Rabbi Deborah Silver, who recently joined the IKAR staff fulltime, is occupied by a question that resides in the shade rather than the sunshine.
“Most people agree that while in Judaism we do well with what we do after death, the same degree of focused attention has not been placed on the second half of the Jewish life,” where the rabbi resides.
“Our capacities change,” said Rabbi Silver, “and obviously there are physical changes as well.”
A crucial portion of her IKAR portfolio focuses on:
How do these changes translate into the search for meaning and for flourishing? What does it mean to live a flourishing Jewish life in the second half?
When she was 45, the London-born Silver gave up her career as an attorney and law professor in England to enter rabbinic school in America. She served in two Conservative communities – in New Orleans and at Adat Ari El — before joining IKAR, where teaching and pastoring are her primary duties.
“We are long overdue for a change of attitude about what it means to age,” said the rabbi, noting that the preferred phrase is to elder. “We need change in the way we do it, not just spiritually but more broadly within community as a whole.”
She cited downsides of the present model: “We age in a big house until we become incapable. Then we need to be packed up and moved to a place where we never have been to be with people we don’t know.”
This model, Rabbi Silver said, does not work well. “It feels very rough on people. It does not feel we are honoring peoples’ wisdom or capacities to treat them that way.”
Addressing the crucial intersection that Jews past the age of 50 encounter, the rabbi ticked off some of the issues. Is it appropriate to be planning ahead for what their lives will be like when they are older? Where do they want to live? How do they want to live? In what kind of community do they want to live?
Rabbi Silver alluded to intentional communities that are collecting what people want to age together with other families, or certain other people.
She described her residential arrangements. “I live with a very dear platonic friend,” she said. “The idea is, and always has been, that we make this journey together. And perhaps with a few other friends as well as time goes on.
“That way we are there for each other, making the best use of the resources the house has to offer. The house has a small environmental footprint. More importantly, we are there for each other. We have a small environmental footprint.
“More importantly, we are there as – and there is no language for this, which I find very interesting. A non-romantic partnership. It means that we are committing to undertaking this journey together, and perhaps with other friends as well as everybody downsizes.”
Not surprisingly, the rabbi sees “tremendous potential” for rethinking the way Jews do this stage of life.
She spoke of an advantage she has in an IKAR room where she is working with other elders. “First and foremost,” said the rabbi, “there is the collective wisdom and collective experience of the room. That changes how you teach where there are regular exchanges between and among the elders.”
This can be a uniquely advantageous setting when teacher and students are of fairly similar ages.
Rabbi Silver tries to convene these spaces. “I am very lucky,” she said. “We have lay leaders within the IKAR community who are hospitable. When they organize social events, they make sure people are sitting together at tables at bigger events.”
Here is where her value as one of similar age again intersects with her students’ needs or quests. “My task is to work alongside that setting and extract the concerns people have,” said the rabbi. “Then I see if I can tessellate that with wisdom. We have a book about that in Ecclesiastes —but nobody ever reads it.”
A lot of the time the rabbi sees herself as a yenta, quickly adding “a yenta in the good sense,” linking people up with the resources that already are there.
Rabbi Silver is putting together a course for next year about happiness, posing this curious challenge:
Do we fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be happy — and that is why we never can flourish?
Her reply is a firm yes. She believes it is a constant process of asking questions.
The rabbi has found ideas bubbling up from the wisdom that already is there. She sees herself as stirring the soup.
That led her to one of the prized advantages of the so-called golden years: “It is okay to allow ourselves to be outspoken in a way that you only can be when you are a little older and you have less to lose,” Rabbi Silver said.
“It is okay to allow ourselves to be outspoken in a way that you only can be when you are a little older and you have less to lose.”
It isn’t surprising she has found the ability to be outspoken a path well worth exploring.
“This links with one of the bases on which IKAR was founded,” she said, “justice and justice work. Justice work in the second half of life is interesting because the brakes are off,” citing a perhaps underappreciated aging bonus to aging.
Aging is a cerebral exercise, too. “When I started asking what is important to me, what is my legacy, it is relevant that I am single and never have married,” the rabbi said. “It’s different for me than for someone who has had children.”
Rabbi Silver loves what hides in plain sight. “I don’t want to sugarcoat that aging is physically challenging, but the idea that aging can involve flourishing is powerful.”
With that, she proudly raised her left arm. “I still am wearing the wristband from the Rolling Stones concert last night.”
Fast Takes with Rabbi Silver
Jewish Journal: Do you have any unmet goals?
Rabbi Silver: I move more in the present. I would say for me, I am an eternal student. Thank G-d, my life has unfolded in a way that has been very kind to me.
J.J.: The most memorable book you have read?
R.S.: The bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. I go back to them over and over.
J.J.: What is your favorite Jewish food?
R.S.: They tell us fish and chips are Jewish, and I am very fond of good fish and chips.