#341: Would You Like to Live for 20,000 Years?

Ibn Ezra on Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeileikh, Devarim/Deuteronomy 3:14

A 105-year-old Ecuadorian farmer. Credit: Karsten Thormaehlen, CCA-SA 4.0.

Gimme Some Torah #341

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Devarim/Deuteronomy 3:14

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהוָ֜ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֗ה הֵ֣ן קָרְב֣וּ יָמֶיךָ֮ לָמוּת֒ קְרָ֣א אֶת־יְהוֹשֻׁ֗עַ וְהִֽתְיַצְּב֛וּ בְּאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד וַאֲצַוֶּ֑נּוּ וַיֵּ֤לֶךְ מֹשֶׁה֙ וִֽיהוֹשֻׁ֔עַ וַיִּֽתְיַצְּב֖וּ בְּאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵֽד׃

יהוה said to Moses: The time is drawing near for you to die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, that I may instruct him. Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the Tent of Meeting.

Who is the oldest person you have ever met? I have met a handful of centenarians ranging in age from 100 to 104. It used to be extremely rare to live more than one hundred years, but it is becoming more common. It is thought that up to one-third of children today will live past the century mark.

But what if it were possible to live an even longer life with all of our faculties? One researcher, Prof. João Pedro de Magalhães, says that it is possible that we could live for anywhere from a millennium to 20,000 years, and that the achievement might be as simple as a little tweak to our genetic code, something that viruses do all the time. In the meantime, de Magalhães says a drug called rapamycin has been proven to lengthen the lifespans of laboratory animals by as much as 30%.

The notion that we could live for thousands of years collides with many cultural beliefs about the human lifespan. Ancient Greek mythology and the Bible seem to agree that we have a set date on which we die. The Greeks believed in the Three Fates, who spun, measured, and cut the fabric of time allotted to each person.

Likewise, in Gen. 6:3, God says, “My breath shall not abide in humankind forever, since it too is flesh; let the days allowed them be one hundred and twenty years.” And in this week’s Torah portion (Deut. 31:14), God tells Moses that the date of his death is approaching, suggesting that the date of his demise is a known quantity.

In his commentary on that verse, Ibn Ezra amplifies the idea of a limited human lifespan:

YOUR DAYS APPROACH THAT YOU MUST DIE. For there is a time set for each and everyone. I have previously explained this.

In terms of science, it may in fact be true that each of us has a maximum age that we may or may not reach. The aging process treats some people with kid gloves and others with a sawed-off shotgun. Those who experience premature aging may have damaged telomeres, which are genetic structures that shorten with age; shortened telomeres have been associated with a number of dysfunctions.

If scientists do invent a drug that dramatically lengthens the human lifespan—even if the bonus is just another century rather than millennia—humanity will have a number of questions to answer. These are just a few of them:

1. In what physical condition will we enjoy the extra time? If I take the drug at 52, am I stuck with my 52 year old body? Or could I purchase a rewind as an add-on?

2. Who gets access to the drug? Those who have the money? (Spoiler alert: You betcha!)

3. Human beings need a purpose to live an enjoyable life, a purpose beyond mere survival. What would we do with hundreds or thousands of years?

4. Would convicted felons and other disfavored people be denied life extension? (Spoiler alert: Yup!)

5. Will people who get life extension need permission to procreate?

6. Where will people live for centuries or millennia?

All of this, of course, is science fiction at this point. But elements of science fiction have a way of becoming real sooner than we expect. I remember a scene from Star Trek where Gary Seven operates a typewriter with his voice. Today, that is no big deal at all—in fact, the Apricot personal computer featured voice recognition in 1984, just fifteen years or so after the Star Trek episode aired.

When the prophet Isaiah said that one day, “Death will be destroyed forever,” is a vast lengthening of the human lifespan what he had in mind? Or is genetic life extension bound to become a biochemical Tower of Babel?

Discussion Questions:

1. Assuming you could remain healthy and independent, would you want to live to 200?

2. What would it mean for humans to live 20,000 years? Is the idea a dream or a dystopian nightmare?

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Rabbi Eli Garfinkel is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Somerset, New Jersey. He is the author of The JPS Jewish Heritage Torah Commentary.