As Jacob is dying, he calls together Joseph and his sons to bless them, and then he utters Chapter 49 of the Book of Genesis, commonly referred to in Hebrew as birkat ya'akov, "the blessing of Jacob." Unlike the blessing Jacob gives to Efraim and Menashe, what he says in this chapter is not always positive. In fact, Jacob himself tells his family that what he is about to do is not to bless them, but "I will tell you what is to befall you in days to come" (Gen. 49:1). Source critics of the Bible will claim that Jacob's prediction was actually written long after Jacob died, when writers put into his mouth what actually happened decades, if not centuries, later. That is, it is a later interpolation into the Jacob story based on what happened much later on. Anthropologists of religion like Theodore Gaster, however, will point out that the story as it stands makes perfect sense in the context of a common ancient belief that when people are on their death bed, they have an insight into the future that all other people lack and thus can predict the future.
In our own time, we frankly doubt that the dying have that ability. In fact, because people more commonly die today not at home but in a nursing home or hospital, many of us have little experience with the dying and do not know what to say or do when visiting the sick. I talk about this at some length in Chapters 7 and 11 of my book, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics. For now, though, I would like to focus on just one thing that people might do in visiting people, especially those with long-term illnesses - namely, one can help the patient create an ethical will.
Just as executing a will for the distribution of your property and an advance directive for health care (indicating the medical course of action that you want your physicians and family to follow once you can no longer decide that on your own) need not be delayed until you are dying, so too creating an ethical will need not be delayed until then. In fact, like the other two activities, writing an ethical will is better done well before that time. Still, if someone has not created an ethical will until he or she has a protracted illness, visitors can interact meaningfully with the patient by helping him or her create an ethical will.
An ethical will is definitely not a prediction of the future, as Jacob does in this week's Torah reading. It is rather a letter that a person leaves for his/her relatives and friends. There is no particular form for such a letter; nowadays, in fact, it often is not a letter at all but rather an audiotape or videotape. The point of such a communication is to leave in one's own words some of one's memories, hopes and dreams, and values (hence the name "ethical will"). Jews have written ethical wills since the Middle Ages, and contemporary Jews have written them during many stages in their lives. Rabbi Richard Israel, for example, wrote one to the child his wife was soon to bear. More commonly, Jews create them in their fifties or thereafter as a way of leaving an important part of themselves to their children and grandchildren.
Those visiting a sick person suffering from a chronic disease can help the patient find meaning in his/her life by suggesting that the person create such a will. Visitors can then help sick people do that with leading questions. This makes visiting the ill easier, for now the visitor has an agenda of items to discuss with the patient. It also gives the patient an important reason to get up in the morning, for now s/he has the significant task of creating and preserving memories for loved ones. Thus ethical wills can be an important format for helping people in sickness and for facing one's own death.
Although ethical wills can contain anything that the creator wants to communicate, they typically address subjects such as these: (1) memories of your parents, grandparents, and other relatives; (2) your own life story, describing not only the objective facts about your life, but how you felt while experiencing some of the events of your childhood, teenage years, and adulthood; (3) some people or texts that have had special meaning for you at specific points in your life and/or have such significance to you today; (4) your relationship to Judaism and to the Jewish community throughout your life and the reasons it took the shape that it did and now does; (5) things you did that you are proud of, and things you wish you had done differently; (6) a recollection of the experiences and feelings that were most important to you in your relationships with the people who are to receive your ethical will; (7) your concerns and hopes for your loved ones after you die; (8) your specific desires for things to happen after you die, e.g., how you want to be buried, that your children marry Jews, that a surviving spouse remarry; (9) your passions -- things that you love and hate, and why you react as you do -- and your values; (10) expressions of love for your spouse, children, grandchildren, other relatives, and friends.
Some people worry that because they are not very articulate, an ethical will that they would write or tape will fail to say what they want to communicate and will furthermore leave behind an unflattering record of them. People need to understand, though, that ethical wills are not public documents; they are designed to be read, heard, or seen only by those who are near and dear to the person creating the will. Those people will read the ethical will with all of their memories of the person in mind, and so the extent to which it is articulate will not be relevant in judging its merit. Those for whom it is intended will cherish it instead for the concrete reminder of you that it affords and for the memories it invokes. Grandchildren, in particular, will prize it as a way to connect with the people and stories of their roots. The point in creating an ethical will is not to impress or entertain people who never knew you; it is rather to let those who did, or wish they had, get a glimpse into you personally and into that part of their family history that you describe. As such, all the family members who receive it will consider it a great gift.
So unlike Jacob, who brought his family together to predict the future, we should all write an ethical will - and help others do that - as a way of creating memories of the past, together with the sense of identity and roots that such memories provide. This will be a great blessing for the family for generations to come.
Shabbat shalom.d