Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/338

320 who seek earnestly to know God's way. And then Jacob blessed Pharaoh; the simple, old shepherd blessed the mighty king; and the latter bowed his head upon his throne, beneath the old man's outstretched hands.

This little incident beautifully illustrates the old Jewish virtue of reverence for old age. The Bible has commanded, "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man" (Leviticus XIX, 32). It has also said,

and again,

This virtue Israel has always cherished, and its young men and women have always accorded to their elders and superiors in wisdom, the respect and reverence to which their age, experience, and knowledge entitled them. In ancient Israel the elders, as they were officially called, were the leaders and counsellors of the people, to whom all hearkened readily and wilingly. It is told of Abimi, the pious son of Abahu, a great and wise teacher of old, that once he brought his aged father a drink of water for which the old man had asked. But finding that his father had fallen asleep in the meantime, as very old men are liable to do, he waited patiently and reverently and without moving, in order not to disturb his father, until the latter awoke, so that he might quench his father's thirst at the earliest possible moment. Thus he literally fulfilled the Biblical command, "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man".

But even more, this incident symbolizes again the triumph of the spiritual over the temporal and the material, of eternal truth over evanescent might and power. Before the dignity of old age, knowledge and experience, and the wisdom which