Change of Mind: When a Leader Grows Old

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

July 18, 2024

The AP reports:

President Joe Biden worked forcefully Friday to quell Democratic anxieties over his unsteady showing in his debate with former President Donald Trump, as elected members of his party closed ranks around him in an effort to shut down talk of replacing him atop the ticket.

Biden’s halting delivery and meandering comments, particularly early in the debate, fueled concerns from even members of his own party that at age 81, he’s not up for the task of leading the country for another four years. It created a crisis moment for Biden’s campaign and his presidency, as members of his party flirted with potential replacements, and donors and supporters couldn’t contain their concern about his showing against Trump…

Even before the debate, Biden’s age had been a liability with voters, and Thursday night’s faceoff appeared to reinforce the public’s deep-seated concerns before perhaps the largest audience he will garner in the four months until Election Day…[1]

In this article, we consider some Torah perspectives on whether advanced age is a desirable or undesirable quality in a leader.

The primary halachic statement on the topic appears in a breisa:

We do not seat as a judge in a sanhedrin (in capital cases) a zakein (old man), a man who is unable to sire children, or one who does not have children. R’ Yehudah adds: Also a cruel person.[2]

It is interesting that an alternate version of this breisa that appears in the Tosefta and the Yerushalmi differs from the Bavli’s version in a number of points, including omitting the zakein:

One who is unable to sire children and anyone who has not had children are eligible to judge monetary cases but not capital cases. R’ Yehudah adds: Also a cruel person and a compassionate person (are ineligible to judge capital cases).[3]

Why is a zakein not eligible to serve on a sanhedrin? Rashi explains: “For he has already forgotten the pain of raising children,[4] and he is not compassionate.”[5] The Ramah (R’ Meir Halevi Abulafia) cites Rashi and then writes: “And we are accustomed to explain that a zakein is intolerant (dato ketzarah[6]) and not compassionate.”[7] He seems to be saying that unlike Rashi, who understands that a zakein’s lack of compassion stems from having forgotten the pain of raising children, he holds that a zakein is inherently cantankerous and lacking compassion.

The Rambam codifies the rules of the breisa as follows:

We do not appoint to any sanhedrin a man of very old age (zakein muflag beshanim) or one who is unable to sire children, for they have cruelty, nor one that doesn’t have children, in order that he be merciful.[8]

The Lechem Mishneh (R’ Avraham di Boton) explains that the Rambam added muflag beshanim in order to reconcile this rule with another rule from the Gemara,[9] also codified by the Rambam,[10] that only men of old age[11] are appointed to sanhedrins! The Rambam accordingly distinguishes between moderate old age and advanced old age.[12]

There are indeed many places where the Torah uses forms of the word zakein to refer to various types of leaders,[13] at least some of which terms Chazal understood to refer to judges of either the Great Sanhedrin[14] or lower courts.[15] Although the Gemara does cite the view of R’ Yosi HaGlili that at least in the context of the mitzvah to honor a zakein,[16] the word means a person that has acquired wisdom and includes even the young and wise, it proceeds to explain that this is based on the particular wording of the mitzvah. This implies that even R’ Yosi HaGlili would concede that in general, the term denotes actual old age.[17] It seems, then, that the Torah has a general assumption that judges and leaders will be older people.

Returning to the Rambam, some infer from his language that he understands the rationale for the disqualification of a zakein and one who cannot have children to be that “their natures are cruel, due to their quality and essence, even if they have children.”[18] (This is similar to the understanding of the Ramah above.)

We have heretofore been considering the presumptive cruelty and lack of compassion of very old men as a negative trait; but the widespread concern about the president’s age appears to derive from the perception that he has suffered substantial cognitive decline, rather than a diminution of empathy.

