From Grandchild to Grandparent: The Circle of Life at 70

Are you sitting down as you're reading my words?

You see, as of September 28, 2012, I will have reached the age of 70. The Bible says that 70 years is fit for a king, so to speak, because it marks the lifespan of none other than King David. In short, I am now an officially "hoary headed" senior citizen. And if you read your bible carefully, you will know that Leviticus 19:32 specifically states: "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head."

So, if you know what is good for you, you better get on your feet and stand up!

Now you might think that as a psychologist, I would be more prepared than most for the milestones of life. Wasn't it Freud himself who taught us that there are definite stages of psychosexual development? And in case I might forget the order, I can always intone the mnemonic: "Old (oral) age (anal) pensioners (phallic) love (latent) grapes (genital)." That is all well and good, but once one reaches Freud's last stage – generally around puberty – there is nothing to differentiate the succeeding decades of life. So remain standing, please, because I want to enlighten you that we know a bit more about old-age pensioners other than the fact – entirely true for me – that we love grapes.

It was Erik Erickson who expanded on Freud stages by defining eight periods of life. Late adulthood, according to Erikson, is characterized by Integrity versus Despair. Optimally people this age will feel less stressful and laden with responsibility. They're free of the struggle to succeed in their careers, and they're free of the emotional and financial burdens of parenthood. Persons who regret much of their lives, on the other hand, will become fearful, irascible, bitter and cynical, wishing they were still young and attractive, that they still had their jobs to make them feel valued and important. Such people truly live lives of quiet or even noisy desperation.

In truth, I have scoured the writings of Erikson, other psychologists, and even gerontologists about aging; and there is no mention of age 70 or what distinguishes it from earlier and later ages. 70 itself is apparently not a topic for rigorous scientific or neuropsychological study.

The rabbis of the Talmud, on the other hand, are practically enraptured by the number 70. It is a multiple of the number 7 which, bar none, is the favorite religious number of Judaism, representing, among others things, the Divine number of completion. My colleague Rabbi Dr. John Krug has pointed out to me that there are references to 70 in many aspects of Jewish history and tradition: it is the number of elders important to the functioning of the Jewish nation, the species of trees in the garden about Eden, the words in the Kaddish or mourner's prayer, the age of Abraham when God first called him, the number of members of the Great Sanhedrin, etc.

Most importantly, The Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot) refers to the age of 70 as completing a cycle of life, of "having achieved a ripe old age." By this, the Fathers emphasize the value of preparing for the future, particularly as it relates to one's grandchildren. They do this through a charming tale that presages the Rip Van Winkle story.

In the Talmudic Tractate Ta'anit, we are told there lived a holy man at the end of the Hasmonean dynasty. His name was Choni, the Circle-maker. One day Choni saw a man planting a carob tree and asked him, ‘How many years does it take for this Carob tree to bear fruit?’ ‘Seventy years,’ responded the man. After this, Choni fell asleep on the ground and was miraculously covered by a rock, remaining out of sight for 70 years. When he awakened, he found a fully mature tree and he found that he had a grandson. Sadly, nobody believed that he was Choni. The good news, according to some commentators, was that Choni saw that although time may be like a dream, fleeting and with no direct benefit to the individual who toiled throughout his entire life, the individual's grandchildren, his successors, will enjoy the product of his effort. The lesson seems to be that every man and woman should commit to plant a carob tree for their grandchildren or, even if they are childless, for future generations. Every grandchild commits to still be there seventy years later, to receive the fruit of the Carob tree and forge another link in the eternal story of their people.

So, you ask, who planted a carob tree for me? Good question. Keep your no-sitting belt fastened and I'll tell you.

The person who transplanted himself from Europe and the old world to the Americas and who, I believe, planted the tree from which I take root was my maternal grandfather.

His name was Abraham Nosofsky, although to many people he was known simply as Abe Nash (named after a car he once drove). His life had a Cinderfella quality, without the fairytale ending. His mother died shortly after he was born; and the father remarried the mother’s sister, making the aunt a stepmother. But it was an evil stepmother that she became, making life so unbearable that my grandfather sought to escape as soon as he was old enough to strike out on his own. He was, from all accounts, a dashing and talented young man. My grandfather was fluent in perhaps half a dozen languages. But it was not easy to find steady work even in Canada where he settled. With a wife Fanny and three daughters to support, my grandfather never shirked from working hard as a farmer; and he was also able to turn his skill in many languages into income as a translator. It was on that farm that my dear mother Rose Ann was born. Were she still alive, she would be celebrating her 100th birthday on October 29 of this year. There were no computers back in 1912. Heck, there weren't even any bathrooms with running water on the farm run by my grandfather as I found out when, as a small boy in the 1940's, I visited that farm with my family one summer. Yes, life back in the early part of the twentieth century was hard and exhausting, with little time for play or recreation.

