Legendary comedian Jerry Seinfeld recently mocked Harvard University during his commencement speech at Duke University last weekend. As the Jewish comic was about to deliver his remarks to the reputable university, several pro-Palestine students stormed out of the ceremony as he was introduced as the speaker.
“I’m not talking about Harvard now. I’m talking about the way it used to be. You’re never going to believe this, Harvard used to be a great place to go to school. Now it’s Duke,” he said. He recounted how many Harvard graduates were on his staff in the 1990s who were often embarrassed to reveal they went to school there.
As Duke has not been spared from the widespread anti-Israel protests and encampments that have cropped up around the country, a group of students left the graduation ceremony shouting “Free Palestine.” However, Seinfeld ignored the interruption.
Seinfeld’s message to the Duke class of 2024 revolved around three central themes, which he labeled his “three real keys to life.” He instructed the graduates to “bust your a**, pay attention, and fall in love.” The comedian told the crowd to always “make an effort” regardless of the activity.
“Whatever you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s your job, your hobby, a relationship, getting a reservation at M Sushi. Make an effort. Just pure, stupid, no-real-idea-what-I’m-doing-here effort. Effort always yields a positive value, even if the outcome of the effort is absolute failure of the desired result. This is a rule of life. Just swing the bat and pray is not a bad approach to a lot of things,” he said.
Furthermore, he told the university to not only “fall in love” with just their relationships, but with everything they engage in. “Fall in love with your coffee. Your sneakers. Your Blue Zone parking space. I’ve had a lot of fun in life falling in love with stupid, meaningless physical objects,” he told the audience. “I have truly spent my life focusing on the smallest things imaginable, completely oblivious to all the big issues of living.” Watch the commencement speech below:
Seinfeld, a dedicated supporter of Israel, visited the Jewish state late last year. He explained during an interview with GQ Magazine that he further explored what it meant to be Jewish and deal with the impacts of antisemitism.
“Well, I’m Jewish,” Seinfeld said. “And you grow up learning about antisemitism, but it’s kind of in a book. It never crossed my mind that people would look at me as anything other than, ‘I like this comedian. I don’t like this comedian.’ I think most Jews of my generation never thought about antisemitism. It was from history books. And then it was something different. It was something different.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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