The Elderly Members

Senator Patrick Moynihan once brilliantly said, “There are some mistakes for which one needs a PhD to make”.

Meaning, due to over-thinking one can become blind to even the most self-evident and intuitive ethics and morals.

 Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a man of accomplishment. A renown doctor, Harvard professor, bestselling author, he has served as an adviser to many presidents, and was a chief architect of ‘Obama Care’.

A few years ago he wrote an article for The Atlantic –itself catering to the (often, over) educated, titled “Why I Want to Die at 75”.

A lengthy treatise, here are some brief excerpts. It is important to be aware of this new thinking:

“Living too long…renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us.

“By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life… [it] will not be a tragedy. Indeed, I plan to have my memorial service before I die. …

“…My father illustrates the situation well. About a decade ago, just shy of his 77th birthday [he had a heart attack]…Today he can swim, read the newspaper, needle his kids on the phone, and still live with my mother in their own house. But everything seems sluggish. Although he didn’t die from the heart attack, no one would say he is living a vibrant life.

“…Over the past 50 years, health care hasn’t slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process.

“Currently, the average age at which Nobel Prize–winning physicists make their discovery—not get the prize—is 48…the typical composer writes his first major work at age 26, peaks at about age 40 with both his best work and maximum output, and then declines, writing his last significant musical composition at 52.

“ [P]arents also cast a big shadow for most children… [T]hey set expectations, render judgments, impose their opinions, interfere, and are generally a looming presence for even adult children… But it is inescapable as long as the parent is alive.

“Living parents also occupy the role of head of the family. They make it hard for grown children to become the patriarch or matriarch… When parents live to 75, children have had the joys of a rich relationship with their parents, but also have enough time for their own lives, out of their parents’ shadows.

“…Seventy-five years is all I want to live. I want to celebrate my life while I am still in my prime. My daughters and dear friends will continue to try to convince me that I am wrong and can live a valuable life much longer. And I retain the right to change my mind and offer a vigorous and reasoned defense of living as long as possible. That, after all, would mean still being creative after 75.”

All of the above is not an argument being made, but rather a disease laid out in public view, and one that is permeating, or infecting, American culture. As one progressive recently put it, “We just have to wait for the older generation to die so that we can put in place the policies we see as just”

No more does society speak of the ‘sanctity of every human life’ but rather of cogs in a system; a system always in need of new and improved parts. No longer do we see the aged member of society as a precious soul who carries the wisdom of a life lived (see Chinuch 267), the keeper of wisdom of the many generations before him and someone who earned arichas shanim (see Yerushalmi Bikkurim 3:3), but rather as a stumbling block to our own progress. A progress that, using such arguments as laid out above, will soon too be discarded when the next generation comes to replace us.

 While it takes time, American culture all too often infiltrates our Torah hashkafa.

This past week my wife’s grandfather was niftar. He was 97. He only stopped driving three years ago, and was as sharp as a whip until about a year-and-a-half ago.

He lived a remarkable life, having raised his younger brother after their mother died in childbirth, and going on to serve in the air force during WWII. After which he built a beautiful family of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

He was soon unable to care for himself, and as a veteran had free health care with the VA (this forthcoming is not a comment on the VA in general, whose policies and practices outside of this facility I do not know).

In talking to one of the nurses who was urging the family to sign a DNR (authorization not to resuscitate – a topic beyond the scope of this column), my wife wondered aloud how the nurse would then respond if he starts to choke.

The nurse was getting frustrated. “Do you want us to schlep up the suction to this floor?!”

My wife just calmly looked at her and asked, “So the alternative is to let him choke to death?”

Not being of sound mind anymore, the family stayed with him as much as possible. Every time he was asked if he was thirsty he responded that he was, so the family gave him water to drink.

Before leaving back home my wife implored the nursing staff, “Please, he is so frail and thirsty and lacks the mind to ring a nurse. Please check on him throughout the day to make sure he is not dehydrated.

They didn’t, and it was only a matter of time that he was rushed to the hospital with severe hydration.

I do not know what has become of us as a society. Even a 25 year-old without water will be rushed to the hospital, as this has nothing to do with age or illness.

While we have boruch Hashem been able to fight back against this menace, I do see small unfortunate changes. The mitzvah d’eoraisa of rising for our elders (at the age of seventy, some say sixty) is a rarity to witness, and it is one of the taryag mitzvos!

Based on the majority of poskim our standing must be at full height, and even according to those that rule that we can rely on their assumed mechila and only get up a little, it still must apparent why and to whom we are showing this honor (see Moadim Uzmanim 3:285).

The halachos of honoring the elderly even extends to non-Jews as well (see Shulchan Aruch YD 244:7 with commentaries for details).

It applies while one is learning and, according to many, even during reciting shema!

The elderly in our shuls all too often become background. They are often the first to arrive but all too often the last with whom we engage in a conversation, or invite for a meal. The irony of course is that they have the most to share with us.

Now more than ever we must be a lighthouse to this rotting philosophy, and demonstrate that we do not only tolerate zekainim, we do not only value every second of their life and comfort, but that we treat them and think of them as the best among us.

Rabeinu Yona (Shaarei Teshuva 2:9) understands that statement in Avos (5:20) “ben tishim l’sichah –a ninety year-old is of bended stature”, as having its root in the word sicha, as in “lasuach basadeh”(Bereishis 26:63), meaning to daven. While perhaps, in most cases, no longer a candidate for a noble prize, and often removed from creative prowess and daily labor, they are able to spend their time saying tehilim and reciting praise for the riboneh shel olam, something that those (sadly!) more occupied with the mundane can not do.

But even the zakeinim amongst us who have lost their mental capabilities, chazal (Berachos 8b) urge us not only to view them as fully alive, but to even view see them as they once were, using the metaphor of the broken luchos that were placed inside the aron. While Dr. Emenuel worried that once passed we will remember the once strong as old and weak, we obligate oursleves to avoid that even while they are alive!

The kadmonim teach us that when the Torah promises us long life for honoring parents it is not based on a miracle alone. Rather, when the younger generations see us care for the zekeinim of our dor they will do the same for theirs.

The Tanchuma (10) teaches us to daven not just for old age, but to have all of our faculties as we get older. Let us hope those teffilos will be answered and, perhaps more importantly, that we will have a world ready to embrace and care for us.