CHAPTER SIX - The Aging Process: Late Life Questions

A: BACKGROUND

3. Old and wise – wisdom as a quality of age

This idea is reinforced in a number of passages connecting old age and wisdom. For example, in a passage in the book of Job, Job himself makes a rousing defence of G-d’s justice and power.

Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?
Job 12:12

The leaders of the tribes are called elders (lit.: aged) - ????? - and while it is true that these are not necessarily the oldest people in the tribe - but, rather, the leaders of the most important families - the connection between old age and wisdom is apparent in the very use of the word. Only the elders are considered to have sufficient wisdom and life-experience to be worthy and capable of leading the people in their daily life.

It is interesting to note that this parallels the situation in contemporary tribal societies.
A recent UNESCO report on aging in Africa stressed the way that the elderly are honoured in traditional societies in Africa. The old are seen as those worthy of most respect within the whole tribal structure; they are considered the guardians of wisdom and perceived as the keepers of the secret knowledge of the tribe.
Traditional tribal societies tend to have esoteric wisdom, which is passed down orally by the elders in measured portions to the younger people in the tribe who grow into their patrimony gradually. In time, these individuals will be initiated into the fullness of the tradition, and in their turn, as elders, they will become the guardians of the tribal wisdom. Within the tribal societies described in the report, older people are reagarded as being at the high-point of their lives. This is a striking contrast to the way in which contemporary western society invariably tends to treat aging as the anti-climax of a person’s life, where the person has passed his or her peak.

In many tribal societies, moreover, an old person who is losing their faculties is discerned as already having begun the process of making their connection with the spirit world. Confusion of the mind will probably be related to the fact that he or she is talking to their ancestors in the next world. Infirmities of eye or ear, for example, might be attributed to the person cutting themselves off from the reality of this world and joining the world to come.
Once again, this is in strong contrast to the way that we in the West tend to perceive such things.

This tribal viewpoint is similar to the Bible’s perspective.
The Bible’s basic attitude towards the aged is one of respect: the aging are people who have attained their position in life through virtuous living and in so doing they have gained wisdom and experience that should earn them a foremost place in society.