Recently, something spilled and created a bit of a mess on my
kitchen floor. It was more than a paper towel could handle so
I went to get a cloth to soak up the greasy liquid. "I know,"
I said out loud, "I'll get an old towel." I wanted something
that wasn't in such great shape because I had a feeling that
it would become permanently stained.
However, when I got to the linen cabinet, I was in for a
surprise. I took out a towel that we had been given as a
housewarming gift almost forty years ago. It certainly
qualified as old, however, it is still in usable condition.
The towels we bought ten years ago to bring with us when we
moved to our apartment in Yerushalayim are also too good to
ruin.
Ah. I found just the towel. It is one that relatives brought
us a couple of years ago when they came to Eretz Yisroel for
a family simchah. They gave us some bath towels, with
hand towels and washcloths to match. There was a label sewn
onto each towel that said they should be washed with like
colors. I was glad I followed the directions because the
colors "bled" into the wash water for a full year.
Shortly after the color finally stopped coming out, the hems
of the towels began to unravel. Pretty soon, there was a
profusion of threads coming out of the raw edges. At that
point, the washcloths pretty much fell apart. One of the hand
towels is now little more than a rag. As I said, it was just
the right candidate for the "soak up the messy spill and
dispose of" job.
Towels are not the only "new and improved" (read: disposable)
item we have to contend with nowadays. When my oldest son was
born, we lived in a New England city that boasted a factory
that made high-quality baby layette items. Some of my friends
who were on their fourth or fifth baby went to the factory
outlet store and bought seconds.
Because we were just starting our family, we decided to buy
our layette at a department store. We got first quality
shirts, gowns and receiving blankets, all made by that local
company. When we moved to California a year later, we took
the layette with us, where it was used and enjoyed for the
next twenty years.
By contrast, I have some baby clothing and receiving blankets
that I bought recently to keep on hand for visiting
grandchildren. It is a good thing that they are only used
occasionally, because I think they would disintegrate with
only a few months of serious use.
The baby carriage we used in the States lasted for most of my
children and also three children of a neighbor. In all that
time, the only thing that "went' and had to be replaced was a
leather belt that was part of the suspension system. One of
my sons has had three carriages already, in the ten years
that he has been a father!
We enjoyed our first car for eleven years and then a neighbor
who was handy with automotive tools bought it from us and
used it for another fifteen. I don't know many people now
whose cars are that old and still running.
Nothing that is made today is made to last. They call it
"planned obsolescence." It means that when a product is
designed, it is given a lifespan. If you use the longest,
strongest cotton fibers to make a dishtowel, it will last for
twenty years or longer. If you use cheap cotton, it will last
from one Pesach to the next. The lifespan is built into the
product.
We have a heavy-duty, stainless steel, covered frying pan
that we received as a wedding gift over four decades ago. We
bought one of my married children a soup pot made by the same
company. It cracked after five years. The steel walls of the
soup pot were not as strong as those of my frying pan. It
wasn't designed to last.
It is sad that this is true of many articles of clothing,
appliances, vehicles and other items upon whose reliability
we have come to depend. However, fortunately, there is one
commodity that has been lasting longer in recent years and
that is people.
When the Chofetz Chaim lived to his mid-nineties, seventy
years ago, that was proof positive that Shmiros
Haloshon leads to lengthy years. My husband has a picture
of his grandparents taken in the 1920s. It shows two people
who were not just senior citizens; they were downright old.
By counting back from the ages when they passed away a few
years later, it is apparent that they were 57 and 58 years
old when the picture was taken. Today, people in mid to late
fifties are middle-aged. Many have children in high
school.
During the 1970s, my in-laws celebrated their fiftieth
wedding anniversary. That was considered quite something. The
happy couple received a letter from the president of the
United States congratulating them on the special milestone.
After all, the average man of that generation married in his
mid-twenties and had a life span of six and a half decades.
For both members of a couple to live long enough to be
married for 50 years was remarkable. A chosson-kallah
standing under the chupah today can hopefully look
forward to a sixtieth anniversary — maybe even a
seventy- fifth.
What can we learn from a world where people are living longer
but their possessions deteriorate posthaste — right
from the very second the proud owner walks away from the
cashier's counter?
It gives us a wonderful chance to exercise our free will. We
can either spend our years going from store to store,
constantly renewing our stock of belongings, or we can learn
to live with fewer material possessions.
Considering that after 120, we won't be able to take with us
even one paperclip, the latter option would seem to be the
obvious choice. However, the yetzer hora has been
working overtime to lure us into the shopping district or the
mall.
Check your mailbox. Every few days you will find a slick
magazine that shows page after page of alluring ads. There
are clothing boutiques, furniture stores, gourmet foods. You
name it and it is there, portrayed in living color on a
beautiful background.
Once you are in the spending mode, it doesn't stop there.
After all of your closets are already stuffed, you can still
find ways to spend money — lots of money. There are ads
for vacation packages at hotels and resorts. You can get
there in style with one of the rental cars or van services
that are also advertised.
Once there, you can order spa treatments in between your
trips to the dining room, the beach and the pool. If you
would rather live it up at home, there are restaurants,
caterers and fast food outlets right here in the city.
My husband and I have now reached retirement age in this new
"improved" world. The youngest of our children is away at
yeshiva. We like to visit our married children and enjoy our
grandchildren. In between those outings, we spend most
evenings quietly at home, him with a sefer and me with
my knitting and a good Torah tape from a local tape
library.
Depending on how you look at it, our lifestyle may be
hopelessly behind the times, or, hopefully, we just may be on
the cutting edge of the future.
