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Ethical Wills and the Second Death
Sinai Temple's class on ethical wills, "Passing on Your Heart's Treasures," will be taught this Wednesday, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at 10400 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, by the extraordinary Norm Pell. There is no charge, but registration is required (310-481-3243, or email at programs@sinaitemple.org).
Here is an excerpt from the ethical will of Abraham M. Ellis, written September 16, 1955, based on a life that began in Europe in a prior century, and ended in Philadelphia in a new world:
Why do I leave this will? This is a question that would not have had to be asked a hundred years ago or more when it was common for a Jew to leave not only a will of property but a will of advice, an ethical will. A man should provide for the next generation materially – this is the duty of every father, his undeniable responsibility – but he must provide for them spiritually as well; he must seek to make their way in life easier by showing them where the path is to be found which will guide them through the forest of daily living where it is so easy to lose both body and soul. In setting down this will, then, I am but doing what countless Jews have done before me in days gone by, and what I hope will again be taken up as a sacred mitzvah by our generation.
Rabbi Jack Riemer's book on ethical wills recounts Harold Kushner's interpretation of the comment Jacob makes when he sees his son Joseph again, whom he thought had died: Jacob says "Amuta hapa'am" – literally "I will die this one time." (Gen. 46:30). Kushner explained that everyone owes life one death, but a person leaving no one to remember him dies a second one. Once Jacob knew that Joseph was alive and had children, who would remember their grandfather's life, Jacob knew he would only die once.
At the end of Ian Frazier's "Family," a book that movingly records the small moments of his ancestors' lives (such as the night his mother danced in college and wrote in her diary that "my heart danced with me"), he sits alone by his mother's hospital bed, realizing that "sooner or later I would die too:"
And soon all the people who had accompanied me through life would be gone, too, and then even the people who had known us, and no one would remain on earth who had ever seen us, and those descended from us perhaps would know stories about us, perhaps once in a while they would pass by buildings where we had lived and they would mention that we had lived there. And then the stories would fade, and our graves would go untended, and the graves of those who had tended ours would go untended, and no one would guess what it had been like to wake before dawn in our breath-warmed bedrooms as the radiators clanked and our wives and husbands and children slept. And we would move from the nearer regions of the dead who are remembered into the farther regions of the forgotten, and on past those, into a space as white and big as the sky replicated forever. And all that would remain would be the love bravely expressed, and the moment when you danced and your heart danced with you.
Think of an ethical will as the love bravely expressed -- as a way to pass on the treasures of your heart, from the days your heart danced with you -- and as a sacred mitzvah, a way to die only once.
Sholom Aleichem's Ethical Will
Sinai Temple's class on ethical wills, taught by Norm Pell, begins October 28.
On May 17, 1916, The New York Times published the will of S. Rabinowitz (Sholom Aleichem, 1859-1916), who spent his last years in New York. The Times said it was described as "a fine example of the traditional ethical will left in all ages by the great men of Israel." Here are the beginning and end of its 10 paragraphs:
Wherever I may die, let me be buried not among the rich and famous, but among plain Jewish people, the workers, the common folk, so that my tombstone may honor the simple graves around me, and the simple graves honor mine, even as the plain people honored their folk writer in his lifetime.
My last wish for my successors and my prayer to my children: Take good care of your mother, beautify her old age, sweeten her bitter life, heal her broken heart; do not weep for me – on the contrary, remember me with joy; and the main thing – live together in peace, bear no hatred for each other, help one another in bad times, think on occasion of other members of the family, pity the poor, and when circumstances permit, pay my debts, if there be any. Children, bear with honor my hard-earned Jewish name and may God in Heaven sustain you ever. Amen.
Passing on the Lessons of Your Life
On October 28, Sinai Temple will once again present an extraordinary class entitled "Ethical Wills – Passing on Your Heart's Treasures, with Norm Pell."
Ethical wills are "a lovely Jewish custom, one that is unfortunately not sufficiently known in our time" but that has produced some of the most moving Jewish literature from both known and unknown writers, collected in "Ethical Wills – A Modern Jewish Treasury." The remarkable aspect of the "wills" is that each one is different, and each one can only have been written by the person who wrote it.
Norm Pell, the extraordinary teacher of the extraordinary Sinai class, was profiled earlier this year in The Jewish Week of New York by Tamar Snyder: "Being Of Sound Mind, Body — And Conscience:"
Norman Pell first learned about ethical wills a few years ago, when Beatrice Taishoff, who is his son-in-law's mother, shared her ethical will with the extended family. At first, he believed that writing his own ethical will was unnecessary. "Those who know me already know about me the principles I try to live by, and what is important in my life," he writes in the introduction to his ethical will. "I even thought it would be counterproductive to reduce these thoughts to writing."
After embarking on the project, however, Pell discovered great benefit in writing down one's hopes, dreams and even disappointments. With the encouragement of Rabbi David Wolpe, he researched the topic and began giving ethical will writing workshops in Los Angeles, where he lives.
He begins the workshops by differentiating between three types of wills: the living will, the traditional will and the ethical will. "A regular will outlines your material assets and a living will makes known one's wishes regarding life-prolonging medical treatment," he says. "Both are legal documents." An ethical will, however, doesn't have to conform to strict rules. "It can be one paragraph or several pages," he says. "For all intents and purposes, Mitch Albom's best-seller 'Tuesdays With Morrie' can be considered an ethical will."
"Do you know who you are named after?" Pell often asks those who attend his workshops. Often, participants will reply, "I'm named for my grandfather; he was a nice guy." But they don't know much more about the man or woman their parents admired enough to name them for. An ethical will not only forces a person to reexamine his or her life and goals, but also ensures a lasting legacy for future generations. "In 50 years, someone will name somebody after you," Pell often says. "Wouldn't it be nice if they knew what your life was all about?" . . .
Writing an ethical will isn't easy, Pell cautions. "It's not something you sit and write in a day," he says. "It can take a year. When you do so, you finally come to face who you really are."
Contact the Sinai Temple Program Department at (310) 481-3243 or at programs@sinaitemple.org.
COMMENTARY in LA -- October 20
COMMENTARY in L.A. on October 20
John Podhoretz - 10.08.2009 - 9:00 PM
Hello, Angelenos: Commentary is taking its act out on the road. We will be traveling to Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 20, to present the first in a series of discussions across the country with Commentary's editors and writers. The Commentary Forum in Los Angeles will be entitled "The Obama Challenge: Israel, Iran, and American Jews." I will be leading the discussion, and joining me will be my CONTENTIONS colleagues Jennifer Rubin and Rick Richman. The event will be held at 7 p.m. at the Skirball Cultural Center. Admission will be $10. To attend, you need to pre-register.
The event is co-sponsored by Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
Please click here to Pre-Register.