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THE DILEMMAS OF AGING
Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman
Washington Hebrew Congregation
April 3, 2009 – 9 Nisan 5769
A friend asked: “How do you feel being 90?” I answered: “Very surprised!” No one in my family has
reached this age. I thank God for this milestone, but realize that from now on, I must count my future
years in single digits. This thought does not depress me, nor does death frighten me – something I
shall try to explain at the end of my remarks.
This is also my 40th year as your rabbi, the most thrilling and fulfilling years of my life. It makes me
think of the Biblical hero whose name I bear. After Joshua had journeyed forty years toward the
Promised Land, he was chosen by Moses to join a group of spies, to explore what was good and what
was bad about the Promised Land. There were twelve spies who split sharply in their report. A large
majority of ten rendered a most discouraging report. Only a minority of two, Joshua and Caleb, had
good things to say about the Land of Promise. Tonight I see this story as an allegory of my own
exploration of old age. Ever since my retirement twenty-three years ago, I have been exploring the
promised land of longevity. Although the majority opinion about old age is grim and repellent, I have
some good things to say about it.
When Charles Darwin began to think about marriage, he divided a sheet of paper into two sections:
“Marry” and “Not Marry.” Under the first heading, he noted that a wife is a “friend in old age – better
than a dog anyhow!” In the second column, he listed counter-arguments: “Perhaps quarreling and less
money for books,” and so forth. Using Darwin’s method, I am looking at the pros and cons of aging.
The column of negatives is quickly filled up.
We live in a youth enamored culture, whose sentiment was expressed by Shakespeare in two brief
lines: “Age, I do abhor thee. Youth, I do adore thee, the passionate pilgrim.” The Roman philosopher
Seneca called aging: “An incurable disease.” The novelist Philip Roth: “A massacre.” The composer
David Diamond lamented: “Age is torment. Only death can terminate the agonizing flow of
deterioration.” Undeniably, aging brings progressive decline – from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair.
We find a pathetic picture of an old man’s poor self-image, self-doubt and insecurity in T.S. Eliot’s
poem, Prufock’s Lament: “I grow old, I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I
part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?”
Besides physical impairments in old age are psychological ones. Some years ago, an elderly member
of our congregation, Janet Neuman, wrote a poem:
Old age is joy and sorrow,
Success and despair,
A life free from worry,
Or burdened with care –
But, not hope.
It’s the end of the journey,
The last part of the ride,
Partly smooth and partly bumpy,
Bolstered by pride –
But, not hope.
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One by one,
Friends leave the scene.
You’re left alone
To think. . . and dream.
But, not hope.
Dylan Thomas was enraged by old age: “Old age should burn and rage at the close of day. . . rage,
rage against the dying of the day.” It is an important rage, for you cannot arrest age. The most you can
do is to conceal its signs. Millions of people do so at great expense, giving the cosmetic industry a
huge slice of the world’s economy. It demonstrates our dilemma as well, said Benjamin Franklin: “All
want to live longer, but not grow old.”
Does age have compensations in those so-called “Harvest Years?” What are those compensations?
Like Joshua, who rendered a positive report about the Promised Land, I have some favorable things to
say about this final phase of life. When I first Robert Browning’s line, “Grow old with me . . . the best is
yet to be,” I questioned it as poetic license. Now, more than 20 years since my retirement at age 67, I
have come to recognize six reasons to justify Robert Browning’s positive view of old age.
First is the gain of tranquility. All the important decisions have been made in earlier years. I have
wrestled with my vocational choice, searched for a suitable spouse, created a home, raised children,
established myself in my career and have no more need to prove myself. I have walked the walk, had
my failures and successes. All the pressures have eased. I am more relaxed than ever. I take my
afternoon naps; and, what a joy to find on my calendar empty pages with nothing to do.
A second gain was defined by Plato more than two millennia ago: The cooling of passion.” You
might call it the doctrine of insignificance. If a matter is not truly significant or important, don’t fret,
don’t worry, and don’t get yourself worked up. Ignore it! We get less frantic, less pushy in advanced
age. Sean O’Casey wrote in his eighties: “One likes to sit back and let the world turn by itself without
trying to push it.”
Age does not render us indifferent to the world’s problems, to the ills of society, to the suffering and
unhappiness of people around us. But the experience of a long life teaches us that not all problems
can be solved; and certainly, not by ourselves. As President Obama admitted: “There is no quick fix
for the world’s economic crisis.” The politics of the Middle East will fester for a long time to come.
Some of our intimately personal problems have no solution. All we can and must do is endure, which
we are better able to do in old age than in our younger years.
The third gain that comes with old age is what I call ‘the art of submission.’ The poetess Anne
Marx learned it when undergoing cancer treatment: “The force beyond,” she wrote, “was now in
charge of my fate. I have become a submitter.” There are passages in life you cannot control. You
must submit, let go, accept the unalterable. If you cannot change a health, family or financial problem;
change your attitude. Stop fighting. Accept what must be; and strangely, this kind of surrender to the
unchangeable is conducive to peace of mind.
