Epilogue

The Epilogue offers a brief theoretical-methodological reflection on the book by discussing the interpretive and analytical principles that guided its readings. This book sought to bring old age and aged persons into the discourse on rabbinic culture—to bring them from the shadows to the light, so to speak—and thus to enrich existing conversations on the wonderfully manifold fabric of this culture. Focusing on three key literary terms that have been critical for this work—excess, overreading, and estrangement—the epilogue accounts for an understanding of rabbinic literature as literature, and charts out the ways in which this investigation of old age helps illuminate the psychological sophistication and literary deftness of rabbinic narrative art more broadly.