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Gemar Chatimah Tovah and Shanah Tovah. During this time of year, when we celebrate with family and friends the beginning of a New Year, many of us have certain memories at the same time. Memories of celebrating holidays in the past, memories of our favorite dishes and memories of melodies and sermons that we have heard and encountered throughout the course of our Jewish lives. But many of our memories at this time of year tend to be of our relatives and friends who have died and who are no longer with us. We often want to speak with them on the telephone or visit with them, but physically we are unable to do so. Yizkor, our memorial service, which we will recite later this afternoon, enables us to maintain our memories and remember the souls of our loved ones who have moved on to God's eternal embrace. Some of those we remember today died through terrible illness. Some died of old age, some died tragically at younger ages. Every loss that we go through no matter how old or young, tragic or not, leaves a large hole and gaping wound in our lives. It is very hard and takes time for our mourning process and our wounds to heal, scabs to form and scars to present forever.
When we recite Yizkor, we take some personal time to remember our family members who are no longer living. For some of us we have said those prayers for just a few weeks, months and for some of us we have said them for years depending on how long our loved ones have been away from our physical presence. We acknowledge that they are in God's Olam Habah, God's world to come, where we all embark after we move from this world.
And perhaps, for many of us, there are still questions that we have for those who have left us. And there are indeed still answers that will never come to fruition, because we did not take the time to ask and perhaps they did not take the time to share and provide answers to us. Questions such as why did those who we remember choose to do what they did in the world? With what values, morals and ethics do they expect us to center our lives around? How do they want to see us raise our children? And what others wisdom do they have for us in this dangerous, fragile and yet holy world?
Sure, our loved ones when they die leave for us a last will and testament. The words explain who gets what. Whether it is property or money, stocks or bonds, jewelry or furniture. And perhaps they leave for us a living will, which shares with us what we are to do in terms of resuscitating or Not resuscitating them, allowing for organ donation or no organ donation, and the many other difficult decisions that alleviate stress and fighting amongst our families when these issues are resolved before the situation ever arises. But there is one thing that I believe many of us in this room have not yet created, or those whom we love who have left never created before they died, and that is the creation of an ethical will. An ethical is something I wish my father had written before he died. Perhaps it would have been those words on those pieces of paper, which could have served as a powerful and holy instrument in answering for me the questions I posed to all of us just a few moments ago.
For many of us, it is difficult to confront our own deaths. For many of us, it is emotionally draining to sit with an attorney and right down our death on a piece of paper. After all, our Rabbis teach us that when Moses was writing down his own death, he was crying as observed that he would not be able to enter the land of Israel for a variety of reasons. Yet, he went forward and wrote down such a proposition because he knew that he was obligated to experience death, as it is a part of life.
So therefore like Moses we must do the same. But we should not just write down what materialistic items we have and who gets them when we die, we should not just write down the medical directives that we request in our living wills, but we also have the obligation to leave behind the ethics and values, the mission statements and desires that we have for our families to read and to carry forward representing who we are and what we stood for when we were alive.
Ethical wills are powerful, meaningful and should be mandatory for every one of us before we die. They help families cope with loss psychologically, they enable those who are still living to live out the expectations of those who have left our world as much as possible, but most importantly, the ethical wills that we create maintain and keep alive their memories as a blessing to those of us who are still alive.
Rabbi Jack Riemer and Nathaniel Stampfer once created a book together entitled: "So that your values live on- Ethical Wills and How To Prepare Them". As we begin thinking about our own ethical wills that we will go and create when Yom Kippur comes to a close, I would like to share three ethical wills that some of our Jewish Heroes and Heroines composed before they died. Hopefully, they will inspire us to go and do the same before it is too late.
The first ethical will is from the Ghetto Newspaper Warsaw-Krakow, 1940 and was simply signed "Your Mother." It was addressed to her child and to every one of us who has since survived the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism in our world. The will reads as follows:
"Judaism, my child, is the struggle to bring God down upon earth, a struggle for the sanctification of the human heart. This struggle your people wages not with physical force but with spirit, with sincere heartfelt prayers, and by constant striving for truth and justice. So do you understand, my child, how we are distinct from others and wherein lies the secret of our existence on earth? Knowing this, will your heart still be heavy, my child? Will you still say you cannot stand your fate? But you must, my child, for so were you commanded; it is your calling. This is your mission, your purpose on earth. You must go to work alongside people of other nations….and you will teach them that they must come to a brotherhood of nations and to a union of all nations with God. You may ask: "How does one speak to them?" This is how: "Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet; love thy neighbor as thyself…" Do these things and through their merit, my child, you shall be victorious."
The second ethical will comes from Jennie Stein Berman. She was brought to American from Lithuania by her family, which settled in Ohio. Following her marriage she lived in Chicago until the end of her life. Her children and grandchildren remember her as fully observant of Jewish tradition, but very progressive and modern in her outlook. The date of the letter is 1956. She writes the following:
"To All my Children, This is your mother's last wish. After I am gone, you should be together, well and happy. And of what is left in money I want you to share and share alike. Florence, Alvin, Julius, Lester, if it is only one dollar you each should get a fourth of it. That is my last wish. And I go before Sam, my husband, you should all see to it that he has a place to sleep with something to eat at all times. Please. Then I can rest at peace. This is my last wish, that you all be well and happy. And I give you all my blessing and love- Mother. This is my last wish."
The third and final ethical will is that of Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, which led to the establishment and existence of our Jewish State, Medinat Yisrael.
Herzl writes:
"It is fitting to prepare for the day of death. One cannot speak in flowery language. What I have meant for the Jewish people, only future days will tell better than the general public in my own time. My primary estate consists of diary entries about my activities in Jewish affairs and very little property or money. Please see to it that my words and memoirs are published immediately following my death. Please publish my plays that I have written, my favorite being "The Ghetto".
My name will hopefully grown after my death. I therefore believe that a publisher be found for all of my writings. I know today as I have known every single minute since I began my life as a writer, that I wielded my words and my pen as an honest human being. Never did I sell my pen, never did I utilize my words for base or obscene purposes, not even for social reasons. It is permissible to even publish these words that I am speaking now. I have officially recorded this ethical will of mine in the district court of the State on July 4, 1904."
Three ethical wills with three completely different messages and agendas. Each of us has our own ethical wills that we have the duty to create and the obligation to leave for others before we leave the world. As we recite Yizkor on Yom Kippur, we remember the core values and strong ethics of those who loved us, and before we die, and before we are remembered during Yizkor, we must create our own ethical will which will create for peace in our families, peace in our communities, peace in our world and peace within God and ourselves. Our ethical wills that we will write and share with others must be full of our feelings, what we believe in and may they provide an avenue to keep our souls alive for the generations and world which will arrive after we are gone.
May our ethical wills provide comfort and meaning to those who will be left behind. May our ethical wills provide a path of healing and peace for those who will grieve for us. May our ethical wills provide the closure we need in departing from this world and our arrival into the next world.
A contemporary Jewish musician, who most of us know, Debbie Friedman, shares the following words in one of her songs:
And the Old Shall Dream Dreams
And the Youth Shall See Visions
And our Hopes Shall Rise Up To The Sky
We Must Live For Today
We Must Build For Tomorrow
Give Us Time, Give Us Strength, Give us Life
May our ethical wills be our words that provide the world with our dreams, our visions, our love as we do live for today but at the same time build for tomorrow allowing for us to be remembered as a blessing and being recognized, honored and appreciated for making our world and God's world a better place, and together we say, Amen!
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