Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 260

“We must seek ways to overcome the traumatic fear of being old, the prejudice, the discrimination against those advanced in years. Being old is not necessarily the same as being stale.” (Insecurity of Freedom pg. 84)

Nearing the end of Rabbi Heschel’s “To Grow in Wisdom”, I am finding all of the ways we didn’t and haven’t paid heed to the issues, the solutions, he offers. “To overcome the traumatic fear of being old” is mostly ignored by both the young and the old! We have substituted “the golden years” for what is truly “being old”. We keep playing pickle ball, golf, taking trips, working out in the gym in order to prove to ourselves that we are not “being old”. We joke about “those old ladies/men” not wanting to see our reflection in them. We are afraid of “the prejudice, the discrimination against those advanced in years” happening to us. We want to keep up with our grandkids not necessarily lead them nor give them our wisdom.

Not being able to do the things that we did when we are younger is a traumatic event. It is fear-producing and people try to avoid facing these truths at all costs. We don’t speak about these traumas, we don’t speak about not being able to do what we used to do. We are afraid of someone “taking away the keys to the car” and being trapped, we are mortified we might need an Independent/Assisted Living situation, we are deathly afraid of being forgotten and tolerated. All of these fears are real, they happen to our next-door neighbor, our relatives, sometimes our own parents, not because we don’t love/like them, rather because we, the young, are in many cases afraid for the safety of our “older” relatives, maybe we don’t want to be bothered with taking care of them and tell ourselves that having them around people of their own age is better for them, etc. Older adults become afraid and insistent they can still take care of themselves, they can still drive, cook, etc not because they necessarily want to, rather so they do not have to face the trauma “of being old”. How sad we have grown these fears since Rabbi Heschel’s paper rather than mitigated them.

It has become more in vogue to hire older people in stores and for them to have forums to learn at like “Elder Hostels” like Road Scholar to keep our minds active, continually learning and experiencing places in the world as a citizen rather than a tourist. We watch the stores fill with ‘hip and cool’ clothes for the ‘elderly’ and then there is the dreaded Health System-Medicare Hell it is called by some. “What is your date of Birth” is the first or second question asked, sometimes before your name! As an older adult you are asked if you have been abused, if you have fallen, etc and while one can make a case for this, it should not be the first questions asked-in the medical system we have lost the fine art of seeing people, especially older adults, as people. People talk louder to older adults because they believe we are hard of hearing, we tell them we have hearing aids and they just nod. We do not have the stamina we had in our younger years-duh- and we don’t recognize the old man’s face that is staring at us in the mirror. All of this and, of course, the natural process of aging, the fear of getting sick, concern over how much we abused our bodies when we were younger, and so much more cause us to experience “the traumatic fear of being old”.

This fear also comes from the prejudice and the discrimination we experience. While spiritual traditions teach reverence for the old, they teach us how to mine those older than us for their wisdom and their guidance, societal norms continue to view old age as a disease! Rather than seeing those “advanced in age” as tremendous resources for how to live well and how to improve on the freedoms and choices we have and make, how to make our world a little better than what we inherited, we discriminate and have prejudice towards older adults because we no longer see their value, we no longer believe they can be productive, we believe they are “stale”! In the world today, as it has been for the millennia, if you can’t produce at the pace society needs, then you are worthless; this is true for younger people and especially true for older adults. Older adults contribute to this by their longing for the “good old days” which, of course, were not so good. In politics, every advance in promoting “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein” is met with backlash and a desire to ‘make our country great again’ which is code for white christian men rule and everyone else is subservient. The predicament described above is the result of both the young and the old.

We need to get out of “being stale” as older adults, this doesn’t mean we have to be up on the latest fad, it means we have to continue to learn and grow spiritually, morally, mentally. We have to offer our wisdom to another(s) and find ways to listen and be heard. We have to end our incessant ‘need to stay young’ and live into the bodies we are becoming, the spirits we are growing and accept the place of “elder” in our families, communities and world. We do not have to shut up, we do not have to be an invalid, we do have to recognize what we can do and what we can’t, we do have to accept the people who no longer see our usefulness and not resent their failure to see our humanity, we have to live into what is and not what used to be and/or what we want it to be. Facing the “traumatic fear of being old” with curiosity, with eagerness for the ‘next chapter’, not allowing society to define us with its prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory ways is the solution to not “being stale”, to not being overcome with fear and self-loathing. We can do this, we must do this because the world is in need of wisdom, not wise-cracks, it is in need of maturing, not being dumbed down by the authoritarians, it is in need of equality, not slavery and those of us who have lived through the turbulent times we have know the difference and the path to helping the younger generation grow what is needed for all rather than what is wanted by the few.

I continue to see myself in these words and ideas. I am hearing Rabbi Heschel speak directly to me. This is the reason I keep writing, I keep speaking when asked and ask to speak even when rejected. It is an interesting phenomenon for me to not push myself into places I am not wanted and to seek places where I am. Rejection is not personal to me, because people who see me as old, as “the past” just have bad eyesight and I can have rachmones, compassionate pity, for them. I also refuse to be stale-full stop. I continue to seek ways to convey the wisdom I have gained and have more acceptance  of the results knowing they are out of my control.  God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark.