CHAPTER SIX - The Aging Process: Late Life Questions

C: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

30. Ethically Willing!
(An hour and a half)

The aims of this activity are to examine:

• The issue of whether or not the group feels that the old have wisdom that should be shared; and
• What the benefits to the sharer are, as well as to the recipient of that wisdom.
• Share with the group the following quote from Job.
  Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?
  Job 12:12
• To what extent does the group think that it is true that the old have wisdom? Broaden the discussion with the following questions:
  • What is life experience?
  • In what ways, if any, do the elderly and aged have things that the young would benefit from hearing?
  • What sort of things might it be worth hearing from the old? Are there things that it would not be worth hearing?
  • Bring in the example of the African tribes mentioned in the UNESCO report: how do participants relate to this?
• Introduce the idea of ethical wills, explaining who wrote them and the nature of their content (very briefly).
  • Ask whom the ethical will is for: Is it only for the recipient, or does the author also benefit?
  • If so, in what ways do they gain?
• Bring the two excerpts from the ethical wills that appeared in the main text [Title #24].
  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

  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

• What can the group learn about the personalities of the two authors?
  • How do participants feel about receiving a letter like this? Would it be useful (or annoying)?
• Working in small groups, each individual is asked to choose someone in their family, in the present or the future, to whom they will write an ethical will, in which they will put all the lessons that they think they have learned from life.
  Adequate time should then be allowed to write these letters.
  It might be helpful to have soft and unobtrusive music playing in the background.
• Afterwards, the larger group shares not what they wrote, but the experience of writing a document like this.
  • Did they enjoy it? Why?/Why not?
  • If someone is prepared to read their letter out, that would be great, but do not press anyone to do so.
• Finally, participants are asked to consider whether it would be beneficial to an older person near the end of their life to write such a document.
  [ Hint:
  Suggest that it might be a good idea for a person near the end of their life to feel that they had something to say.]
• Explore with the group whether it would be good to encourage the practice of ethical wills.
  • Could the community encourage the practice in any way?