THE ETHICS OF AGING

through the vicissitudes of life. Nowadays, the definition of hiddur has to be expanded to affirm our obligation to those elders who require more than deference if they are to maintain life itself. Hiddur in the halakhic sense builds morale, and the aged are the happier for it, but many of them need a form of hiddur that involves hesron kis, a willingness on our part to assume a greater share of their costs for decent housing, medical attention, proper nutrition, adequate security. As we have seen, Plato advocated the withdrawal of medical treatment from those whose ill health prevented them from working, because in his opinion they no longer performed any useful function for themselves or for the state. Plato has his disciples today. They concoct clever sophistries to camouflage their real designs: to curtail medical expenditures for the elderly to eventually bring the Federal budget into balance and, at the same time, to make possible a reduction in the taxes paid by the more affluent, even though their hesron kis will surely be far less burdensome than will the sacrifices

demanded of the defenseless of our society.

On the other hand, although discouraging hesron kis when we render hiddur, Halakhah wisely admonishes that the aged should take pains to avoid making themselves an increasingly heavy burden on the men and women in the work force who must struggle to provide for themselves and their families.

Those who ponder the rabbinic debates on kimah vehiddur will, 1 expect, find themselves troubled by the class conflicts between Jews that the texts take for granted. The sages tend to envision society as a pyramid, with a comparatively small group of z kenim, scholars, at the apex and, beneath them, a conglomeration of lesser breeds who must do obeisance to their superiors. Though opinions vary, the other constituents include the zaken ashmai, the old reprobate, the unlettered and uncultured amei ha’aretz, and, at the bottom, the bur

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