“And he lived.” 

This is how our Torah portion begins in the full cycle. It seems an appropriate verse especially coming as it does at the end of Bereshit, Genesis and the end of the year 2023. Many people had a hard year this year. Many of you on the screen. But as we move into 2023, it is good to pause and talk about “What does it mean to live?” 

Once, when my daughter was beginning kindergarten my father wrapped up a beautiful gift. He loved to do intricate gift wrapping. There was a box in dazzling paper and inside that box was another box also wrapped beautifully and inside it was still another wrapped box and inside that was a bag of all the refrigerator magnets, both the English ones and the Hebrew ones. And note that this was her legacy. Now she had to put it together to find meaning. 

One of my favorite poems is by Mary Oliver, A Summer’s Day: 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? 

—Mary Oliver 

What will you do with your one wild and precious life? That is the question of what it means to live. 

Today’s Torah portion is the first recorded ethical will. An ethical will is not about how to distribute physical property. It’s not an advance directive or a power of attorney. You need those too. If New Year’s is about putting your affairs in order, I recommend using this form called the Five Wishes: https://www.fivewishes.org/for-myself/  

An ethical will is a document that passes down ethical values from one generation to the next. In today’s portion Jacob calls all his sons together and blesses them and then tells them that they should not bury him in Egypt, rather he wants to be buried in Ca’anan in the cave at Machpeleh, with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca. In Deuteronomy, which is often described as Moses’ swan song, Moses instructs his people how to be a holy people and the importance of teaching their children. 

From that humble start, it is a tool that has been used by rabbis and Jewish people until today.  

The early rabbis urged people to “transmit the tradition’s ethical teachings” and they communicated orally to their sons. Later they were written as letters. Eleazar ben Samuel HaLevi of Mainz, Germany, who died 1357, wrote to and instructed his sons to “Put me in the ground at the right hand of my father.” 

We looked at some examples that are included at the end. The American Bar Association has said that an ethical will can be a help in estate planning. In addition, writing an ethical will can be an aid in spiritual healing in health care and hospice.  

However, I wouldn’t wait until you are in hospice. Simon wrote a beautiful one for our daughter on the occasion of her Bat Mitzvah.  

There is no formula for writing an ethical will. They often include the following: 

• Lessons learned and meaningful family and personal stories from the past 
• Values, beliefs, and expressions of gratitude from the present 
• Advice, hopes, and requests for the future 

 Today we are going to try something different. We are going to write a group ethical will aa a gift to our descendents. It will be our legacy.  And hope that I can remember what we all said by sundown! 

 Here is what we said:
If I were talking to the next generation, I might say that Torah teaches us in Genesis that we are to be caretakers of this earth but that we haven’t done such a good job so we hope that your generation will do better. 

• May you respect, listen and learn. 
• May you greet everyone with respect 
• May you learn that there is no place for violence anywhere in the world. 
• May you show kindness and compassion to everyone 
• May that kindness and compassion be especially true of those who are displaced by war or famine. 
• May you do acts of lovingkindness by volunteering. 
• May you look inward, and listen to your bodies! 
• May you learn to dance and sing. May you know fun and joy.  

 Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek. 

 Additional resources for writing your own ethical will: 

Giving Children Your Blessing: A Rabbi’s Tips for Ethical Wills by Ronnie Caplane (J Weekly, September 15, 2000). 

Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper by Barry K. Baines, M.D. (Da Capo Press, 2006). Baines also publishes a website. He provides basic information for creating an ethical will with real examples of ethical wills written by people of different ages. 

Everything I Know: Basic Life Rules from a Jewish Mother by Sharon Strassfeld (Scribner, 1998). A spiritual-ethical will written by Strassfeld to her daughter as she leaves home for college. A combination of stories expressing family and cultural values, direct instruction, and apologies for pain she caused her. 

The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to my Children and Yours by Marin Wright Edelman (William Morrow Paperbacks, 1993). In this spiritual-ethical will for her sons, Edelman recounts her experience and perspective on life in essays variously addressed to her own children, to all children, and to parents. 

The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln translated by Marvin Lowenthal (Schocken Books, 1987). The only extant pre-modern spiritual-ethical will written by a woman, from 1690. 

So That Your Values Live On: Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Them edited and annotated by Jack Reimer and Nathaniel Stampfer (LongHill Partners, 2009). A collection of traditional ethical wills, which includes a guide to writing an ethical will, with suggestions for topics to be covered and a brief consideration about informing others about what you have written in it. 

https://www.sinaichapel.org/tools-resources/writing-ethical-will.aspx  

https://cdn.sanity.io/files/zzw4zduo/production/498f796abb5578d66c785b541c18f94a908dce6a.pdf 

Additional books about growing older: 

Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, & Spirit by Rachel Cowen 

Getting Good at Getting Older, Richard Siegel and Laura Geller 

From Age-ing to Sage-ing, Zalman Schacter Shalomi 

 Reading before Kaddish. The Dash by Linda Ellis: 

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end. 

He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own —
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real,
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more,
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before. 

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering this special dash
might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read
with your life’s actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash? 

Linda Ellis 

 Some examples of ethical wills:

 Judah Ibn Tibbon to his son, Samuel, est. 1190 

My son!  Make thy books thy companions, let thy cases and shelves be thy pleasure-grounds and gardens.  Bask in thy paradise, gather their fruit, pluck their roses, take their spices and their myrrh.  If thy soul be satiate and weary, change from garden to garden, from furrow to furrow, from prospect to prospect.  Then will thy desire renew itself, and thy soul be filled with delight! 

…Let thy expenditure be well ordered. It is remarked in The Choice of Pearls, “Expenditure properly managed makes half an income.”  And there is an olden proverb, “Go to bed without supper and rise without debt.”  Defile not the honor of thou countenance by borrowing; may thy creator save thee from that habit! 

Samuel Lipsitz, New England businessman, written in 1950 

Somewhere among these papers is a will made out by a lawyer. Its purpose is to dispose of any material things which I may possess at the time of my departure from this world to the unknown adventure beyond. I hope its terms will cause no ill will among you. It seemed sensible when I made it.  After all, it refers only to material things which we enjoy temporarily. 

I am more concerned with having you inherit something that is vastly more important. 

There must be purpose in the creation of man. Because I believe that (as I hope you will some day, for without it, life becomes meaningless), I hope you will live right. 

Live together in harmony! Carry no will will toward each other. Bethink of the family. Help each other in need. Honor and care for your mother. Make her old age happy, as far as in your power… 

From So Your Values Live On, edited by Jack Riemer and Nathaniel Stampfer 

 A one paragraph ethical will by a mother to her children 

I fully expect that I will live for a very long time, to see you well into adulthood and to share your future with you. There is much to look forward to and I am planning on being part of all the adventures and all the challenges and all the joys. But if for some reason I am not, the most important thing you need to know is how much my love for you created the person that you will remember as me. I made you quite literally, in my womb, but you made me, too. I am so proud of you and so grateful to you.  When the time comes, and none of us can answer the question of when that will be, you need to know that without a doubt, I was fulfilled in my life. I have had a wonderful life and I don’t want you to mourn me – maybe a little, but not too long!  Carry me forward by re-creating the net that I was for you and be it for others. Carry me forward in your kitchen with oatmeal scones and casserole bread and pie, warm from the oven and made for your own delectable pleasure, or for those you care about.  Carry me forward with an optimistic outlook and tenacious devotion to what you know is best. Carry me forward and I will be with you always. 

Shared with permission from the author. 

 And one that appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Sholem Aleichem’s: 

https://sholemaleichem.org/community/ethical-will/index.html