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COMMUNITY SERVICE VOLUNTEERS
Edith Kahn Memorial Trust
EDITH KAHN MEMORIAL LECTURE
W 0 R K
,
L E I S U R E
A N D
P U R P O S E
Rabbi John D. Rayner
LEO BAECK COLLEGE
~\ Llamas?!
House of Commons
2nd March, 1992
WORK, LEISURE AND PURPOSE
EDITH KAHN MEMORIAL LECTURE
Edith Kahn Memorial Trust, CSV (Community Service Volunteers)
House of Commons, 2nd March 1992
John D. Rayner
Edith Kahn
It is a privilege to honour the memory of Edith Kahn, whose
death occurred four years ago yesterday.
I knew her both as a
member of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue_and as_a friend.
Her
outstanding quality was a unique combination of vitality and
joviality.
One cannot imagine her ever having been bored.
She
was always engaged upon some task, and eager to get on with it,
not as a debt to be discharged but as an opporhuuty to be
relished.
She lived her life with a sense of urgency, and
enjoyed every minute of it.
Two quotations may help to epitomise that twofold quality. One
is the motto of a second-century rabbi: "The day is short, and
the task is great, and the workers are sluggish, and the wages
are high, and the Master of the house is urgent" (Mishnah, Avot
2:15).
The other is a Psalm verse inscribed over the Ark of the
Synagogue to which I have already referred: "Serve the Lord with
gladness" (Psalm 100:2).
What is especially relevant for our purpose tonight is that
Edith retained that twofold quality in full measure after her
retirement.
She was just as happily busy as before: organising
the Hampstead Millennium, and the CSV Silver Jubilee, and giving
service to other good causes such as the London Symphony
Orchestra and the Purcell School for Music.
How did she do it?
Perhaps heredity and upbringing had
favoured her with a double portion of energy and a sunny
temperament.
But I hope and believe that there was another
reason: an affirmation of life and a resolve to use it well, from
which we can all learn.
’
Retirement
when I say "we", I mean all of us, but especially the retired.
The problems of the retired are somewhat similar to those of the
handicapped and the unemployed, whom CSV also seeks to help. But
I have the retired especially in mind, not only because I am a
relatively recent member of the club myself, but because Edith'
Kahn had a special interest in it, as evidenced by the fact that
the CSV’s Retired and Senior Volunteers Programme or RSVP was her
brainchild, and she was its National Organiser.
.The terms "retired" and "senior" refer to two categories which
are not identical but largely overlap, and to that extent share
common problems.
Physically, they are likely, with advancing
age, to experience diminishing strength and mobility.
Mentally,
their powers of memory, and their ability to learn new things,
may decline.
Socially and economically, their circle of
contemporaries is liable to dwindle, their savings may run low,
and they may find themselves living alone or in sheltered
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housing.
Spiritually, many of them feel lonely and bored,
unwanted and unuseful. and depressed by the thought
that, as time passes, there will be less and less to look forward
unneeded,
to.
A sense of purpose
About this last - the spiritual malaise - I would like to
submit that, at its deepest level, it stems from the lack, or
loss, of a sense of purpose.
There is abundant evidence that a sense of purpose is what
keeps us going.
In the absence of it we become lethargic and
apathetic, and we may even lose the will to live.
Not only
doctors and nurses, but all who have observed critically ill
patients, know that whether or not they feel that they have
something important to live for is often what makes all the
difference between recovery and failure to recover.
The point is therefore obvious enough, but let me adduce two
witnesses to reinforce it. One is Ernest Becker, rediscoverer of
Freud’s pupil Otto Rank. The central thesis of his prize-winning
book, The Denial of Death, is that the deepest of all human needs
is to find meaning in life in spite of the inevitability of
death.
He speaks of the "anxiety of meaninglessness" (p. 279)
and concludes that "man must reach out for support to a dream, a
metaphysic of hope that sustains him and makes his life
worthwhile" (p. 275).
