Ancient Jewish Proverbs: Chapter I: Human Existence

The resemblance to the riddle of the Sphinx is very striking. The question was: What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening? The answer is: Man, who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks on two legs in his prime, but with the aid of a stick in his old age. The "One" that goes but never returns is Youth. 8. For something I have not lost am I searching (Shab. 152a). The old man walks with bent figure, as though looking for something he had dropped. *9. Many old camels carry the hides of young ones (Sanh. 52a; D. 534). A similar Hebrew saying is: "Many colts die and their skins are turned into covers for their mothers" (Lev. R. ch. xx. § 10; D. 262). Many old men survive the young. Cf. "Old camels carry young camels' skins to the market." p. 33 *10. An old man in the house is a snare in the house; an old woman in the house is a treasure in the house (Erach. 19a; D. 537, p. 217). An old man is more peevish and helpless than an old woman. Cf. "An old man is a bed full of bones." True as this proverb may be in fact, the Rabbinic literature has many passages which show how much importance was attached to the Biblical law "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man" (Lev. xix. 32). Thus the young are exhorted to reverence the aged who are broken in mind through physical weakness, even as the fragments of the broken tables of the law were considered worthy of being preserved in the Ark (Ber. 8b).