Building a Legacy in Kathmandu / Interviews & Profiles / News / All Things Strings
Several years ago, cellist Lynn Harrell and his wife, violinist Helen Nightengale, read a sobering statistic in a United Nations report: over one billion children in the world live in areas affected by armed conflict. That evening, Harrell recalls, the couple went to their synagogue, where the rabbi was speaking about the need to help in the world. The rabbi told a parable about a man and his son who are walking down a beach.
Over breakfast at Sarabeth’s, a popular restaurant in New York City, Harrell retells his version of the parable. “His son said, ‘There are so many starfishes washed up on the sand,’” Harrell recounts. “After that the son said, ‘Let’s put them back in the ocean because they’ll die if they’re not in the water.’ So they start picking them up and going down the beach, and after about a hundred yards, the boy says, ‘Dad, this isn’t going to make any difference. There are so many of them. And the father picked up a starfish, and he threw it in the water.”
Harrell pauses, as if for dramatic effect, and takes a sip of his coffee.
“And the father said, “It mattered to that one.”
Harrell’s eyes are moist. “I get touched every time I tell this story,” he says.
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