My other witness is Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist
who spent three years in Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
Subsequently he recorded his experiences and observations, and on
the basis of them constructed a whole theory of mental health
which he called logotherapy.
What he noticed in the camps is
that those who gave up hope died quickly, and only those who
believed that they had something to live for had any chance at
all of surviving, slender as those chances were for all.
Therefore, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he-wrote: "It is
a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the
future" (p. 72)
"According to logotherapy," he continued, "this
striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary
motivational force in man" (p. 99).
The question I want to ask, therefore, is: What meaning and
purpose might life continue to have for the retired in spite of
their retirement and in spite of their aging?
I am not, of
course, suggesting that the answer must be the same for
everybody.
Against such a notion Viktor Frankl warned when he
wrote: "Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find
the right answers to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which
it constantly sets for each individual.
These tasks, and
therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from
moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of
life in any general way" (op. cit., p. 77).
But, keeping that
warning in mind, let us nevertheless consider whether some valid
generalisations are possible.
Work Versus leisure
For many people the meaning and purpose of life are intimately
bound up with their work — understandably, since that is what
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they have chosen to do, what they have been trained for, and what
they are good at.
From the time they leave school or
until they retire, it is how they spend most of their college
waking
hours, especially when travel time to and from the place of work
is also taken into account.
Through their work they seek to
fulfil themselves, to realise their ambitions, and to make
their
contribution to society.
For some, their occupation is a
preoccupation and even an addiction; we call them workaholics.
But for many more it is that dimension of their life which they
take most seriously, on which they expend the greater part of
their talents and energies. Leisure, by contrast, is not a time
for anything as serious as the pursuit of goals; it is a time to
rest, to relax, to enjoy oneself, and to recharge one’s batteries
for the next day’s work.
Such people have a problem when they retire, or when they are
made redundant.
They don’t know what to do with themselves.
They need to be active, but they have never thought of
off—duty
time as a time for activity rather than passivity, and they
have
never been taught to use leisure creatively. Of course some will
carry on working part-time or voluntarily, and for some that may
be a very satisfactory way of spending their retirement
But much depends on the nature of the occupation. A writeryears.
will
go on writing, a painter will go on painting, and a politician
may go on politicking, and others may continue as a hobby what
they have previously done for a living. But for many that is not
an available option. The soldier will not go on soldiering,
the
bus driver will not go on driving buses, and the postman will not
go on delivering letters.
At the other extreme there are those who look on work
drudgery, a necessary evil, something one has to do in order as
to
learn a livelihood.
They see no other purpose in the work they
do, and therefore take no pride or pleasure in it.
It is easy to
be critical of such an attitude if our own occupation happens
to
be of absorbing interest.
But for many work is repetitive and
dull.
Indeed, with the Industrial Revolution that became true
for the great majority.
It is hard to see what job
there can be in William Blake’s "dark Satanic mills". satisfaction
The situation is, however, changing, and if Alvin Toffler is
right, for the better.
The micro—chip revolution, which he
regards (to quote the title of the book to which I am referring)
as "The Third Wave” in the history of civilisation, following
agricultural and industrial revolutions, is generatingthea
different
kind of economy, using
energy,
environmentally cleaner, smaller—scale, renewable
favouring cottage
industry and customised manufacture.
"The new civilisation," he
writes, "...could...turn out to be the first truly humane
civilisation in recorded history" (p. 27).
Perhaps that is
overly optimistic, but it does seem likely that
tomorrow’s
computer operators will find their work more stimulating
and
congenial than yesterday’s factory workers.
Nevertheless many people will continue to regard work as a
necessity and seek fulfilment, rather, in their leisure.
will work to live rather than live to work. Such people haveThey
an
obvious advantage when it comes to retirement. Indeed, for them
retirement can hardly come too soon, as long as they
managed
to save enough; it is a kind of liberation. They willhave
just
carry
on those leisure interests which have always been the
focus of
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their lives, and rejoice that now they can devote so much more
time to them.
