Can you name the year when:

1. Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba.
2. The Dalai Lama went into exile from Tibet.
3. Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states.
4. Congregation B’nai Moshe moved to Oak Park.

In 1959, the U.S. President was Eisenhower, the first of eleven chief executives in office during my first fifty years of life. When I was born, a first class postage stamp cost 4 cents. Ben Hur and Some Like it Hot played in movie theaters. Hard as it is to believe, it’s been fifty years since the passing of The Ten Commandments director Cecil B. DeMille, as well as Lou Costello, half of the famous Who’s On First duo.

I am proud to share the year of my birth with a milestone in the history of B’nai Moshe (the opening of the Oak Park building). Though I didn’t grow up here, I have now been a part of the B’nai Moshe family for one third of my life.

According to the Pirke Avot, fifty is the age of counsel (the Hebrew word is etzah). The implication is that a fifty-year-old is skilled at giving advice. For seventeen years, among other areas of responsibility, I have responded to those who sought my guidance. I hope I have been helpful, even though I was doing so prior to having reached the age of being qualified.

Now that I am turning fifty, I’m not certain that I am more capable than before, but I will continue to do my best to be of counsel to you.

The connection between age fifty and giving counsel might come to us from the Levites. As you know, the Levites were the tribe whose main occupation was service to God, by assisting the Kohanim, and engaging in much of the physical labor of maintaining the earliest places of Jewish worship.

Perhaps because of the hard work involved, the Levites only served “active duty” from ages 30-50. By today’s standards, Levites enjoyed an extended adolescence and an early retirement.

At age fifty and older, “retired” Levites were able to dedicate the remainder of their lives to giving advice and guidance to their younger peers.

I am humbled by the arrival of my half-century birthday. I am grateful to my parents for giving me life fifty years ago, and for providing me with guidance throughout the years. I have likewise benefitted from the “over fifty” wisdom of my wife’s parents.

My ability to provide counsel to you is enhanced by my wife, Naomi, with whom I have spent more than half my life, and my children, Gabriel and Jonathan.

Thanks to all of you for also being integral members of my family, and for sharing in this special day as I begin the next seventy years, ad me’ah v’esrim, until 120!