Ethical Wills & How to Prepare Them (2nd Edition)

Description

Leave your loved ones a legacy of blessings, wisdom, gratitude and hope.
"Done right, an ethical will is a gift of love, a way of saying, 'This is what I found gave me satisfaction and gave my life meaning. It animated my relationship to you and to your mother (or father). May it do the same for you. I send this to you with much love.'"
—from the Foreword by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Ethical wills are precious spiritual documents, windows into the souls of those who write them, and are often a treasured part of a family’s history. These “legacy letters” sum up what you have learned in life, and what you want most for, and from, your loved ones.
This book—a unique combination of “what is” and “how to”—offers a step-by-step process to help you prepare an ethical will of your own, and provides a wide range of contemporary ethical wills to help you do it. It reveals the ongoing relevance of this traditional Jewish practice for people of all faiths, all backgrounds.
The emotional power of the nearly one hundred last letters collected here, written by both famous and ordinary Jewish people, will inspire you to live more fully now, and to record your own blessings for the generations to come.

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Parentalité et Éducation des Enfants
• Guides
• Philosophie et théologie
• Jews
• Judaism
• Religion
• Guidisme

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 03 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580238298
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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To Nathan, Lisa, Naomi, and Sterling, May you be your own person-and ours too. J.R.
To my nine grandchildren- Find grace and good favor in the eyes of God and man (Prov. 3:4). N.S.
Contents
Foreword
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Preface
Dr. Nathaniel Stampfer
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the Revised Edition
Rabbi Jack Riemer
What I Have Learned Since I Began Collecting Ethical Wills
Rabbi Jack Riemer
PART ONE
Traditional Wills
Solomon Kluger
Preparing provisions for the journey
Moshe Yeshoshua Zelig Hakohen
A guide for the practices of piety
Benjamin M. Roth
A letter to a departing son
Mordekhai Mottel Michelsohn
I shall give you some useful advice
Shmuel Tefilinsky
Put your trust in God and He will sustain you
Hayyim Elazar Shapira (The Munkatcher Rebbe)
We merit redemption by virtue of our choices
Yehuda Leib Graubart (The Stashever Rav)
Return the borrowed books in my possession
PART TWO
Wills from the Holocaust
Hirsch Moshe Zaddok
They treated us like animals
A Mother s Will
A struggle for the sanctification of the human heart
Zippora Birman
No choice but to die with honor
Among the Embers: Martyrs Testaments
The last twelve Jews in Chelmno
David Elster, on the synagogue wall
The members of Dror
Gina Atlas, on the synagogue wall
A young woman, on the synagogue wall
Berl Tomshelski, on a wooden board
A Polish Jew, to the Blozhever Rebbe
The Chief Rabbi of Grodzisk
Let him come, but let me not see him
On the Walls of Bialystok Prison
Shulamit Rabinovitch
Don t mourn for us with tears and words, but rather with deeds
Shulamit Rabinovitch s Husband
Our fate lies in wait for us
PART THREE
Wills from the Land of Israel
Elijah David Rabinovitz (Teomim)
Always have I received more honor than I deserved
Theodor Herzl
I wielded my pen as an honest man
Edmond James de Rothschild
My eldest son James ... will further my work
Abraham Isaac Kook
Help your holy people
Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel
The shepherd thanks his flock
Alter Ya akov Sahrai
Loyal to his people, its Torah, and its land
Meir Dizengoff
To the new life beyond Awareness
Yitzhak Ben Nehemia Margalit
Come, I will show thee where earth meets heaven
Naftali Swiatitsky
I have only one request
Hannah Senesh
There are events without which one s life becomes unimportant
Noam Grossman
Do not eulogize me; I did my duty
Avraham Kreizman
When I die, for you I shall continue to live
Eldad Pan
Life by itself is worth little unless it serves something greater than itself
Dvora Waysman
I am leaving you an extended family
PART FOUR
Wills of Modern and Contemporary American Jews
Nissen Sheinberg
From me, your friend and father
Emil Greenberg
A wisp, a whisper of immortality becomes mine, and yours
Yitschak Kelman
The Holy Presence is with the sick
Bernard L. Levinthal
Be bound by the oath taken at the foot of Mount Sinai
David De Sola Pool
An affirmation of life
Sholom Aleichem
Bury me ... among the common Jewish folk
Mordkhe Schaechter
Have no fear of being in the minority
Dora Chazin
Find favor in the eyes of God and man
William Schulder
Never consider yourself greater than the next man
Hayim Greenberg
I have erred not out of love of sin
Rafael L. Savitzky
In America the women are the saintly souls
Samuel Lipsitz
Live together in harmony
Sadie S. Kulakofsky