And yet they too may have problems, depending on the nature of
their interests. Their lives may have been centred on sport, or
travel, or children, or marriage.
But as they grow older, sport
may become too strenuous and travel too expensive; their children
will leave home and lead their own lives, perhaps abroad; and
they may find themselves widowed or divorced.
Furthermore, the interests that satisfied them when they were
young may not satisfy them when they grow old and begin to
contemplate their death. Then it may occur to them that to spend
most of their time playing bingo, or bridge, or golf, or watching
football, may not be the best possible use of the remainder of
their one and only life on this earth.
Therefore the kind of purpose the retired need must be both
sustainable and significant: sustainable beyond the time when
they retire from work and their powers decline and their
circumstances change, and significant enough to give them a sense
of self—fulfilment when they grow old and look back on what they
have made of their lives.
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Work and leisure: a Jewish perspective
Before we come to the key question, what such sustainable and
significant purposes might be, let us pause to consider what
traditional wisdom has to say about the relative importance of
work and leisure.
In my case, I naturally turn to Jewish
tradition, but I don’t doubt that other traditions have similar
guidance to offer.
At first sight Judaism might seem to support the view that work
is a necessary evil, for in the Garden—of—Eden story the exertion
which work involves is explained as a curse imposed on humanity
in punishment for Adam’s disobedience: "By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread" (Gen. 3:19). But these popular explanations
of origins in the early chapters of Genesis must not be taken as
value judgments; they have a different, aetiological purpose.
Much more relevant is the commandment, "Six days shall you
labour” (Ex. 20:9, 23:12, Deut. 5:13), which implies that to work
is to do God's will.
There are also explicitly positive evaluations of work, as when
the Psalmist says: "When you eat the labour of your hands, happy
shall you be, and it shall go well with you" (128:2). And in the
Talmud we find the classical statement: "Great is work, for it
confers dignity on those who do it" (n~>u: nu nwaanw nzx7n n?11:,
Ned. 49b). "Dignity," we might ask, in what sense? It is partly
a matter of the self-respect that comes with not being dependent
on the charity of others. But the matter goes deeper. For there
is in Jewish tradition the daring concept that "man is a copartner with God in the work of creation" (Shab. 119b). Work is
a creative and therefore God-like activity.
This high evaluation was not applied only to the more exalted
occupations.
Most of the Rabbis of the talmudic period were
humble craftsmen and traders; one of the most revered was a
shepherd, another was a blacksmith.
A favourite saying of the
Rabbis was: "I am God’s creature and my fellow is God’s creature.
My work is in the town and his work is in the country.
I rise
early for my work and he rises early for his work. Just as he
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does not presume to do my work, so I do not presume to do his
work. Will you then say, ’I do much.and he does little’? Surely
we have been taught: ’It matters not whether a person does much
or little as long as they direct their heart to Heaven’ (that is
to say, as long as their motive is to serve God; 1:> 1‘13-w 13>:1
n‘nwv, Ber. 173).
This Rabbinic teaching may remind us of George Herbert’s great
hymn, "Teach me, my God and King, / in all things thee to see, /
And what I do in anything / To do it as for thee...A servant with
this clause / Makes drudgery divine; / Who sweeps a room as for
Thy laws / Makes that and the action fine" (Songs of Praise, No.
652).
But that verse is an expression of the Protestant work
ethic which, in turn, is said to derive from Calvinism with its
doctrine that hard work, thrift and efficiency are signs of
election; and that is not exactly what the Rabbis had in mind,
nor, of course, would they have approved of the misuse of that
doctrine as a way of persuading menial workers to accept their
lot in a capitalist system unredeemed by social justice.
