Among its prescriptions for how to treat the poor, foreigners, criminals under the only law of authority (the divine law), and more without violating their human rights grounded in Yahweh's nature and theirs as bearers of God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), the Torah addresses obligations to the elderly. Leviticus 19:32 says to stand up in the presence of the aged and to show respect for the elderly, the former being an example of the latter specified within the text. With one's parents, if they are old enough for this to be applicable, it would overlap with the command to honor one's father and mother (Exodus 20:12, Leviticus 19:3, Deuteronomy 5:16, 27:16), but it is an obligation one has to all the elderly.
Some elderly individuals might have, furthermore, suffered eventual disabilities in the mental or physical decline that can accompany aging, such as loss of hearing or sight, and the same chapter of Leviticus already addresses mistreatment of the disabled when it says to not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind (19:14). Also, see Deuteronomy 27:18 on how anyone who leads the blind stray is cursed. While disability can be present independent of biological aging, such as due to birth defects or traumatic accidents, elderly men and women are to be treated well regardless of their health and wholeness. Even if they cannot see due to failing or departed eyesight, one would still be morally obliged to rise in their presence (just to clarify, this is not the same as remaining standing indefinitely in their presence).
Now, just as the command to not hate an Egyptian (Deuteronomy 23:7) is really about not hating them on the basis of their nationality or ancestry, rather than a condemnation of hating an individual who happens to be an Egyptian because of their irrationality and sin (see Leviticus 20:23 and Deuteronomy 25:13-16 for examples within the Torah itself on how God hates sinners, which means this cannot be evil), it is not that the elderly and/or disabled are never to be cursed or reviled. For instance, Deuteronomy 27, where it says that whoever leads the blind astray is cursed, also says that whoever withholds justice from the foreigner (27:19) or murders their neighbor secretly (27:24) is also cursed, and the deaf person of Leviticus 19:14 is not immune to this.
What the verse from Leviticus really is about is not cursing the deaf for their deafness, not for any deserving moral reason on the basis of a belief or action within their control. The age of the elderly or the disability of the unfortunate is not a shield from valid criticism or even, in the right context, outright hatred and hostility, but even then, they are never to be treated unjustly, including by being discriminated against for their age or disability. Not that concrete examples in one's life are needed, but at the time of this writing, which is long before the scheduled posting date, I myself have elderly family members who are neither rationalists nor true Christians, though they think they are. They are but evangelicals holding to most of the Biblical distortions and broader philosophical fallacies of the typical self-identifying Christian of America at this time.
Certainly, even if only because they are irrationalists whether or not Christianity is true, they do not deserve any special respect as individuals although they would have the same human rights as all other people if morality exists, and if Christianity is true, one of these rights as according to Leviticus 19 is to be given at least some form of positive recognition in their age. Anyone who reaches an elderly state is not to be tossed aside on the basis of how long they have been alive or how poorly their body might function. It still does not logically follow that they could deserve to not be given valid opposition for their philosophical stances or behaviors (an impossible thing), and the Torah already provides enough separate details to directly teach otherwise. It is disregard due to age or health that Mosaic Law is actually prohibiting.
No comments:
Post a Comment