Aging Jewishly – What Our Traditions Teach Us about Growing Old
By Rabbi Barbara Aiello
Even with her hearing aids in the drawer, the doorbell chimes were loud enough for Rena to hear them. “As I live and breathe,” was all Rena could say when she saw her two teenage grandsons waving birthday flags and counting down, “Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One! Only one more week and it’ll be your birthday, Grandma. We’re here to start a week of celebrations!”
Rena hoped her grandsons didn’t see her forced smile. She didn’t want to spoil their fun so she went along with their enthusiasm while inside she felt like she always felt – Birthdays are for kids. Birthdays are reminders of how old we’ve gotten and how little time we have left.
Why talk about birthdays? Why now? With Erev Rosh HaShanah around the corner we Jews will be celebrating a birthday – the birthday of the world. So there’s no better time than right before Yontif to consider our own birthdays and how we feel about marking our own new year.
Yes, it’s true. September 22 is Erev Rosh HaShanah and it is traditionally considered the world’s birthday party. Among Sephardic Jews the evening before the first day of Rosh HaShanah features a Rosh HaShanah seder, complete with prayers, blessings, symbolic foods and its own special users’ manual, the Rosh HaShanah Haggadah. In it we read about the creation story as found in B’resheet (Genesis) with a focus on the sixth day when human beings were created. Humanity began and humanity continues with each person created with her/his own special birthday.
So back to Rena who clearly wants no part of birthday celebrations. Sadly Rena is not alone. Anecdotal studies indicate that about half of men and women who consider themselves elderly eschew the cake, the candles and all the traditional hoopla associated with a birthday celebration. Their attitude? “Don’t make a fuss. It’s just another day.”
Not so for author Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming whose recent book addresses the topic. Titled “How to Have a Happy Birthday: Create Meaning, Fulfillment and Joy on Your Special Day,” the author explains why celebrating your birthday is a healthy thing to do. As a guest on a recent podcast, ( “Release”- April 2025) Hurwitz-Fleming traces the history of birthday celebrations that began in Egypt and centuries later arrived in Germany as a “Kinder” celebration complete with a small cake adorned with one candle.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming knows what she’s talking about. Her own Jewish journey is steeped in tradition, having discovered her Jewish roots and become a Spanish citizen thanks to a law that welcomed the return of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition.
But just as tradition plays a part in the Jewish New Year birthday celebration, creating personal birthday traditions, especially as we age, demonstrates that we are living in the present. Hurwitz-Fleming suggests that regardless of past birthday trauma or disappointments, it is important to become “birthday positive.” That means finding new ways to “dodge the birthday blues” and discover the magic in your special day.
Just as Rosh HaShanah is a spiritual day to celebrate the birthday of the world and the beginning of a new Jewish year, imbedded in our own birthdays is a similara spiritual component. Birthdays are our personal new year, the day when our body and our spirit are in perfect alignment. Or as Chabad.org puts it, “Your birthday commemorates the day on which G‑d said to you: “You, as an individual, are unique and irreplaceable. No person alive, no person who has ever lived, and no person who shall ever live, can fulfill the specific role in My creation I have entrusted to you … ”
So make the most of the most spiritual day of your year. And as the shofar sounds to celebrate the birthday of the world, promise yourself to make your own birthday a spiritually uplifting celebration filled with gratitude and joy. Shanah Tovah and Happy Birthday to you!
For ten years Rabbi Barbara Aiello served the Aviva Campus for Senior Life (Sarasota, FL) as resident rabbi. She is author of “Aging Jewishly,” (Amazon) and is Italy’s first woman rabbi. Contact her at Rabbi@RabbiBarbara.com if you’d like to know your Hebrew birthday!
