Advantages of Old Age

Thoughts on Parashat Vayigash 5785

Menachem Mirski

A man, very advanced in his age, calls an insurance company and says that he wants to buy insurance. The agent says: “Good, very good, how old are you?” The man says: “I’m a hundred years old.” “Hundred??” – replies the agent – “Oy, I’m afraid we cannot help you” – The man replies: “No, no, you have to sell me this insurance because your company already sold insurance to my father”. “How old is your father?” – the agent says – “He is 120 years old”. “120?? Well, ok, come by Tuesday evening, we’ll see what we can do.” The man says: “I can’t come on Tuesday, my grandfather is getting married”. “Your grandfather is getting married?? How old is he??” “He is 148”. “148 and he wants to get married??” Phs, like it is his choice…” – replies the man – “His parents are marrying him off!”.

In our parasha for this week Jacob, who reaches the age of one hundred and thirty, makes a pretty bitter statement about his life: “[…] Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my ancestors during their sojourns.” (Gen 47:9). People, especially young people, are often afraid, sometimes even terrified of aging. While there is some truth in it – getting older by definition means losing some advantages and privileges of being young – there are also significant advantages of getting more and more mature, and this is something I would like to talk about today. In particular, I would like to bring some stories and insights about the matter from Talmud and Rabbinic literature.

The Talmud tells the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria who was appointed to be the head of his rabbinic academy at the age of eighteen. Soon after receiving his post, he had a conversation with his wife where she expressed concern over his well-being; perhaps people would judge him because he appeared young and cast him out of the study hall. That night, a miracle occurred and his hair turned white so that he appeared “like a seventy year old” (Talmud, Berachot 28a). Because he now looked older, people took him seriously and gave him the space to lead. Maimonides, reflecting on the story hundreds of years later, wrote that Rabbi Elazar ben Azaira worked tirelessly throughout his youth to attain knowledge and wisdom, and he truly deserved this position. Maybe if he just looked a little older, people would treat him with the respect his wisdom called for, he wouldn’t have to plead with God for the same “crown” as Abraham. This story illustrates the first of the advantages of old age: generally, people who in their old age are treated more seriously and with more respect than young people. This principle, although empirically by no means absolute, was elevated by the Torah to a law binding on all of us: “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an older person” (Lev 19:32). Rabbinic Judaism takes it even further and makes this law absolute: the midrash tells us the Ten Commandment tablets that Moses shattered were kept alongside the new tablets in the Ark of the Covenant. It teaches that we must continue to respect the elderly, even when they are intellectually “broken.”

For our Rabbis, aging was a gift, not a burden. There is a verse in the Book of Daniel who describes God as “the Ancient of Days” whose garment is like white snow and whose hair is white like lamb’s wool. (Daniel 7:9) People often frown at this depiction of God as being too human and too male, but that’s not the message of this verse! The gist of this image is not God’s humanity or gender but His age! This image, when read properly, points out to another two advantages of old age: wisdom, stemming from experience, and power that people acquire with age if they wisely navigate their life before.

There is a nice, linguistic midrash that sees the Hebrew word for elderly, “zaken” as an acronym for ‘zeh shekaneh chochma’ — a person who has acquired wisdom. Some rabbis saw the driving force of this wisdom not only in our life experience but simply in our internal psycho-physiological dynamic – in the fact that over time our spirits gain more and more control over our desires. In youth, the body’s physicality often significantly dominates the life of a person, to the extent that young people are often a prey to hedonistic urges and impulses. Those impulses are sometimes destructive and gaining control over them at a young age requires a lot of focus and effort. But as those physical forces weaken over time, our souls steadily take over the control over our instincts and physical desires, especially if we train ourselves spiritually starting in our youth. The fact that our souls gain more and more control over our lives makes us less animalistic and – more human! The Chassidic Rebbe of Ger, who regularly visited people in nursing homes expressed this idea in the following way:

“They barely have bodies left and their physical yearnings have long been abandoned. When I look at them, I see pure souls. And there is nothing more inspiring than spending time with pure souls!”

However, in order to appreciate the aging process, in order to enjoy all these advantages I just mentioned: being respected, knowledgeable, wise, more powerful and more “human”, one has to live more wisely while still young. If someone says “I wish I were young again’ it often, although not always, reflects unsatisfied and unfulfilled lives that haven’t found any meaning. If you did find meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back – you want to go forward, to see more, do more…

The Talmud delineates the different stages of life: Age 30 is for peak physical strength, and age 80 is for peak spiritual strength. In the secular, modern world, where physical strength and beauty is still significantly emphasized, a person at age 80 is regarded – often and unfortunately – as having little value. In the Torah world, 80 is prime time! The Talmud also states, “For hedonistic people, the more they age, the more their minds wane; but for Torah scholars, the more they age, the more sharpened their minds become” (Kinim, 3:6). The lesson from it is quite simple: we always have to properly balance the two realms we live in – physical with spiritual and spiritual with physical. At the peak of our physical strength we need to work on our spirituality and self-control, to avoid the damage our desires may cause to us. At the peak of our spirituality we need to work on our physicality: use our developed, spiritual forces and knowledge to animate our bodies in order to postpone our physical decline as much as we can.

As the famous aphorism says: “Watch your thoughts. Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, and habits become who you are.” If we don’t create good habits when we are young, if we don’t train ourselves to value wisdom while we are still vigorous, we significantly reduce our chances to live happily during old age. By living meaningfully while still being young, we enhance and sharpen our life’s purpose as senior citizens. In other words, if you begin to live wisely and sensibly early in your life, time will be on your side – maybe not always your friend but certainly not your unequivocal enemy.

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Mirski