CHAPTER SIX - The Aging Process: Late Life Questions

A: BACKGROUND

14. What can be done?
5.) The ethical will

One of the central features of the traditionally positive, picture of the elderly in the Jewish tradition that has been emphasised is that the elderly are deemed worthy of respect because of their wisdom.

A person who is regarded as wise will both tend to feel validated and valued within the community that views him or her in that way, and to develop a positive self-image, as someone who has something to offer to the world. In many parts of the modern world, this view of the elderly by the outside society has disappeared, with the aged seen as being "past their peak": the young appear to have inherited the world - and respect for the elderly, along with self-respect in their own estimation, have diminished in a distinct correlation.

One means of recovering part of this lost heritage might be to reemphasise an old and significant Jewish tradition, the practice of which has fallen away in recent years: the tradition of the ethical will.

In many Jewish societies, through the centuries, the writing of an ethical will in a person’s later, or final years was seen as an important act. The idea is simple: in the same way that many people today write a material will, which instructs their heirs regarding the division of property after death, so it was the tradition for people to write an ethical will with moral and life instruction to the heirs.

The idea is that, in addition to the accumulation of any physical property, a person also accumulates wisdom and experience. This, too, should be bequeathed to the heirs.

Below are two examples of what can be found in ethical wills. Both letters are long, so these are only short excerpts, to convey the flavour.

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 the Arabic and Hebrew languages.

My son, when I have left you, devote yourself to the study of Torah and the study of medicine. Chiefly occupy yourself with Torah , for you have a wise and understanding heart and all you need is ambition and application. Let your face shine on people: tend their sick and may your advice cure them. Take money from the rich but treat the poor without money. The Lord will repay you. In this way you will win the respect of people high and low and your good name will go forth far and wide…

My son, I command you to honour your wife as much as you can. She is intelligent and modest, a daughter of a distinguished and educated family. To act otherwise is the way of the contemptible…

Never refuse to lend books to anyone who has not the means to purchase books for himself, but only act thus to those who can be trusted to return the volumes. Cover the bookcases with rugs of fine quality and preserve them from damp and from mice, for your books are your greatest treasure…
The ethical will of Judah Ibn Tibbon

The second writer, the fourteenth century Eleazar of Mayence, was a simple German Jew.

If they can manage it, my sons and daughters should live in communities and not isolated from other Jews, so that their sons and daughters can learn the ways of Judaism. Even if compelled to request money from others in order to pay for a teacher, they must not let the young of either sex go without instruction in the Torah. Marry your children, my sons and daughters, as soon as their age is ripe, to members of respectable families.

To the slanderer do not respond with counter-attack, and though it is proper to rebut false accusations, it is most desirable to set an example of reticence. You yourselves must avoid uttering any slander for so will you win affection. In trade be true, never grasping what belongs to another. By avoiding such wrongs – scandal, falsehood, money-grubbing – people will surely find tranquillity and affection.

Be very particular to keep your houses clean and tidy. I was always scrupulous on that point, for every injurious condition and sickness and poverty are to be found in foul dwellings.
The ethical will of Eleazar of Mayence

The reasons for, and the message of, both documents are clear.

• They were written by people who feel that they were nearing the end of their life and wished to pass on to the next generation the distilled lessons of a lifetime.
  One was an intellectual and the other, an ordinary man; both felt that life had taught them something and that, in their older age, they could crystallise clearly the lessons that they had learnt throughout their life on a wide variety of questions. They had also accumulated wisdom, which they felt should be passed on for the guidance of the younger generation. [Children may, of course, choose to ignore the lessons that their parents attempt to give them, but their parents clearly believed this would come at a price.]
• In their old age, released from many of the compulsions that tend to drive people throughout their lives, status, perhaps, or money or lust, they may have felt that they had reached the stage where their thoughts were pure and their wisdom at its greatest.

A return to a tradition such as this might enable many older people to feel that they still have something to give their family (and community?). It could be an important factor in a maintenance of dignity and a retention of self-worth among older people.