The fourth gift harvested in old age is liberation from the compulsion or urge of setting
everyone else straight. I am no longer looking to win every argument. The intensity of your
conviction is no proof that you are right. More often than before, it occurs to me that I might be wrong,
that I don’t have all the answers. I have learned to listen more and talk less. I am less dismissive of
opinions I disagree with, more willing to consider the merits of the other side. Shall I say it marks a
growth, however modest, of humility?
The fifth dividend of old age is greater appreciation and gratitude. I have become more attentive
to old and new friends. More often than before I keep in touch with old friends and reach out to new,
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especially, younger people. And, at my age, that means just about everyone else. I take to heart
Samuel Johnson’s remark at 75: “I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new
acquaintance.” In response to all the bad news in the world, I make a deliberate effort to be thankful
for small favors, the courteous driver, the bank teller’s cheerful greeting, the mail carrier’s
conscientiousness, the kindness of good neighbors, and my doctor’s unfailingly prompt response to
my call. I have discovered the truth of the opening words of Psalm 92: “It is good to give thanks.”
Giving thanks is the most effective and harmless mood-changer – the best antidote to cynicism and
pessimism.
Earlier in life, with many years to look forward to, I felt like a millionaire in time, freely spending and
wasting it. Now, that my supply of time has shrunk, I appreciate far more each day, each hour, every
bit of new knowledge and every moment with people I care for.
The sixth and most important gain is more involvement with three generations of my family –
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Best of all is my love affair with a married woman
– Maxine, my wife; and, my severest critic and yet, unfailing support in almost sixty-five years of
marriage. What a blessing to be together each day. I say of Maxine, as did Akiba about his beloved
Rachel: “mah ani, shelah” – “Whatever I am, I owe to her.”
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Clearly, there is a debit and profit side to old age. With the loss of youth, much else is lost. We cannot
prevent physical decline, although some are in denial, like old Mark Twain, who insisted that his
memory was not failing: “I remember everything, whether it happened or not.” Our son-in-law David
has comforting words for memory loss: “If you can’t remember something – forget it!”
Do I think of death? Who does not? Of course, I do; but, different from the way I thought about it
earlier in my life:
In childhood, death was a frightening monster.
In youth, death was something that happened to others, not me.
In middle-age, I wrestled intellectually with the fact of death and tried to understand it, but without
conclusions.
In old age, I’ve given up the effort to comprehend death. I can no more understand the reason for
death than for life.
More than ever, I am amazed. My dominant mood is a sense of wonder at existence. I feel tossed into
life by another power, by a will other than my own; and, far beyond my ability to understand. Why are
we put into this life? What is it all about?
Ten years ago, I confessed at this pulpit my inability to grasp the meaning of life. I am as perplexed
tonight as I was then; and so, I ask again: “Why must life be so uncertain and on the brink of
extinction? I imagine God answering: ‘Who are you to make demands? Life is not an entitlement. You
are here because I put you here; and, you must live on whatever terms I set for your existence. I love
you in my own way, which is not necessarily the way you want to be loved.”
We are full of unanswered questions, the most perplexing of which is: What is the point of it all? To be
human is forever wondering, why? My definition of religion is the search for what is missing in this life,
the search for answers to unanswerable questions and believing that God knows what we cannot
know.
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Many years ago, in a Kol Nidre sermon, I confessed to be mystified – as I am now – by the meaning of
life, but I said: “One thing is clear. If one is isolated from others, uninvolved in family, friendship or
community, an individual person has no more meaning than an amputated finger in a jar. Each of us
is the biological extension of his parents, of his people and, ultimately, of the first form of created life.
The mystics tell us that we are even extensions of the Creator, Himself. Richard Beer-Hofmann
expressed for us our absolute connectedness: “We are but riverbeds. Through you and me runs the
blood of the past to those who shall be.”
The meaning of our life is somewhere in the connection. which we have with all living things. Our
purpose is inseparable form the larger purpose of the universe. At this point, we face the realm of the
unknowable; and, where it is idle to speculate.
As for death, I reject the term: “Departure.” We are not departing this world, we are not going
anywhere. We’re staying in God’s world, and will be forever connected with our Maker. I can’t prove
this by rational arguments. It is my leap of faith. In that faith, I recite each night the sentence from
Psalm 31:6:
B’yado afkid ruchi, beyt ishan v’a-eera
V’im ruchi geviyyati, Adonai lee, v’lo ira
“In God’s hand I entrust my spirit, when asleep and when awake,
My body and spirit, God is with me, I shall not fear.”
Let us go on, measuring our life with coffee spoons, as long we can. L’Chayim – To Life... and, to our
unending existence with God, in whatever form.
Amen