouraging with his students. The class is at a terrible time - from noon to 1 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but people still show up because it is such an interesting class." Most professors at any level and especially at this elite level tell you what to think, Boyer said. But not Hadas. He encourages you to say what you think and then analyze it. Hadas reminds Boyer of a Chinese proverb that states: "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand." Hadas has had a reputation as one of the best and most creative teachers at Washington University for more than 30 years, says Jack Boese, who took his classes during the late '60s. Boese, who is a partner in a Wall Street law firm, credits Hadas with teaching him creative thinking, which is vital to his job. "Of course, the highlight (of college) was the 'Bible as Literature' class," said Boese, during a phone interview from Washington. "No one had ever compared it with other forms of literature. He would take a topic from the Bible and then compare it to how Bob Dylan would deal with that topic in a song, or how Blake would deal with it in a poem. No one ever thinks of the Bible the way David Hadas taught it." Learning is the one thing that never fails Hadas is eating beans and rice from a Tupperware container in his office one afternoon. Among the heaps of books and numerous empty Coca-Cola cans, hangs a framed passage from "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White, which reads: "The best thing for being sad, replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn." Hadas has learned a lot about life and death from studying literature, and especially the Bible, these past 40 years. Like the author of Ecclesiastes, Hadas knows he can't make the world perfect. But he feels it's certainly worth trying to make it better while he's here. Even his choice to forgo chemotherapy and further treatment is partly rooted in a desire to improve what he has control over. Without trying to sound altruistic, he says, he's concerned in general with using up the world and its environment "Particularly in this case with medical stuff," he says. "So much medical care is devoted to the last six months of a person's life, and at the same time, there are so many Americans who have such little access to healthcare." He pauses, then continues: "I have done my job. I have done something with my life and I don't feel incomplete." For now, Hadas will continue doing what he loves most - teaching and learning. Death may or may not be creeping closer. Either way, he'll take the risk and accept his fate - much like Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Mount Everest or a brave photographer facing down a polar bear. Because to Hadas, that's living to the hilt. Reporter Cynthia Billhartz; E-mail: cbillhartz@post-dispatch.com; Phone: 314-340-8114 Copyright 2003, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc. (To see the St. Louis Post-Dispatch online, go to http://www.stltoday.com)