This writer is not aware of much halachic discussion of age-related cognitive decline as a disqualification for judges or other public officeholders.[19] In the absence of such discussion, we may consider discussions of general mental impairment (a shoteh) and their applicability to age-related cognitive decline. For example, the Rambam writes:

A shoteh is invalid as a witness min haTorah, because he is not obligated in the mitzvos. Not only a shoteh who walks around naked, breaks utensils, and throws stones, but anyone whose mind is disturbed and continuously confused regarding a certain matter, even if he can speak and ask appropriately in other matters, he is invalid as a witness and is reckoned among shotim.[20]

There is an Aggadic discussion of age-related cognitive decline in the Mishnah:

R’ Shimon ben Akashya says: Elderly unlearned men, as long as they continue to age, their minds get more confused, as it is stated, “He removes the speech of the capable and takes away the reasoning of the elderly.”[21] But elders of Torah are not like that; rather, as long as they continue to age, their minds become even more settled (datan misyashevess aleihen), as it is stated, “In the aged is wisdom and in length of days, understanding.”[22]^,[23]

Similarly, a breisa states:

R’ Yishmael ben R’ Yosei says: Talmidei chachamim, the older they become, the more does wisdom increase within them, as it is stated, “In the aged is wisdom and in length of days, understanding.” As for those who are bereft of Torah knowledge, the older they become, the more does foolishness increase within them, as it is stated, “He removes the speech of the capable and takes away the reasoning of the elderly.”[24]

The simple reading of these passages is that Torah scholars do not suffer a diminution of mental faculties as they age; on the contrary, they become wiser. The Drashos HaRan, however, explains Chazal’s intention differently, in light of the empirical evidence that talmidei chachamim at least sometimes do indeed suffer mental impairment as they age:

The intention of the Mishnah is not to say that the wisdom of elders of Torah increases as they age, for it is possible that this is not so; because the intellect requires physical vessels, it is possible that when a person becomes extremely old and the vessels become extremely weak, the intellect will weaken as well.[25]

He proceeds to explain what Chazal meant by datan misyashevess aleihen: There is tension between a man’s lusts for the pleasures of the world and his intellect, which teaches him to reject these lusts. When he is young, the lusts are strong, and his imagination tempts him with what he is missing. As he ages, his lusts weaken, and he sees clearly that the pleasures he has relinquished are actually utterly worthless.

R’ Chaim ibn Atar (the Or Hachaim) also understands that Chazal do not mean that the intellects of Torah scholars improve with age:

We see that when a man ages, his understanding is diminished, and even a scholar cannot “go out and come in”[26] in the battle of Torah, and his senses are diminished. Although the Chachamim, of blessed memory, have said that the minds of elders of Torah become increasingly settled as they age, they were careful to say “settled,” as opposed to the ignorant elders whose minds become increasingly confused; nevertheless, the power of the intellect and understanding is nullified.[27]

[1]Zeke Miller, Darlene Superville, and Steve Peoples. Biden concedes debate fumbles but declares he will defend democracy. Dems stick by him—for now. https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-debate-age-democrats-b93d7ffaad75fd423ea3953fe16287f0.

[2]Sanhedrin 36b.

[3]Tosefta ibid. 7:4 in the Vilna Shas; Yerushalmi ibid. 4:7 (but without mention of R’ Yehudah’s view). The Mitzpei Shmuel ibid. os 80 notes that in the Bavli’s version, R’ Yehudah does not disqualify a compassionate person.

[4]See Eiruvin 100b.

[5]Rashi, Sanhedrin ibid.

[6]See Sanhedrin 100b-101a.

[7]Yad Ramah, Sanhedrin 36b.

[8]Hilchos Sanhedrin 2:3. See Or Hayashar, Bad Kodesh, and Bais Haroeh ibid.; Amud Hayemini siman 5.

[9]Sanhedrin 17a.

[10]Ibid. halacha 6.

[11]Our text of the Gemara has ba’alei ziknah, whereas the Rambam writes ba’alei seivah. Our text of the Mishnah (Pirkei Avos 5:21) says “a sixty-year-old attains ziknah; a seventy-year-old attains seivah,” but see Midrash Shmuel and Tosfos Yom Tov ibid. for a variant text of the Mishnah. (I am indebted to my friend and chavrusa R’ Yitzchok Mandel for bringing that text to my attention.)