Epilogue

The Epilogue offers a brief theoretical-methodological reflection on the book by discussing the interpretive and analytical principles that guided its readings. This book sought to bring old age and aged persons into the discourse on rabbinic culture—to bring them from the shadows to the light, so to speak—and thus to enrich existing conversations on the wonderfully manifold fabric of this culture. Focusing on three key literary terms that have been critical for this work—excess, overreading, and estrangement—the epilogue accounts for an understanding of rabbinic literature as literature, and charts out the ways in which this investigation of old age helps illuminate the psychological sophistication and literary deftness of rabbinic narrative art more broadly.

Introduction

The introduction describes the book’s aims and methodological premises. It explains the book’s emphasis on cultural and literary representations of old age, and particularly its interest in biosocial aspects of aging. The introduction also highlights the authors’ preference for sources in which old age seems like a peripheral rather than central theme, arguing that in order to construct a complex and nuanced picture of aging as a cultural trope in rabbinic literature it is necessary to examine how old age is performed in the texts, rather than merely how it is officially talked about. The introduction further outlines the authors’ approach to rabbinic narrative art, and it provides a survey of key rabbinic notions and definitions of old age. It concludes with an outline of the book’s chapters.

Running at Dusk

Chapter 5 discusses a recurrent literary pattern in rabbinic narratives, namely, the sudden appearance of an unnamed old man as an embodiment of collective memory or knowledge. It argues that such anonymous elders present an idealized vision of the social role of elders in rabbinic culture. The chapter then analyzes two narratives that build on this literary pattern only to dismantle the cultural expectations that underlie it: the story of R. Shimon b. Yohai’s exit from the cave (BT Shabbat 33b–34a), and the story of Honi’s seventy-year-long sleep (BT Ta‘anit 23a). These stories cast doubts on the very norms that stand at their core, bringing to the fore the reluctance of old persons to conform to their designated social role and to disappear quietly into oblivion.

Like Two Fountains

Chapter 1 focuses on the aging body, and particularly on aspects of gender and sexuality of the aging body. Following a discussion of ancient medical theories regarding aging processes and their echoes in rabbinic texts, the chapter analyzes two rabbinic accounts regarding biblical figures whose bodies managed to defy the laws of aging. The first part of the chapter analyses the narrative of Abraham and Sarah’s return to their youth (BT Baba Metzi‘a 87a) and the vicissitudes through which their bodies went before and after the birth of Isaac, whereas the second part examines one story about King David’s sexuality in his old age (BT Sanhedrin 22a). The chapter argues that through the use of semi-mythical figures, the rabbis reveal both their desire to undo the processes of aging and their profound conviction that aging must ultimately be accepted.

Squawk to Them like Roosters

Chapter 2 examines aging in the context of parent-child relationships. This chapter closely examines one lengthy Talmudic unit (BT Qiddushin 30b–32a) whose overt topic is the duty to respect one’s parents and in which appears a series of stories that are all concerned with the reversal of power relations between generations and with the breaking of taboos that this reversal threatens to entail. The chapter traces several key motifs in the unit, such as the effect of aging on gender hierarchies, the theological dimension of relations with aged parents, and the reorganization of public and private spaces when old age is involved. It argues that each story propagates a behavioral norm and subverts it at the very same time, thereby divulging the rabbis’ uncertainty and consternation when it comes to the difficulties inherent to elderly parents’ gradual exit from the social order.

Raise My Eyes for Me

Chapter 4 examines relationships among older and younger rabbis in the setting of the study house, focusing on the role of eyes, looks, and gazes in narrative depictions of old age. In the first story analyzed in the chapter, a young rabbi, upon gazing at an older rabbi who is dancing publicly, feels shame and self-consciousness as though his own body is implicated in the body of the old man and is put on display (BT Kettubot 17a). In the second story, an aging rabbi is the object of the harsh and merciless gaze of others but also appears capable of destroying the one who gazes at him with his own gaze (BT Baba Qamma 117a). The gaze in this story is a destructive force but also proves, in the end, to have a redeeming power.

I Am Not Old

Chapter 3 explores the relations between age and socio-intellectual status within the rabbinic study house. It shows that alongside an attempt made in some rabbinic texts to present a harmonious picture of members of the study house as an ageless community, there are also various indications of intergenerational animosity, disharmony, and even cruelty. The first part of the chapter examines the ethos that Torah learning protects one from the predicaments of old age, and it also argues that the ethos of an ageless society of learners creates a social setting in which the young cannot be truly young. The second part of the chapter turns to sources that present ruptures and tensions in the idealized vision of intergenerational harmony in the study house and in the world of Torah learning, looking closely at one story of brutal excommunication (BT Mo‘ed Qatan 17a).