OPENING LECTURE OF THE SEASON – Wise Aging: Getting Good at Getting Older!

Occasionally, we meet an older person we admire and think: “I want to be like her when I grow up. I want to be wise, joyful, grateful, compassionate, patient, funny, curious, optimistic!” As Estelle Reiner said in the classic deli scene from When Harry Met Sally: “I want what she’s having.” The question for us as we get older is: what do I need to do now to become the eighty-five-year-old I someday hope to be? What work do I have to do now to acquire a heart of wisdom?

Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, was the first woman to lead a major metropolitan synagogue as Senior Rabbi. Twice named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America, Rabbi Geller was featured in the PBS documentary Jewish Americans and was on the editorial board of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. In 1976, Rabbi Geller was ordained by Hebrew Union College, only the third woman in the Reform Movement given the title. She is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971. As Rabbi Emerita, she is one of the founders of the first synagogue-based village, ChaiVillageLA, which is part of the national Village Movement. Currently, Rabbi Geller is working on a book entitled Getting Good at Getting Older: A Practical Guide Grounded in Jewish Wisdom to be published by Behrman House next spring. She is the mother of Joshua and Elana Goldstein, stepmother of Ruth and Andy Siegel and the very proud grandmother of Avery and Levi Goldstein.