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Growing Older Gracefully
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I have some gray hairs. Do I dare to count them? Just the fact that I have enough to count scares me, and turns getting old into a reality. Does having some gray hairs mean that I’m old? I’m certainly getting older. We all are. But why does it have to happen so quickly?
We just celebrated my birthday. I say “celebrated,” because we had cake and ice cream. My children even made me a crown. For my kids, any excuse for ice cream and cake is a celebration. I’m not sure if to me it was a thing to celebrate, though. I like the special attention that birthdays bring, but I don’t wait for them 364 days of the year like my children do. For them, another number means more privileges, more things that they get to do. For an adult, another number means less things that you can do, like: “I can’t run as fast as I used to. I can’t see as far as I used to . . . etc.”
I’m actually not sure what old feels likeI take another look in the mirror. Do I look older? Do I look old? I don’t feel old, but I’m actually not sure what old feels like. My grandfather would say you are only as old as you feel. It’s the mind that makes you old, not the body.
I go with my children to the old-age home near my apartment building. We walk inside the door. The contrast between my bouncing preschooler and the women sitting in the wheelchair by the door stops me in my tracks. Not so long ago, I was the bouncing preschooler. Not so long ago, these women were the mothers of small children. Fifty years ago they were me, and in fifty years I could be them. The visit, like my birthday, serves as a reality check. “Elana, life is so short and it goes by so quickly. Enjoy the moment that you are in, because you will never get it back.”
“Enjoy the moment that you are in . . .” I decide that this is going to be my birthday present to myself. This is also what I want to leave behind to my children after 120 years—the memory of a happy mommy who looked for the good in every situation and in every person. Is that possible? Can I do it? I decide to try to start just by not complaining. In any difficult situation that I find myself, I am going to try to find the one good thing about it, no matter how small that one good thing might be.
When Jacob came to Egypt, Joseph brought him before Pharaoh. The commentators explain that Jacob looked so frail and old that Pharaoh asked him with curiosity how old he was. Jacob answered, “The days of the years of my sojourns have been a hundred and thirty years. Few and bad have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not reached the lifespans of my forefathers in the days of their sojourns.” Jacob had a really hard life, and it showed on his face. He wasn’t just old in years when he stood before Pharaoh, he was old in suffering, old in outlook and old in misery. When Jacob said that his forefathers lived more, he meant it in the sense that every day of their existence was living, and they were able to carry out their difficult missions with a full heart and a positive demeanor.
I look at my gray hairs once again. Really, there are not so manyAbraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca all had incredibly difficult lives with tests and struggles, but we never hear that they complained. Not once does it report them as saying that they viewed the days of their lives as being few or bad. In fact, when Sarah dies at the age of 127, the Torah says that she lived “one hundred years, twenty years and seven years.” The commentators explain the Torah’s way of breaking down her age: at one hundred she was sinless as a twenty-year-old (until the age of twenty one does not suffer from heavenly punishment), and at twenty she was as beautiful as a seven-year-old, whose youthful beauty is natural and without need of any makeup. The thing that comes closest to a complaint is Sarah’s laughter of disbelief about the idea of having a child in her old age. The laughter of disbelief turned into a laughter of celebration, as the commentators expound for us that her menses returned and she bore a child at the age of ninety. Imagine having a son at ninety, and dying at 127, both sinless and beautiful!
I look at my gray hairs once again. Really, there are not so many. I take another look. I tell myself that they are signs of wisdom and maturity. Positive thinking. This is my birthday gift to myself. And really, I have yet to meet a happy person who looks old.
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Today I will be feeling these most beautiful of words. This is the poetry. Say them. Feel them. Let the ache pass. Feel the creak of oars on a sunkissed lake. To float. To feel that warmth. To be at peace with oneself in the world. To be in love.
Shalom Haverim. Shalom!
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I like the angle that Sarah's death was a reprimand to Hashem. You don't. Fine we disagree. Remember too, Sarah had the power of prophecy. Soemthing in this Akeida story went amiss. Such is life. As i mentioned before, Moses spent 40 days defusing Hashem's anger. It is because Hashem is perfect that he listened to what Moses had to say. My belief is that Sarah was sending Hshem a message. Possibly that is the point at which " klal " was established.
Beyond that i have a difficult time that only Abraham was challenged. Sarah was Isaac's mother. I cannot subscribe to the Satan angle. Even if it is true. Satan is a messenger of Hashem. That means that Hashem sent Satan to challenge Sarah. Sarah succumbed. The challenge was too much.
In closing i am not going to start arguing the point. An argument only has losers.
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is foreign to me. I do deeply believe that All is G_d, and yes, there is a story involving Satan, and it is in JOB, The Book of Job.
