In 1969, Loren Eiseley—a poet, scientist and philosopher—published “The Star Thrower,” a 16-page essay about a man on an early morning walk along a storm-wracked beach. As he walks he discovers the remains of innumerable sea creatures washed ashore by the night storm’s fury. “Long-limbed starfish were strewn everywhere, as though the night sky had showered down.” And on the lonely beach he encounters another man who is throwing those starfish back into the sea. That story became the basis of a modern parable that Ira Riklis first heard from his Rabbi. The parable seeks to impart hope and inspiration that even in the face of great need in the world and seemingly innumerable challenges to overcome, that each of us can make a difference, even if it’s just one starfish at a time.
In the story, Eiseley’s character at first feels doubt—the same doubt that Ira Riklis has felt at times in his life, the same doubt that perhaps we all feel at times. “I gave it up a long time ago,” he says, “Death is the only successful collector.” Yet, as he walked away, he turned and saw the star thrower again at his work. “For a moment, in the changing light, the sower appeared magnified, as though casting larger stars upon some greater sea. He had, at any rate, the posture of a god.” And in the end, he becomes a star thrower himself. “I picked and flung another star…. I could feel the movement in my body. It was like a sowing—the sowing of life on an infinitely gigantic scale. I looked back across my shoulder. Small and dark against the receding rainbow, the star thrower stooped and flung once more. I never looked again. The task we had assumed was too immense for gazing. I flung and flung again…” And he concludes that, “The task was not to be assumed lightly, for it was men as well as starfish that we sought to save.”