THE ETHICS OF AGING

intensive probing can disclose; these are to be refined and then expounded after a rigorous process of dialectic has taken place. For, as the sages saw it(in Leo Baeck ’s words), the Bible

did not only tell something, it also meant something... It was much more than a mere book.... Hence, it was quite insufficient merely to read and to know it; it had to be discovered again and again, word for word.... The word one read could never be a merely written and fixed word; it always spoke, moved, and progressed. It always had something more to say....*

Aaron Wildavsky makes a similar observation:

In traditional Jewish thought...every generation, ac­cording to its own understanding, holds that its in­terpretation is part of what the Torah teaches. The ability of future generations to make the text answer their questions without distorting it beyond recogni­tion, is part of the Bible ’s power. As with any fun­damental text, what the Bible is depends partly on what it contains and partly on what each generation makes of it. The varied interpretations of the Bible are part of the meaning, which has to be within us as well as in the text, if we are to hold a dialogue with it.... Divergent views are traditional in Biblical interpretation. No interpretation is unqualifiedly correct...’

According to the Mishnah ® ziknah denotes a man of sixty, whereas seivah denotes a septuagenarian. Applying these figures t0 our verse, one of sixty may be entitled to receive a form of homage

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