According to Judaism, we don’t live to work. Work is merely
one of the things we are required to do conscientiously and to
put our best efforts into. A typical talmudic teaching is: "Four
things require exertion: Torah, good deeds, prayer and work"
(V18 1131 nvnn ,ninuu
,nw1n :1n 1>R1 p1rn 1‘:'13 nuafik,
Ber. 32b).
The word Torah, which I left untranslated in that quotation, is
usually translated "Law" but really means "Teaching". It refers
to the Hebrew Bible, with special emphasis on the Pentateuch, as
well as the soLcalled "Oral Law", that is to say, a vast and
ukn
constantly growing body of traditions which seeks,
by
interpreting Scripture and in other ways, to answer the question,
"What does the Lord your God require of you?" (Deut. 10:12) for
every aspect of human life. Often, however, as in the saying I
have just quoted, torah is short for talmud torah, the study of
Scripture and Tradition, though always with the implication that
the purpose of the exercise is to translate what we learn into
practice by doing God’s will.
The Pharisees and their successors, the Rabbis, laid enormous
emphasis on the study of Torah in this sense. To them it was the
most worth—while of all human activities.
How, they thought,
could there be anything more important or more rewarding than to
try to understand the mind of the Creator. who is the Source of
all wisdom and goodness and the Author of the ground—rules on
which all human self-fulfilment and happiness depend?
Consequently the study of Torah is praised in Rabbinic Judaism
as the highest of all human duties (Pe’ah 1:1) and one which
"Turn it over and over," said one of the Rabbis,
never ceases.
"for everything is in it; contemplate it, grow old and spend
yourself in the study of it, and never stir from it, for you can
have no better rule than that" (Avot 5:22).
And Maimonides
summed up the Rabbinic View when he wrote: "Every Jew is
obligated to study Torah, whether he is rich or poor, well or
sick, young or old” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah 1:8).
What then is the purpose of life? To the Pharisees and Rabbis
the answer was_perfectly obvious. It is to learn and do the will
of God. The greatest of them, Hillel, said as much: "If you have
learnt much Torah, do not claim any special virtue, for that is
the purpose for which you were created" (Avot 2:8).
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But if so,
then,
for all
importance of work,
the emphasis of Judaism on the
dignity
it confers and the
conscientiousness with which it must be done, nevertheless the
principal context for the pursuit of life’s purpose is not
working time but leisure time. From that point of View, work is
an interruption — a necessary interruption and one that has
intrinsic value, but an interruption nevertheless - of living in
The ideal life combines work and study (35'
the highest sense.
vwx 111 an n11n 11n>n, Avot 2:2) but work is secondary and study
primary (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayyim 156).
It should be remembered, too, that the commandment, "Six days
shall you labour and do all your work," continues, "but the
seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God". In other words,
if work is divinely ordained, so is leisure.
Indeed, according
to Jewish tradition, the Sabbath is_the holiest day of the week,
and one that is to be used, not only passively, for rest, but
actively, for prayer and study.
the
Possible purposes
We are therefore looking for sustainable and significant
purposes which we might set ourselves both when we are young and
when we are old, both during our working lives and After
For
retirement, and especially during our times of leisure.
leisure is something we have in larger or smaller measure at
every stage of life; it merely expands in volume when we retire.
Only it then expands so massively that, unless we have long been
in the habit of using our free time purposefully, we may find the
challenge too daunting at that late stage.
In speaking mainly of the use of leisure I don’t wish to
exclude purposes that run across the work/leisure divide.
For some people the nature of their
Clearly there are such.
occupation serves a purpose that is relevant both during and
outside working time, and both before and after retirement. As I
said before, a writer will go on writing, and so forth.
Indeed,
for some people the dividing line between work and leisure is
quite indeterminate. A minister of religion, when asked to visit
a dying patient, would hardly stop to wonder whether it fell
within his or her terms of employment to respond to the request.
Furthermore, some purposes transcend the divide for the simple
reason that they involve human relations and are therefore as
relevant in the work—place as they are at home.
