We’ve all played games produced by the Milton Bradley Company:  Battleship, Candyland, Jenga, Twister, Yahtzee, and many more.  But did you know that the first board game created by Milton Bradley himself back in 1860, was based on the stages of life?  It was called “The Checkered Game of Life.”   The gameboard was a modification of a...Read More

At five years old a person should study the Scriptures at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the bridechamber, at twenty for one’s life pursuit, at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty to be an elder,...Read More

The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare was acutely aware of our passage through time.  This theme interpenetrates virtually all of his work. In Sonnet 60 he writes:  “Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore/So do our minutes hasten to their end.”  In Sonnet 64 he writes:  “When I have seen by Time’s...Read More

The ancient Greek lawgiver Solon divided the human life cycle into ten stages of seven years each: 0-7     –  A boy at first is the man; unripe; then he casts his teeth; milk-teeth befitting the child he sheds his 7th year; 7-14   –  Then to his seven years God adding another seven, signs of...Read More

In The Analects, Confucius provides us with one of the earliest maps of human development. The Master said, at 15 I set my heart upon learning At 30, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground. At 40, I no longer suffered from perplexities. At 50, I knew what were the biddings of heaven....Read More