Welcome to Rabbi Dayle Friedman's Growing Older Blog

Tamar Dashefsky got her introduction to life in a nursing home when she was 22 years old and working as a medical clown. She was dressed as a fairy, but found it didn't take magical powers to alleviate the suffering of the people she met. Tamar was distressed that a...

It was important to us to learn about aging in the Arab Israeli community.  Sakhnin is a city of about 30,000 residents in the Galilee region of Northern Israel. We were fortunate to visit the Sakhnin Elder Day Care Center. When we called the staff for restaurant...

Seventeen professionals from the US visited Israel last month to learn about challenges and innovations in the field of aging. Our first encounter with aging in Israel was the Holon Children's Museum, which offers an experiential glimpse of aging through its exhibit,...

Years ago, my family’s matriarch, Grammy Anne, lay in intensive  care. The family was shocked and confused. Just last year this dignified, spunky 86 year-old had been taking college courses. Now,  she was connected to tubes from every orifice, delirious and barely...

After a lifetime of ups and downs, stretches of peace punctuated by hurt and alienation, I thought this was just the way it would always be. My encounters with my Dad would be superficial, guarded; he would never really see or know me. I surely did not...

“It’s all life until death.” Grace Paley Rabbi Eliezer taught: “Repent one day before your death.” Rabbi Eliezer’s disciples asked him: Do we know on what day we will die? Then all the more reason that we engage in teshuvah (repentance) today lest we die...

We come full, not empty, to new callings beyond midlife. Mary Catherine Bateson says that we bring with us wisdom garnered from experience, combined with energy, and at least some freedom. She calls this rich accumulation active wisdom. But how do we...

The origin of the human being is dust, her end is dust. He earns his bread by exertion and is like a broken shard, like dry grass, a withered flower; she is like a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud, like a breeze that blows away and dust that scatters,...

One consequence of expanded lifespans is extended years of relating to parents in midlife and beyond. While hundreds of volumes have been written about the demands and difficulties of caring for aging parents, relatively little attention has been paid to...

The terrain of caring for a dependent loved one can feel barren, like the wilderness the Israelites encountered once they left bondage in Egypt. We may feel lonely, confused, resentful, sad and afraid as we do what we can while our friend, lover, sibling...

Aging, I feel…is a process that is alive and happening, growing up and getting closer, moving toward the essential. —Debra Winger My late mother-in-law, Miriam, had a very fruitful old age. She did not climb mountains or work at a career. She did not...