Indeed, it may
well be that the most important purposes are of that kind.
What then are the possibilities? They are of course unlimited
in number, and what suits one person may not suit another.
But
let us pick out, almost at random, a few examples.
Some.might be grouped under the general heading of "increasing
our knowledge".
All of us have some intellectual curiosity,
though some seem to have more than others, and our educational
system could no doubt do more than it does to stimulate it. Most
people must often say to themselves: I wish I knew more about
this, that or the other subject.
It may be birds or trees or
wild flowers. It may be music or architecture or literature. It
may be any one of the hundreds of subjects in which courses are
offered by the Adult Education Institutes or the Open University.
During our busy working years we may only be able to dabble in
these topics: when we retire we can go into them more deeply.
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What a wonderful opportunity retirement gives us to find out all
the things we always wanted to know about all sorts of things!
Some possibilities might be grouped under the general heading
of "improving our skills".
For people who prefer to use their
hands rather than only their minds, there is an endless range of
skills that can be developed and exercised, or even newly
acquired, in any one of the hundreds of arts and crafts, such as
knitting or sewing, book-binding or basket—making, flower—
arranging or painting.
Whatever knowledge or skill we achieve we can of course share
with others who have similar interests in mutual give—and-take.
In any case every self-improvement benefits others as well as
ourselves. We become more interesting people to be with. We may
also become better or pleasanter people. Yoga or other forms of
meditation, or religious exercises such as prayer, worship,
observance and Scripture study: all these may help us to grow in
self—knowledge, tranquillity and poise, and any such gain will
inevitably transmit itself to those about us.
But the most obviously desirable kind of purpose is one which
actually seeks to benefit others, both because it does so and
because it helps us, as we grow older, to resist the temptation
of indulging in self—pity.
There is therefore a third group of
purposes which we may broadly call "altruistic".
Such a purpose may take an entirely general form such as good
neighbourliness. Since "love your neighbour as yourself" is the
chief ethical commandment according to Judaism as well as
Christianity, and other religions as well as humanistic
ideologies have similar doctrines, such an understanding of the
purpose of life should commend itself to almost everybody; and
what is more, everybody is capable of doing it.
For it doesn’t
necessarily require any strenuous physical exertion. A friendly
smile or an encouraging word is often sufficient to sweeten the
day for a fellow human being.
A beautifully kept front garden
will give pleasure to passers-by, and I know a retired teacher
aged 97 who spends much of her time writing little notes to
former pupils all over the world just to assure them that she
remembers them and cares for them. I am referring, then, to what
Wordsworth called "That best portion of a good man's life, / His
little, nameless, unremembered acts / Of kindness and of love"
(Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 1. 27).
Such
acts are within the capacity of all of us, and as long as that is
so we have no right to say that we are not needed.
As well as "general" altruism, there are many forms of
"particular" altruism, directed towards specific categories of
persons in need, or other good causes.
Here again the
possibilities are endless. We may wish to help the lonely or the
bereaved, the homeless or the handicapped, the sick or the
sufferers from a particular disease.
We may wish to help the
cause of abused children, or battered wives, or drug addicts, or
prisoners of conscience, or the victims of war and famine.in one
part of the world or another.
It would be easy to prolong the
catalogue.
There is, alas, no shortage of people in need of
help.
But equally, there is no shortage of people capable of
helping them. To bring the two together is the work of CSV. And
though I have used the term "altruism", it needs to be stressed
that, as voluntary social workers constantly testify, the helpers
benefit at least as much as the helped.
The larger dimension
So there are many purposes, of various degrees of magnitude,
which we can adopt and, by adopting them, fill our days, before
and after retirement, with meanihg. But they assume even greater
significance if we see them in the larger context of community
and posterity.
We are not only individuals but members of a whole series of
cqncentric communities — city, country ahd humanity. The way we
live makes its contribution, for good or ill, to each of these,
and not only in the present but in the future as well.
