CHAPTER SIX - The Aging Process: Late Life Questions

A: BACKGROUND

12. What can be done?
3.) Study

One very important value that can be drawn from the Jewish tradition is the idea of study, which Judaism has emphasised as a value for millennia.

Torah study has, of course, traditionally been the preserve of men alone, but that has increasingly changed in the last generation, as more and more women, many of them strictly orthodox Jews, have demanded their right to study.

It is important to emphasise that while the original and prime motive of Torah study has always been to learn G-d’s law, and an ideology has grown up over the years which celebrates the sheer pleasure of studying.

Hour after hour, words of Torah are loved as much by those who study them as when they first made their acquaintance with them… Why are words of Torah likened to a breast? As with a breast, however often the infant feels like it, he finds milk in it: so too with words of Torah – whenever a man meditates on them, he finds flavour in them.
Bab. Talmud, Eruvin 54 a-b

The study of anything can add flavour and meaning to a person’s life; this is as true for the elderly as for people in the prime of life. The difference is that an older person might well be in a situation where their life is emptier than it has been at previous periods: he or she might be a retiree; the family members who once made demands on every waking minute are likely away from the house, living their own lives.

This is an age when studying can fill a gap. Here the Jewish people, who have valued study as much, if not more, than any other nation, offer a lesson that can be applied so pertinently to its older people seeking new focuses in their lives.

Jewish study for adults of all ages has taken off in the last generation with a force that has not been seen for many decades. “Third age” Jewish study, in particular, is booming in many parts of the western world. The range subjects of Jewish study is also broader, while the institutions of Jewish study are more varied than ever before.

This, too, is a key to transition from a Category B situation to a Category A type.