Perhaps this is the most distressing aspect of the situation. The care for the old is regarded as an act of charity rather than  as a supreme privilege. In the never dying utterance of the Ten Commandments, the God of Israel did not proclaim: Honor Me, Revere Me. He proclaimed instead: Revere your father and  your mother. There is no reverence for God without reverence for father and mother.

In Jewish tradition the honor for father and mother is a commandment, the perfect fulfillment of which surpasses the power of man. There is no limit to what one ought to do in carrying out this privilige of devotion ( see 'Children and Youth', p. 39). God is invisible , but my mother is His presence...

Father and mother are always older, more advanced in years. But is being advanced in years to be considered an advance or a retreat ?

Ours is a twin problem: the attitude of society to the old and old age as well as the attitude of the old to being old.

A.J. Heschel, To Grow in Wisdom, from The Insecurity of Freedom , Farrar, Straus & Giroux, p 70