An
ancient Jewish Bible commentary tells the story of a very old man
laboriously trying to plant a fig tree who, when asked why he is
going to so much trouble since he can’t possibly expect to live
long enough to reap the fruit, replies: "As my ancestors worked
for me, so I work for my descendants" (Eccles. R. 2:20).
We are all willy—nilly engaged in creating - or destroying something bigger than ourselves.
Surely, therefore, we should
feel an obligation to do our bit, however infinitesimal it may
be, to help to make our city, and our country, and indeed the
world, a cleaner, healthier, happier and more beautiful place not
only for ourselves but for future generations.
The question of
purpose therefore has a collective as well as a purely personal
dimension.
As one who, like Edith Kahn, came to this country as a refugee
and feels an added measure of affection for it on that account, I
am saddened by what seems to me its loss of a national sense of
purpose.
There are many reasons for it.
One is that the
solidarity we felt during the Second World War, when we were all
facing a common threat, was in the nature of the case exceptional
and could not be expected to endure.
Another is that we have
long lacked the kind of inspiring leadership Churchill provided.
A third reason is the decline of Britain as a world power.
A
fourth, which goes back much further than the War, is thé
weakening of Christianity as a cohesive force.
A fifth is the
creeping materialism of British society which neither
Christianity nor the other religions have been able to reverse.
Yet another, in my view, is the way in which the political
parties always stress their differences, never acknowledge their
common ground and, especially in the run—up to an election, talk
about their opponents as if they were nothing but a bunch of
idiots and scoundrels.
Whatever the reasons, gone very largely is the perception that
Britain has a unique role to play, and example to set, in world
affairs: the kind of Vision that inspired William Blake when he
wrote the famous hymn that ends: "...Till we have built Jerusalem
/ In England’s green and pleasant land" (Songs of Praise, No.
446).
It should not be impossible to re—create such a vision of the
"British Way and Purpose" (to quote the title of a book much used
as a morale—boosting educational text in the Forces during the
War).
Obviously, it could not be exclusively Christian.
It
would have to take into account the religiously diversified
nature of contemporary British society. It would therefore have
to enunciate common-denominator values which Christians, Muslims,
Jews and Humanists could jointly affirm.
In 1967 Archbishop
9
Geoffrey Fisher made a proposal somewhat on those lines, and I
wrote to him, offering support; but nothing much came of it.
The attempt should be renewed, and there are precedents which
could serve as basis; for instance, the "Affirmations" of the
annual Commonwealth Observance in Westminster Abbey. At any rate
there is an urgent need to rediscover the truth that
"righteousness exalts a nation" (Prov. 14:34), and therefore to
evolve the vision of a society in this country which will set an
example to other countries, not by its military might, or by its
"performance in the league—tables of material prosperity" (Paul
Johnson, The Offshore Islanders, p. 412), but by the quality of
its national life in terms of freedom, justice, tolerance,
compassion, health care, hospitality to asylum seekers,
generosity to underdeveloped countries, humane treatment of
animals, respect for the environment, the beauty of its
countryside, the cleanness of its rivers and beaches, the
excellence of its architecture and town planning, and of its art,
literature and music.
The renewal of such a sense of national purpose would help
individual citizens of all ages by enabling them to feel that
they are involved in a worth-while enterprise transcending their
own lives.
It would help them to overcome Ernest Becker’s
"anxiety of meaninglessness" (see above, p. 2).
But the scenario can be, and needs to be, enlarged still
further, to embrace all humanity and the remote as well as the
proximate future.
From a Hebraic point of View — differently
expressed but fundamentally shared by Judaism, Christianity and
Islam - history is a redemptive process divinely destined to
culminate in a perfect age, when all will acknowledge and worship
the One God, good will triumph over evil, and human potential
will attain its fulfilment in a world at peace.
That goal, however distant and hard to conceive it may be,
lends meaning and purpose to every human life. It means that we
are all caught up in a cosmic drama, and able to aid or hinder
the advancement of the plot.