Nonetheless, my grandfather planted the notion that a meaningful, productive human life includes commitment to education, to Jewish rituals, to creative and colorful language, and to using your wits in dealing with others. You see, we all take after our grandparents more than we realize. There is even a sociological principle called Hansen's law which, simply put, states that what the second generation rejects, the third-generation accepts. So my grandfather’s legacy along with his genes have been passed to me. After all, I inherited my colorblindness from him. Yet the irony is that I have turned my color disability into a passion for visual illusions and magic tricks, particularly about color. In hindsight at 70, what seems disabling may actually be enabling.

My grandfather lived to 83, long enough to attend my wedding and see me enter graduate school. My mother saw further blossoming of the family tree as she was able to enjoy the early years of my children. Meanwhile, I worked hard to become the professional, the problem solver, and the person that, I firmly believed, would have made my grandfather and my mother proud.

The years sped inexorably like a dream for me. When I turned 60 in 2002, the world was one year removed from 9/11. The Talmud labels a person this age as attaining wisdom of old age; and I would say that I felt at the peak of my professional and personal life. I had three grandsons and a successful career. Look no further for the proverbial wise guy – that was me at 60.

Now in 2012 I have a total of - get this - 7!, that's right, seven grandchildren who are growing up, so it seems to me, in a time of unparalleled change and upheavals. Internet usage has expanded and we have technological advances, such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, iPod, and Skype, which did not exist a decade ago. Can you imagine life without these features at our disposal? I can’t. But while my iPhone continues to get smarter every year, at 70 suddenly I don't feel so wise anymore.

I am certainly not the first person my age who has reflected on the sweeping changes that have taken place during a lifetime. Chateaubriand, a famous writer, wrote that he felt of a different race from the human species in whose midst he was ending his days. The play "The Lion King" states it even more succinctly when the cast sings, "There's far too much to take in here, More to find than can ever be found...(as) we find our place, On the path unwinding, In the circle, the circle of life."

Although I have slowed down a bit in my schedule, I still work six days a week with no plans to permanently retire. I have gone from a grandchild who remembers outhouses and squawking hens to a grandfather who, at times, feels out of it and chicken when it comes to being able to predict the future. I do not know, among many other things, why my daughter’s sons are not colorblind since I naturally assumed that I would be passing the genetic trait of colorblindness to the grandchildren. I don't know what impact modern technology will have on a generation of young people who, for example, can perform 7 tasks, on average, at one time like texting on their cell phone, sending instant messages while checking Facebook with the television on. I do not know if Hansen, were he alive, would even revoke or amend his own law.

What I do know is that turning 70 with integrity rather than despair means embracing this uncertainty and accepting that we sometimes do not and cannot have persuasive answers. It further entails, I believe, approaching this mystery of life with a sense of equanimity and hope. I take solace in a quote from Tal Ben Shahar, a young psychologist whose writings I highly recommend: "Once we feel comfortable with our ignorance, we are better prepared to reconstruct our discomfort with the unknown into a sense of awe and wonder."

The best way, in sum, to encapsulate being 70 is to imagine one's self as a mature and venerable carob tree, Some people say my fruit, commonly called bokser, is hard and hardly edible, better suited for cracking teeth. You can talk about benefits of the IPod, but did you know that my pods for centuries have been helping people feel healthier with their antioxidant, antiviral and antiseptic properties? My fruit even tastes like chocolate, without the cholesterol and caffeine. Above all, my very presence after all these decades symbolizes endurance and survival.

Like any good tree, I am especially looking forward to a particular date in the upcoming year. There is one day in the Jewish calendar when people celebrate the importance of trees and eat from many different species, including the fruit of a carob tree. Jewish Arbor Day is called Tu B'Shevat, and this year it will be celebrated Jan. 26, 2013. Moreover, this day is even more special: it is on this date that my daughter's second son Yonah Chanon - whose name derives in part from my mother's Hebrew name, who shares my passion for creative work, and who is already a published author with an epistle included in the 2009 book Kids' Letters to President Obama - will join the ranks of circle-makers and start the process of planting his own carob tree. On that very day, my grandson Yonah will become a Bar Mitzvah!

On that positive note, you can sit down at last. But do you by chance have any grapes we can use to toast the occasion, say, 70 proof?