This summer I turned thirty. A few weeks before my birthday, I started thinking about what I wanted to do to recognize the occasion…I thought it would be nice to learn something and give it over, and though I did not have time to give a formal shiur, I want to share it with you.
The Mishnah in Pirkei Avos says “ben shloshim l’koach” – thirty is the age of strength. Rashi and other commentators write that thirty was the age at which the Levi’im were allowed to carry the keilim because that was the age at which they had reached full strength. The peirush Midrash Shmuel on Pirkei Avos writes that at thirty a person has the power to influence others and to strengthen others.
There is apparently a midrash that discusses leaders who were thirty when they rose to power — Yosef Hatzadik and Dovid Hamelech. Thirty is the age of leadership because a person has become “humbled and heartbroken.” (I didn’t find this midrash, maybe you can point me to a source). The Mishna Berurah says that someone can be shaliach tzibur for Yomim Noraim at age thirty for this reason.
The special strength at thirty comes from life experience that gifts us courage, vulnerability, humility, and compassion.
It is not tragic or sad that I am single at thirty, but it is hard. The night I turned thirty I was in the car with my mother on the way home from a wedding and I watched the clock turn to midnight. I had been mentally preparing for weeks and I had thought I was in a really good place for my birthday. It turned out to be one of the hardest nights of my life. It felt dark and scary. I was full of pain, anxiety, and anger. Why did this happen? How could my life turn out this way? What did I do wrong? What’s going to happen to me?
I made it through that night and all the nights since, and for the most part, I am thriving at thirty. I am doing so many good and meaningful and wished-for things, and I intend to keep at them at least until other things come my way.
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