THE ETHICS OF AGING
senator and senatus are derived, the common root suggesting people possessed of both maturity and erudition.
Yet, some adobe sages were troubled about the identification of ziknah with hokhmah, which allowed only the learned and the wise to enjoy the deference guaranteed by the Torah to the zaken. Thus, Issi ben Judah, insisting that the sole requisite for the status of zaken should be the attainment of the minimum age, declared: Mipenei seivah takum—afilu kol seivah bemashma.”"“You shall rise before seivah[implies before] every[person who has reached the age of] seivah.” R. Johanan concurred:“The Halakhah is as Issi b. Judah rules.” Indeed, the Talmud records that R. Johanan was in the habit of rising even before the Aramean aged(a euphemism for heathen), observing,“How many difficulties have these people endured!” Raba would not stand, yet he showed them respect by rising partially and by speaking to them. Abaye would extend his hand to them for support.
Raba sent messengers to assist them. R. Nahman dispatched his officers to provide help for them, but he considered it demeaning to the Torah to interrupt his studies for them."
Issi’s ruling on the Halakhah (that every person who has reached seivah is entitled to respect) brings up the question: Is it proper to show deference to the seventy-year-old who is an a ha'aretz? In his commentary Keli Yakar on our verse, Solomon Ephraim Luntschitz(d. 1619) writes that seivah is marked out for recog nition because greater wisdom is naturally to be found in people of seventy than in those of lesser age and fewer experiences, as is attested by Job 12:12(read as a statement rather than as a question, as the author of Job had intended):“Wisdom is in the aged, and understanding in the long-lived.” But, Luntschitz continues, the zake/ who, as his title indicates, has striven diligently to acquire wisdom is certainly far more worthy of reverence than is the elder to who
90