This Shabbat we begin reading the Book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is the Greek name of the book, meaning “the second telling” or “recapitulation.” It is called that because, as you might recall, at this point in Torah, the Children of Israel are encamped at the Jordan River, ready to enter, looking across into, the Promised Land. Moshe, in anticipation of this momentous event, gives over to the people a recitation of all their journeys and adventures, and a repetition and paraphrase of all the laws. He does this not out of vanity, or not entirely so. He does this because, as we discussed a couple weeks ago, no one is left from the generation that left Egypt. With, well, two exceptions, there is no one walking into this new life in the Promised Land who actually heard the words of God at Mt. Sinai back in the Book of Exodus. Deuteronomy, for us, is a repetition. For them, it was the first time.
In Hebrew the book is called Devarim – meaning “words.” Because words are Moshe’s currency. His leadership is about to end. And words are all he can still give that people might take with them. Eyleh had’varim asher diber Moshe el kol Yisrael. “These are the words that Moshe spoke to all Israel on the far side of the Jordan River, through the wilderness, in the Aravah desert across from Suf, between Paran and Tofel, Lavan, Ḥatzerot and Dahab.” These are the coordinates, given with GPS-like precision. And there Moshe offers words.
He doesn’t yet know that he is going to die there in the Wilderness, on the far side of the Jordan, in the Aravah desert across from Suf. But he has an instinct to speak to the people anyway. To lay down the law. To state the expectations. To remind them of the journeys and the hardships that were undertaken for them, so that they would know their story, and what it required of them.
Moshe is offering what we call a tzava’ah, an ethical will. These are famous last words, not meant to convey property but to convey the ethos – the values and ideas – of this ethnos, this holy people.
Moshe wasn’t the first to give an ethical will. In Torah we read about Jacob, on his deathbed, giving a laundry list of final words – assessing in turn each of his son’s moral character. Spoiler: none of them come out of it very well.
Moshe wasn’t the first to give an ethical will, and he wasn’t the last. The tzava’ah became a Jewish tradition. We have written ethical wills dating back to the middle ages, perhaps stimulated by a similar Muslim tradition. A thousand years ago, in the year 1050, Rabbi Elazar Hagadol, who lived in Ashkenaz and might have been Rashi’s teacher, wrote to his children, offering them his ethic. He says:
Think not of evil, for evil thinking leads to evil doing. Take particular care to cleanliness. Be zealous to visit the sick, for sympathy will lighten their sickness; but stay not too long, for their malady is heavy enough without you. Give a portion of all your food to God. Let God's portion be the best, and give it to the poor.
One hundred and fifty years later we have an ethical will from Maimonides, in which he advises his children: “Learn in your youth, when your food is prepared by others, while the heart is still free and unencumbered with cares, ere the memory is weakened. For the time will come when you will be willing to learn but will be unable.”
Around the same time, Spanish rabbi Yehudah ibn Tibbon writes in his ethical will, “Avoid bad company. Make your books your companions, let your bookcases be your gardens. Pluck the fruit that grows there, gather the roses, the spices, and the myrrh.”
In the late 1600s and early 1700s, we get the oldest known memoir written by a Jewish woman – that of Glikl of Hameln, a businesswoman who, over 30 years, wrote her life story, in five volumes – boxed, like Proust. The entire first volume, written in an old German-style Yiddish, is an ethical will, in which she says to her children:
The best thing for you, my children, is to serve God from your heart, without falsehood, not telling people you are one thing while, God forbid, in your heart you are another. Say your prayers with trembling and devotion. During the time for prayers, do not stand about talking of other things. While prayers are being offered to the Creator of the world, hold it as a great sin to engage another person in talk about an entirely different matter. Shall God Almighty be kept waiting until you have finished your business?
One wonders what conduct she observed in synagogue. Did she see her children doing it too? And are all these ethical wills just a last ditch attempt to get your children to do after your death what they refused to do when your were alive?
I’ve never managed to write an ethical will. In the past I’ve put some extra little messages in my actual will. Encouragements, forgivenesses, some punch lines – good punch lines. I have some half-written letters to our kids on my computer doing no one any good. Sometimes when I am feeling anxious about impending travel, I leave a little note hidden, easy to find just in case I die, chalilah, in some terrible way. (My husband doesn’t know this; he’s never actually found one of them.)
Maybe other people here have done better at getting ethical wills written. Although of all the people in this no-longer-small congregation of ours, only a few of you have come to me to do any end-of-life planning. (Which, you could do. Just saying.)
But wouldn’t it be good to write an ethical will? Maybe not even a real one that you will send or leave. Maybe just a practice one. To help figure out, what are my watchwords? There are certainly some values, some ideas, that have gotten me this far, that have informed how I live and what is important and what delights me and what I wish I could share. What are those things? If I were to start writing an ethical will right now, what guidance would I share with the next generation?
Maybe give it a moment right now and think about a value you would want to impress upon the next generation.
And now take a moment and notice if the value you want to share is one you are are actually living by. Because we all have lofty ideals that we don’t always live up to. And God forbid, as Glikl of Hameln says, you should “tell people you are one thing while in your heart you are another.”
If, in review, the values you would put in an ethical will aren’t ones you are in fact living by, then maybe this exercise is for you and just you. As a reminder of who you want to be. Or maybe it is an encouragement to roll back the big moral pronouncements and notice what you do in fact live by. Because it might be simpler – less lofty but still meaningful. And when you’ve found what the organizing principles of your actual life actually are, you are then free to find the holiness in them.
Ultimately, an ethical will is for us, not for our children or grandchildren. Because we can’t really control what people in the post-us future will do. We can’t force those who follow us into a mold of our devising. The future belongs to them, not to us, and it is a mistake to cling too tightly. As my good friend Harry’s sister, Mary Ann Lachman, wrote to her children at the close of her ethical will, before her untimely death a few years ago:
I hope that these words are a comfort to you, but do not dwell or berate yourselves or try to hold on to them. It is ok to forget. It is ok to do what brings peace to your soul, to move on with your lives. When you need me, you will find me and I hope that you will find comfort in your thoughts. For the truth is that this letter, the physical items I have left to you, are nice, but YOU are my legacy.
The same can be said of the Book of Deuteronomy. It is full of values and rules and strong advice. And, ultimately, we must not dwell or berate ourselves; we must do what brings peace to our souls. When we need Torah, it will be there. But ultimately it is not Torah, or not only Torah, but we, as we are, who are Moshe’s legacy.
Eyleh hadvarim. And these are the words.