For the first exercise, we suggest using the concept of the ethical will. In many Jewish societies, through the centuries, the writing of an ethical will in a person’s last years was seen as an important act. The idea is simple: just as many people today write a material will, which instructs the heirs regarding the division of property after death, so it was customary for people to write an ethical will with moral and life instruction to the heirs. In addition to the accumulation of any physical property, a person also accumulates wisdom and experience, which should also be bequeathed to the heirs. We offer here two examples of what can be found in ethical wills. As both documents are long, we give here only short excerpts to convey their flavor. The first writer, the twelfth-century Spanish Jewish intellectual, Judah Ibn Tibbon, is an important cultural figure in Jewish history. He was the father of a line of translators who worked in Arabic and Hebrew.
The second writer, the fourteenth-century Eleazar of Mayence, was a simple German Jew.
The message of these two documents is clear. They are written by people who feel that they are nearing the end of their life and they wish to pass on to the next generation the distilled lessons of a lifetime. These two people, one an intellectual and the other, an ordinary man, feel that life has taught them something and that, in their old age, they can clearly express what that they have learnt throughout their life on a wide variety of matters. They have accumulated wisdom, which should be passed on for the guidance of the younger generation. The children can choose, of course, to ignore the lessons that their parents attempt to give them but their parents believe that they will pay a price for this. Perhaps they feel that only in their advanced years, released from many of the compulsions that tend to drive people throughout their lives - status, perhaps, or money or lust - they have reached the stage where their thoughts are pure and their wisdom at its greatest. |
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