Turning Fifty

By the time this column reaches you, I will have turned fifty. Now, I realize that this is something less than world-shaking news. Still, it feels like a watershed of some sort. In the secular world this means that the AARP will soon be looking for my money. What does the Jewish tradition have to say about this birthday? I had some faint memory that, perhaps, this was the official age for gaining a “heart of wisdom” but Psalms, where that phrase is found, does not turn out to specify an age. Psalm 90:12 simply asks God to “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. Actually, this is not the psalm to look to if you want to see fifty as a milestone. This is the psalm where we read that “a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past” (90:4). In more colloquial terms this translates into “Fifty? Big deal.” 

Elsewhere, however, the age of fifty does turn out to have some significance. It would have been a big deal if you were Levite in the Temple. In Numbers 8:24-25, we learn that “Men twenty-five years old or more shall come to take part in the work at the Tent of Meeting, but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer.” The nature of this retirement is rather unclear. The next verse says “They may attend upon their brothers in the Tent of meeting, taking care of it but in serving tasks they are not to serve.” Some commentators think that this meant that the fifty year olds couldn’t handle sacred objects anymore. Others say that they were deemed to be too old to do the heavy lifting required by the sacrificial cult. Maimonides said that it meant that they couldn’t sing anymore. Whatever it means, the Torah is pretty clear, something changes at 50.

If this is what Torah has to say about turning fifty, it is clear that a certain amount of interpretation is necessary if this verse is to serve present purposes. The Temple sacrifice is no more and the physical demands of large animal slaughter are just not an issue facing most of us. I could take this as a suggestion to retire from work, but I don’t think that is a good idea. Instead, I think this serves me as a reminder that no one should serve in any one role in the “Tent of Meeting” for too long. The actual age limits don’t seem too important. People do not typically begin serving Temple Sinai at exactly twenty-five years of age and there is nothing about fifty that seems critical. The important point is that the Torah does not endorse the idea that you take a role in the Temple at age 25 and then serve forever. Like a body, the health of the temple organization requires good circulation.

Of course, I am not suggesting that people should stop serving the Temple at some particular age. Temple Sinai is blessed with leaders who have served the Temple in one role after another for year after year. Lillian Shulman immediately springs to mind. She was the first woman to be president of Temple Sinai. Now she is serving as an Assistant Treasurer. I think she has probably done just about everything at Temple except service the boiler (and, when she reads this, she may tell me that she did that some years back.) The danger does not lie in years of dedicated service. The danger lies in stagnation. When one person performs a role for too long even if he or she is doing a great job, no one else learns how to fill that role and, when that volunteer does step aside, there is a problem.

If this is true, then the more important part of the verse is really the beginning “Men (and we would include women, of course) twenty-five years old or more shall come to take part in the work.” The continual renewal of the leadership of the congregation requires that people step forward to assume positions of responsibility in the community. Again, the ages mentioned in the verse are not important. Everyone should find a time in his or her temple life to help run the place. This doesn’t need to be a huge time commitment. Many tasks are of very limited duration. Others are very intermittent. Admittedly, some do turn out to occupy quite a chunk of our “free” time. (Just at the moment, I am thinking of the office of treasurer. Thank-you, Andy Hyams.) It turns out that one of my most important tasks as President is continually matching for the right person for the right job. Please make my life easier. Say “yes”. Better yet, let us know how you would like to “take part in the work”.
 Finally, a quick advertisement. Save April 1-2 for the Temple Sinai Retreat. It will be fun. It will be bucolic (near Wachusett Mountain). It will be different. There is more information elsewhere in the Sinai News. Sign up now.
Jeremy Wolfe