Thanks to scientific and medical advances, the human lifespan is lengthening. More and more people live 30 years longer than earlier generations did. Those additional 30 years are not tacked on to the end of our lives, but rather during our active years. It is a new life stage, and people can’t agree on what to name it. Elderhood? Middlescence? The next to last dog stage? If you can’t name it, it is hard to see it. Yet it matters. 

We face an unprecedented challenge as we are blessed with more years added to our life: How do we add more life to our years? 

Viacheslav Yakobchuk/Adobe Stock

Illustrative.

The Book of Psalms offers guidance: “Show us how precious each day is; teach us to be fully here” (90:12). In other words, pay attention.

We have learned in our hundreds of conversations with people in their late 40s through their healthy 90s that people ought to begin to think about the profound shift in our view of ourselves that takes place in midlife. One needs to pay attention — and to prepare — and rituals play an important role. Ritual is a tool, a technology, that helps us to pay attention. Through ritual we can connect more deeply to what matters in our life and appreciate that we are part of something greater than ourselves. 

As Jews, we know of the significance of many different kinds of rituals, including rituals of transition when one moves from one life stage to another. We see many of these rituals in our early lives and we are struck by the absence of those rituals as we grow older. Some would argue that we relive them through our children and grandchildren. But not all of us have children or grandchildren; and some who do are not in the kinds of relationships with them that are loving, respectful and supportive.

The next traditional Jewish ritual that occurs after the ones of our adolescence and early adulthood is our funeral. Ironically, the span between early adulthood and our funerals will most likely be longer than the span from birth to early adulthood. And that span gets longer and longer as more of us live to be centenarians.    

What are the important moments in this new stage of life — midlife and beyond — that will help us notice what really matters in our lives as we grow older? What are those transitions from one social role to another? How might we mark the moments that matter: retirement (or rejoining the workforce); making new friends and celebrating longtime friendships; renewing partnership vows; celebrating milestone birthdays?  

What about saying goodbye to a home where you were raised or where you raised your kids? Moving loved ones into a senior living facility? Moving to a new community? Finding a new love later in life? What about caregiving and care-getting, illness and recovery?

In response to these questions, we have written a book called Moments That Matter: Marking Transitions in Midlife and Beyond. It offers templates that a person might want to use or to adapt during those moments. Each one includes blessings like those we use in Havdalah, mikveh and tashlich, and incorporate Jewish ritual objects such as candles and wine. Each is also accompanied by short vignettes of people who went through these life transitions and created their own rituals, or wish they had.

As we learn in Berakhot 45a, when there is a question as to what the law is, one must “go out and see what the people are doing.” Moments that Matter is filled with stories of innovation and creative ritual from people around North America. These new rituals create and deepen connections. Some of them are intimate, to be performed at home with just some close family or intimate friends. Others take place within a house of worship,  outdoors or in a space that has personal resonance  — the place she was married, the neighborhood where he grew up.  Some are virtual, and others celebrate the joy or comfort from being together, face to face. Each template gives space for individuals to do it themselves and then offers thoughts and examples of how clergy can adapt them for a community.        

 “Go and see what the people are doing.” The people are marking the moments that matter.

Rabbi Laura Geller is rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills. She was the co-founder of ChaiVillageLA and is the chair of the Synagogue Village Network. Along with her late husband, RIchard Siegel z”l, she was the co-editor of Getting Good at Getting Older (Behrman House, 2019), which was named a National Jewish Book award finalist. 

Rabbi Beth Lieberman serves as adjunct faculty at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. She was the literary editor of the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh: Revised Edition (Jewish Publication Society, 2023). 

Both authors are contributors to the “Spiritual Innovation Blog” of the Clergy Leadership Incubator, a two-year leadership fellowship for rabbis directed by Rabbi Sid Schwarz.