At a JOFA Board meeting three years ago, when I was forty six, I referred to myself as middle-aged. Two Board members, both in their sixties, immediately responded, “Judy, you’re not middle aged. You can’t be, because we’re middle-aged.” How could I argue with that? They are active, vibrant women, involved in family, community, and career. Yet I too feel very much in the middle of my life. I am part of the proverbial sandwich generation, with both my parents and my children living with me, each making their own demands on my time. I have been working professionally for close to thirty years, yet I see many more years of work ahead of me. I have buried friends, and have also helped friends welcome grandchildren. I have accomplished some of my dreams, but I have so many more that I want to achieve. And there are some that I have become reconciled to never achieving.
I will turn fifty this summer and have been trying to figure out how to commemorate that milestone. A big party? A siyyum? An exotic adventure? A charitable dedication? How does one age wisely? What does our tradition tell us about this stage of life? Lifespans are clearly expanding, as we live not just longer lives, but also healthier ones. How should we spend those newfound years? What can we explore in our second careers that we were too busy or too afraid to pursue in our first?
I recently read a New York Times wedding notice about a bride marrying in her nineties. Two items in the article fascinated me. The first: “The bride, 97, is keeping her name.” You go, girl! She married an eighty-six-year-old widower whom she had met at her retirement community. She initially turned him down because “‘there’s a great difference in our ages, as you can see,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it was the thing to do because I don’t have that many years ahead of me, but he said, ‘That’s all the more reason.’” If only each of us could approach the coming years and decades with that optimistic carpe diem spirit!
My kindergartener and I have a plan. When she fi nishes eighth grade, we will take a year to travel the world. She has already informed me that we must go to Paris fi rst because she very much wants to visit and has never been (out of the mouths of babes…). After the year, we will settle in Israel and send her to high school, and I will start the second half of my life—whatever that might be. Will this really happen? Who knows? right now we are enjoying the delicious tingle of anticipation as we plan, and perhaps by talking about it enough we will breathe it into being.
Psalm 90:10 states, “The measure of our life is seventy years.” From this verse arises the tradition that life starts over at age seventy, inspiring some men to celebrate a second bar mitzvah at eighty-three. Will this new ceremony catch on with women turning eighty-two, especially those who were not afforded the opportunity to celebrate publicly when they turned twelve? What other rituals exist (or will be created) to celebrate milestones? Will the expansion of women’s roles in the synagogue and the community make saying kaddish de rigueur for women? What impact will the presence of active senior role models have on the next generation? How can we come to value the experiences of older women against the cultural backdrop of our youth-obsessed society?
I hope you enjoy this issue as we explore some of these themes. I look forward to seeing all of you at our conference later this year. Chag kasher v’sameach!