GEN1194 The man of ninety is of the age to go shuah, bent over; the man of a hundred is as though already dead and gone, removed from the world.   Pirkei Avot V:24   Understood so, the mishnah gives a physical description of a nonagenarian, bending at last under the weight of his years. The word shuah may also be related to shuhah, the grave, denoting that at ninety a man goes toward it (there is, alas, little else for him to do) And at a hundred, our mishnah continues, it is as though he reached it. Since the Mishnah was recorded without n’kudoth, marks to fix pronunciation, the word could also be read as suah. Scripture states, “Isaac went out la-suah (to meditate) in the field toward evening” [this verse]; and the Sages understand our text could mean that at ninety a man has no other proper business but prayer. If he has been blessed to reach this extraordinary age, let him not fritter away his precious time but spend it in sacred entreaty. Let him bring alive, for example, the winger words of t’hillim, the Book of Psalms.   Of the hundred-year-old there is little to be said. As Rashi poignantly writes, his face is tragically altered, the well of wisdom is closed to him, and he simply exists witlessly. Gone utterly is all strength. In place of life only existence remains.   SINAI3 232