Do we Jews believe in Satan? I see that life has both good and evil and all that is in between, in terms of a continuum of how people act toward each other.
If Sarah had a vision then I would say, not knowing about this, that this Vision came from G_d. And then, one might ask, Why did she have this vision? To what purppose?
I do not like tests that involve the sacrifice of one's dearest, as in sons or daughters. I do not appreciate such a "test". Is this really a test of LOVE. And which way should it go?
Blind obedience, or not? I think the answers can be given in both directions depending on who is answering this question.
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The challenge of the Akeida was given to Avraham, not to Sarah. What happened was that the Satan lied and showed Sarah a vision of Yitzchak lying there dead and she did not know that H-shem had commanded the Akeida.
But just to make another point, irrelevant to the Akeida: It is a "klal", a rule of H-shem's, that He never gives a person a test that he cannot stand up to and pass. Every challenge, test , diffiicult siituation or temptation is tailor made for us. Because H. loves us and wants us to grow. So though we pray never to be tested, we have to know that if we are, it's a proof that we can do it. So never give up - just keep trying.
Today is Rosh Chodesh Elul. And I wish every one a good month, and may we succeed in the call of Elul,which is to to come closer to H-shem. "I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine".
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Isaac means, laughter. Within the word, slaughter, is, laughter.
I find this story, the Akeida, very disturbing, as do many people. And yes, what about, Sarah? How would any Mother feel under such circumstances? And why would G_d demand such a sacrifice of anyone. It feels so wrong, so wrong.
Since this story has so many reverberations, as indicated above, then we must attend to its meaning. Certainly in suffering, as we do in life, and some so deeply, there is this question of sacrifice. Are we being sacrificed, and, why?
If life has within it, an inbuilt learning curve, and since I must believe it all someone winds up happening for a reason, and that reason is Divine, and yet to be, divined, then somehow even the bad folds into the good.
This I know about story, and that is, all transformative change occurs through the fire, the fire of how we are forged, through pain, through obstacles. As the butterfly becomes emergent so are there stages of development in all that lives.
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Thanks for part 2 of your commentary. I did not recall Sarah ostracizing Abraham. I think that you have it correct. As soon as Sarah heard of the Akeida, she died from shock.
It is a primary example IMHO that Sarah was giving a message to Hashem. Be careful not to give challenges that are beyond a person. It is just an opinion that appeals to me. Hashem is omniscient, but even Moses had to get Hashem to reconsider and change decisions from time to time.
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Though I don't know exctly what you were referring to,saying that the Akeida is a topic of "great debate and strluggle" as I have never heard that before, but I do want to mention two points about the Akeida:
ONE: It is one of the holiest and most important events of Jewish history, and because of that it is one of the main themes of Rosh Hashana. (We are now one month to Rosh Hashana). The shlofar, our merit as a people, etc.-it's the Akeida. So it's worth really understanding it, through reliable sources, likeChabad and Aish.com.
TWO: The reason that Sarah never spoke to Avraham again is that she passed away before he came back from the Akeida and never saw him again.
With best wishes that you and yours be incribed and sealed in the book of life for the coming year,
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Dear friends on line, struggling with very human issues, I want to tell you I am still dancing from Klez Kanada, an event in the Laurentians which truly brought me to tears. These are tears, of Joy, and angst, the OY in Joy. Here was Yiddish spoken, Yiddish sung, and even the Kiddish, the children were playing their instruments and in song.
Many, many, old people and many lines, for the hora, for wrinkles, yes! lined faces. But agelesz beauty. Soul, pure soul, unAdulterated soul shining, shining, shining through.
A hora. A dance. We are all in this together. Come. Come. Let us dance. Ahora means NOW in Spanish.
Yes tears. Tears. For all that Was. Here we are. In song.
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Judy, you are so right But young women are also not treated with respect. Fashion designers are interested in their bodies, not in them as human beings. These poor girls are so brainwashed to think that their worth is measured by how many boys look at them as they walk down the street that they don't realize that they are on a higher level and are really lowering themselves.
Do you remember the song" Itzy bitzy tiny winy yellow polka dot bikini"? All these girls start off modest but society ruins them.
I also don't understand the husbands, having no respect for their wives just because they want to show off their beauty-like Achashveirosh with Vashti.(Purim)
But mostly I don't understand the women. You don't want your husband looking at other women, so why dress in a way that causes someone else's husband to look at you?
So of course there is no respect either for the older women. Except in communties where modesty is central and respect is very high.
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As I have learned over the past few years, this is a topic of great debate and struggle for our people. One thing I do know -- the story demonstrates what can happen to a marriage when the husband does not communicate with the wife. Abraham chose not to tell Sarah what he was going to do and why he was going to do it, and because of that lack of communication on our forefather's part, they never spoke again.
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