The principles of Judaism and the basis of civilization
Sidney Rabinowitz
I wanted to do something to make the world better
Samuel Furash
You are the nearest stars in my heaven
Harold Katz
So that all mankind could live in a free and peaceful world
Madeline Medoff
They carry something of me in their lives
Allen Hofrichter
An ineffable peace entered our house
Jennie Stein Berman
You should always be together
Leonard Ratner
Don t forget your seats at Park Synagogue
Harold
Be forever vigilant for those in need
Randee Rosenberg Friedman
Open your hearts and your homes
Rosie Rosenzweig
Your good character will earn you your way
William Joseph Adelson
What I consider really important
Hayyim and Esther Kieval
We have both loved the United States
Nitzah Marsha Jospe
What is important is to make each day good
William Lewis Abramowitz
Ritual is only a tool to remind us who we are
Marcia Lawson
As Jews within the human family
Sam Levenson
I leave you ... some four-letter words for all occasions
Richard J. Israel
With a love that has been well seasoned
Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman
From Vilna to Connecticut to Jerusalem
Stanley J. Garfein
Finish your final business
Rabbi Monroe Levens
Life here is a great and wonderful adventure
PART FIVE
Three Wills from Classics of Modern Jewish Literature
Zvi Kolitz
Yossel Rakover Speaks to God
Y. L. Peretz
Four Generations-Four Wills
Avraham Sutzkever
The Will of Nissim Laniado
PART SIX
A Guide to Writing Your Own Ethical Will
Topical Index
Credits
Notes
About the Authors
Copyright
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Foreword
Each of us is several people over the course of our lifetime. We all start out as someone s child. Then we grow up to be someone s friend and classmate, someone s serious romantic partner, and then someone s husband or wife, leading in the normal course of events to becoming someone s father or mother, and perhaps someone s grandparent. At each of these stages, we learn something-usually several important somethings-about life, and at each of these stages, we come to realize that what we previously believed may have been incorrect, or at least seriously flawed. By the time we approach the last stages of our lives, we have gathered all those life-lessons, including the errors we have outgrown and the mistakes we are embarrassed to recall, under the rubric of wisdom.
By the time we come to realize that the years ahead are far fewer than the years we have already lived we confront the discouraging truth that, unless we do something about it, all that hard-won wisdom will disappear with us when we die. So, over time, the custom arose of composing an ethical will, bequeathing our wisdom to our descendants even as we bequeath to them our hard-earned material assets.
It is probably too much to hope that our children will avoid the mistakes that we made and tried to warn them about, but at least we can assure them that those mistakes of youth and impatience are survivable. More importantly, we can point them to what we found to be of lasting value. All of this has to be done carefully, lest we convey an impression of nagging from the grave, of wishing not only to enlighten but to control. A lot will depend on your having had a good relationship with the next generation during your years together.
But done right, an ethical will can be seen as a gift of love, a way of saying this is what I found gave me satisfaction and gave my life meaning. It animated my relationship to you and to your mother (or father). May it do the same for you. I send this to you with much love.
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Preface
The tradition of bequeathing a spiritual legacy either in the form of a codicil to a conventional will or as a separate document has its roots in the Bible and the Talmud. The biblical and talmudic examples, however, are invariably shown to have been conveyed orally while later generations committed their ethical wills to writing. As a result of this practice, numerous examples of tzavaot (wills, instructions) of the medieval and Renaissance periods have been preserved. Some of the older ethical wills possess a high literary quality. Others that are not noteworthy in form are exquisite in their content.
But literary integrity was not primary in the intentions of the writers of ethical wills. Deeply cherished was the desire to bequeath to their descendants an instructive account of the ideals and midot (traits, measures of refinement) closest to their hearts. They sought to write and transmit not philosophical treatises but personal reflections on their lives as Jews and on the motivating values and events in their life s experience. They hoped to impart the precepts of God s Law refracted through the prism of a parent s life. While the writing of ethical wills is not unknown to the Christian tradition, this volume is devoted exclusively to Jewish ethical wills.
As with material possessions, parents often conveyed