Richard Cohen

The Run That Changed the World Richard Cohen

Is a person's life preplanned and designed at birth, with prearranged triggers activating events that will guide life until death? Or is life simply a random set of unrelated events that can be attributed to coincidence- "shit happens," as they say. A series of seemingly unrelated events began to unfold over 16 months when a college professor woke up one morning and had a sudden urge to go to his synagogue for morning prayers. This act caused the start of a chain reaction that altered his life, the lives of his family and a group of total strangers and may have led to a platform for peace the world has sought for decades. The 95-year-old Polish mathematician, Esther Belitsky was spared from being murdered by an 18-minute delay in her morning routine. Will Murphy and Julie Coleman, two college scholar athletes saved the life of the professor, who was out for a morning run when he was struck by lightning. They both went on to win gold medals at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Professor Arthur Herman went on to become a 9-time Olympic gold medalist at age 66. The state of Israel may have found the path to a lasting peace by becoming a world class force in athletics. Do random sets of events just happen as coincidence or does a planned simple act begin a chain of events that lead to a desired end? Whose end? Is everything in our lives really meant to be?