If we hold such a View, then
nothing we do is without significance. Then every choice we make
derives from it a kind of sacred urgency.
If Ernest Becker was
right, that "man must reach out for support to a dream, a
-metaphysic of hope that sustains him and makes his life
worthwhile" (see above, p. 2), then the Hebraic View of history
satisfies that need.
I believe that some such "metaphysic of hope" exerts a powerful
influence, consciously or unconsciously, on many people, and
induces in them a heightened sense of responsibility for the use
they make of their lives. I believe that, whether she knew it or
not, that was deep down what motivated Edith Kahn; and if that is
so, then the extraordinary zest with which she lived should be
capable, to some extent, of emulation.
The role of education
I have not forgotten Viktor Frankl’s warning that "it is
impossible to define the meaning of life in any general way" (see
above, p. 2). I hope I have indicated sufficiently that there is
room for a great variety of purposes, of smaller as welL as
larger scope, all of which may be valid for different people at
different times, and any of which can save us from the "anxiety
10
of meaninglessness" in our retirement years, provided only that
they are not so trivial as to be insignificant, and that they are
sustainable beyond retirement.
It is, however, essential that education should stimulate and
help us to choose such purposes for ourselves, and I am afraid
It prepares us for work rather
that it largely fails to do so.
than for leisure, for our role_as producers and consumers rather
than as human beings and citizens who are called upon to receive
and transmit culture, to make moral choices, and to exercise
It teaches us how to earn a living but
social responsibility.
wonder
live.
No
that so many people are neither
not how to
motivated nor equipped to use their free time creatively, and
therefore experience a sense of boredom and futility when they
retire and grow old.
There is therefore an urgent need to reconsider not only the
way education is organised but the purpose for which it exists.
The Hebraic View is clear: the aim of education is to transmit
from generation to generation a knowledge of the Divine Will and
a disposition to do it.
In the words of Deutero—Isaiah, "All
your children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the
peace of your children" (54:13). But the ancient Greeks, too, as
represented by their noblest thinkers, regarded education as
serving a cultural and even moral purpose rather than merely a
vocational one. Sir Richard Livingstone, in a lecture on "Plato
and Modern Education" which he gave in Cambridge in 1944, summed
up their View by saying that "Education exists for the sake of
the good life, and not only for the sake of life” (The Rede
And he went on to
Lecture, Cambridge University Press, p. 30).
"The
Plato’s
conception
of education
between
main
difference
say:
and our own is that his concern was to impart values, ours is to
impart knowledge..." (ibid., p. 32).
We need to return to such an understanding of the purpose of
education.
Surely the failure of our educational system "to
transmit values" must be held responsible for many of the ills of
our society; and though that very failure, along with other
motives, prompts more and more parents to send their children to
denominational schools, that trend does not absolve the state
schools from remedying the failure. Hence the great importance,
to which I have already referred, of formulating a common—
denominator set of values which may serve as a basis for that
all—important function of education in a pluralistic society.
The age factor
Is what I have been saying too idealistic, and, in particular,
have I made too little allowance for the very real problems
associated with retiring and aging to which I briefly alluded at
the beginning? If so, let me redress the balance.
Yes, retirement can be a traumatic experience, and there is
much to be said for easing the process by providing for a
transitional period during which the retiring work part-time or
act as consultants or instructors of the young.
And yes, the
aging process brings its disabilities.
The Bible has no illusions about that.
We recall the
splendidly metaphorical passage in Ecclesiastes that begins:
"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days
of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, ’I
11
have no pleasure in them’; before the sun and the light and the
moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the
rain; in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the
strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working
because they are few, and those who look through the windows see
dimly..." (12:1ff).
Shakespeare, in his version of the seven ages of man, describes
the process more bluntly: "...Last scene of all, / That ends this
strange eventful history, / Is second childishness, and mere
oblivion, / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything"
(As You Like It, II, vii, 163—66).
