“Abraham was
now old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.”
When you
read the term “old” as mentioned in the Aytz Chayim commentary as it applies to
Abraham, it has the connotations of wisdom and maturity, not just chronologic
length of days.
Several
years ago, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, put out a book called Wise
Aging. It is designed to help the reader
realize that aging doesn’t have to be a down-hill slide to a place that most
don’t want to go. Aging has challenges
that can be navigated, opportunities that should not be missed. Aging is seen as a way to grow into
wisdom. The term used by Rabbi Zalman
Schachter Shalomi, z’’l, to describe aging is sage-ing, the process of
integrating all that we have learned and experienced.
When
cultures value youth, beauty, and strength over wise aging, the sense that
seniors are left with is that they are becoming invisible and irrelevant. Even on his death bed, Abraham was not
invisible nor irrelevant. He knew what
he needed his servant to do to ensure the well-being of the future of the
Jewish people. He communicated the need
for endogamy, the need to be in the promised land, and his servant, Eliezer,
respected his end of life wishes. Perhaps
the key to this respect, was based on the fact that Abraham had met challenges
with faith, had pursued a world based on justice and righteousness, and modeled
a life that looked towards the future[NC1] .
We are not
told about the process that Abraham went through as he grew older, whether or
not he reviewed his life via telling stories to his progeny. We do not know what events in his life caused
him to experience pain and disappointment and which events led him to feel that
he had lived his life well. At the
beginning of today’s parasha, Abraham was faced with the death of Sarah. We know he made sure that he had a place to
bury her, but we do not hear about his emotional reaction to this loss. At the end of the parsha, however, we are
told that “Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and
contented…”
Wise Aging
reminds us that it is possible to be a resilient, compassionate, and loving
person if we feel and express gratitude, find good in others and in
events. These character traits help us
approach the end of life with less fear and trepidation, with less anger, and
with more acceptance. Wise aging does
not mean being passive. It does mean
being patient and trusting. It involves
“reacting well to change, disease, and conflict, reinventing oneself, and
finding a rationale for living well even in times of great loss.”
As I think
about our congregation, I see many among us who are the exemplars of wise
aging. May they continue to be so and
find, just as did Abraham, that they are not invisible. When they come to
the end of their life may it be with a feeling of contentment.
Shabbat
Shalom.
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