In my work these past years with Jewish Sacred Aging, a forum for the Jewish community concerning the implications of today’s longevity revolution, one of the themes often discussed, formally and informally, is the feeling on the part of the over-50 set that the institutional Jewish community has written them off.
The focus on engaging youth seems to be sending a not-so-subtle message of the marginalization of older adults.
This is a tragic mistake.
About 25 percent of the current Jewish community in the United States is over 65.
The aging of the baby boom generation, now well underway, presents our community with an unprecedented opportunity to engage this cohort in creative responses to everything from membership, to funding, to lifelong learning.
This is a generation that is seeking meaningful Jewish answers to new life stages.
To disengage from this generation is foolish and courts irrelevancy. There is untapped spiritual capital here.
There is a reservoir of life experience that is ready to be tapped and used to benefit the entire community.
The possibilities for mentoring and intergenerational engagement are wide open to the communities that have the vision to break down generational silos.
A recent posting by David Werdiger on eJewish philanthropy spoke to the value of building intergenerational bridges and the importance of such dialogue.
He notes a program in Australia that accepted that “all generational groups need to understand that the emphasis on one group does not come at the expense of another.”
Creativity is not the province of just one generation.
Think of the possible synergy that could be created if congregations, federations and similar Jewish institutions sought to have the generations speak with each other, learn from each other and model the concept of “generation to generation.”
It has been my experience in working with groups of baby boomers that there exists within them a desire to “give back.”
There is a feeling that as we turn to the third stage of our life, we see the need to seek meaning and find our own legacy.
Why are so many boomers leaving our congregations? Perhaps it is because there is precious little there for them.
Boomers are finding their way into smaller relationship-oriented cohorts, becoming more comfortable with variations of their Judaism, and seeking adult-educational experiences that provide Jewish answers to issues we all are facing — from caring for a loved one, to decision-making at the end of life, to managing new relationships and adult children.
Longevity has given this generation the gift of time, and for the most part, we do not intend to squander that gift.
What powerful lessons on life and love and learning are contained within this generation?
Think of the gifts of those experiences that can be passed down to the next generations.
How often have these generations had the opportunity to sit down and learn from each other?
The possibilities for relationship-building and learning are endless, not the least of which is the chance to honor and respect the contributions of all.
To see this longevity generation as only a resource for funding is to discount their possible spiritual contributions to the generations that follow.
The transference of wisdom through the sharing of their spiritual capital is an opportunity that should not be wasted. We do so at our own peril.
Rabbi Richard F. Address is founder and director of Jewish Sacred Aging (www.jewishsacredaging.com), a forum for the Jewish community with resources and texts that feature discussions on the implications of the longevity revolution for baby boomers and their families. This article appeared on eJewish philanthropy.com.