There is realism, as well as humour and pathos, in that
description; and if some old people, weighed down by past blows
of fate and present aches and pains, become drained of vitality
and withdraw into themselves, we can only sympathise with them.
But for most people the disadvantages of growing old are
counterbalanced, to some extent at least, by advantages. In many
times and places the old have been venerated as possessors and
transmitters of the accumulated wisdom of the tribe’s or
society’s culture.
The Bible, too, speaks of old age as an
"You shall rise up before the aged, and
honourable condition.
defer to the old," enjoins the book of Leviticus (19:32).
And
the apocryphal book of Sirach observes: "How attractive is wisdom
in the aged, and understanding and counsel in the venerable!
Rich experience is the crown of the aged, and their boast is the
fear of the Lord" (2525f).
There are compensations in growing old.
Though we become
physically and mentally less agile and alert, we can and should
become wiser and more discriminating, better able to tell what is
important from what is unimportant, to understand ourselves and
our fellow human beings, to control our impulses, and so to use
our experience and our aptitudes to best advantage.
Why then is old age generally viewed so negatively in present—
day society? A number of reasons suggest themselves. One is the
materialism of our civilisation, which makes those who are not
wealth producers seem useless.
Another is the rapidity of
technological advance, which has fostered the notion that what is
new is necessarily best and what is old must be inferior.
A
third is the passing of the extended family, which has largely
deprived the old of their traditional role as transmitters of
culture.
Add all that to what we have already said about the
absence of a commonly accepted set of values and therefore sense
of purpose, and it is hardly surprising that the old tend to see
themselves the way society sees them, as a liability.
All the greater is the need to challenge and reverse this
perception.
As the late Rabbi Abraham.Joshua Heschel, an
outstanding American religious thinker, remarked, "Old age is
something we are all anxious to attain.
However, once attained
we consider it a defeat...What is necessary is a revision of
attitudes and conceptions.
Old age is not a defeat but a
victory, not a punishment but a privilege...May I suggest...that
old age be regarded as the age of opportunities for inner growth?
The years of old age...are...formative years, rich in
possibilities to unlearn the follies of a lifetime, to see
through inbred self-deceptions, to deepen understanding and
compassion, to widen the horizon of honesty, to refine the sense
of fairness ("To Grow In Wisdom", in Aging and Retirement
12
Experimental Edition, Union of American Hebrew Congregations,
1974, pp. 10—15, passim).
The use of time
Heschel then goes on to speak more generally about the use of
time: "We know what to do with space but do not know what to do
about time, except to make it subservient to space, or to while
it away, to kill time.
However, time is life, and to kill time
is to murder...Most of us do not live in time but run away from
it; we do not see its face, but its make—up...Blind to the marvel
of the present moment, we live with memories of moments missedr
in anxiety about an emptiness that lies ahead...Time is the
presence of God in the world of space...Every moment is a new
arrival, a new bestowal. Just to be is a blessing, just to live
is holy.
The moment is the marvel; it is in evading the marvel
of the moment that the boredom begins that ends in despair...The
aged think of themselves as belonging to the past.
But it is
precisely the openness to the present that they must strive
for...To get older does not mean to lose time but to rather to
gain time. And...the chief task of man is to sanctify time. All
it takes to sanctify time is God, a soul, and a moment.
And the
three are always here" (ibid., pp. 17f).
In a book called Gate of Repentance there is a prayer for the
Day of Atonement which makes the same point more simply: "Let us
treasure the time we have, and resolve to use it well. Let us
count each moment precious — a chance to apprehend some truth, to
experience some beauty, to conquer some evil, to relieve some
suffering, to love and be loved, to achieve something of lasting
worth" (pp. 370f).
*
*
*
There may or there may not be life after death. But there is
life after retirement. It is not endless and it is not painless;
but it can be purposeful and therefore meaningful and joyful.