Aging in Dignity

Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody 

The grandfather has white hair and a long white beard. He wears a shtreimel on Shabbat and he sits in the prestigious front row of the synagogue. People look at him with respect – his sons and grandsons all seem to be following in the path of highly-observant Judaism, yet his status in the Heavenly Court is not the best, to say the least. What did he do wrong? In all his 73 years on earth, he never trained himself to guard his eyes. In short, he’s in big trouble, and the older he gets, the more difficult it is to change…

To do our job, we must pray for thirty minutes a day asking Hashem to help us guard our eyes and maintain personal holiness.

The above introduction is not something I made up in my imagination. Hashem showed me something that jolted me. An elderly Jew whom I see from time to time grew up in ultra-Orthodox surroundings. He was yeshiva-educated and he has never shaved his beard or cut his sidecurls. Recently, he sighed and told me that he has a strong urge to look at forbidden images. I was shocked! Here is an individual past retirement age who has never worked on himself?! How could that be? Will he take all his lust to the grave? I was shaken terribly; I realized that no one can rid himself of lust without making a concerted and uncompromising effort.

Rabbi Yisroel Dov of Volodnik, the famed “She’erit Yisroel”, once said: “The general reference to sin is ‘the sins of youth’, but there is also the sins of old age; these are the sins that one has not corrected in his youth, so they return to torment him in his old age.” Isn’t this enough to jolt all of us? Since the forbidden habits and behavior have become so ingrained on the adult who has not uprooted them from youth, he must now make a major effort to uproot them. For example, one can uproot a young sapling with his bare hands. But once the tree is old, it takes a bulldozer to uproot it. The same goes for the bad habits that haven’t been corrected in one’s youth.

Old people invariably worry about Social Security and pension plans. They should be worried about reaching a ripe old age in true dignity and purity, with a clean mind and with unblemished personal holiness.

Shabbat, tefillin and eating kosher are wonderful mitzvot, but a person’s main task in self-improvement – as Rebbe Nachman reiterates in Section 1, Torah 52 of Likutei Moharan – is to work on attaining personal holiness without ever giving up.

Who would drink a fine aged wine in a dirty goblet? The Torah and mitzvot of an elderly person is surely like fine wine, but his blemished brain, eyes and body render him an unclean and unfit goblet. It’s scary to think how some people take their lusts and bodily urges with them to the grave.

Even more, while taking stock in myself during a personal prayer session, I realized, understood and shuddered at the fact that as long as a person hasn’t corrected and uprooted a certain lust, that lust governs him. This is especially true when it comes to the strongest form of lust, sexual lust. A person loses his good sense and is blind to the lust. Even though he’s up to his eyeballs, drowning in a sea of forbidden sights, thoughts and even deeds – Heaven forbid – he’ll still consider himself “righteous” and will refuse to eat anything other than Glatt Kosher. But he should know that anyone who looks at forbidden sights is far away from the truth of Torah.

Some people rationalize, fooling themselves their entire lives. They think they can twist the truth, or find justifications why they must maintain eye-contact with women. Why? Their uncorrected lust and habits warp their judgment and their ability to accept truth as it is. It’s shocking to think of people who believe in and observe all the mitzvot, but when it comes to their sexual lust, they not only fail to correct it, but justify it! What a rude awakening awaits them after 120 years on earth – it makes one shudder!

With the above in mind, we should never put off until tomorrow that which should be done today. Let’s get to work, and may Hashem help us succeed, amen!