Make Your Moral Will Known
in a Personal Legacy Statement

You undoubtedly have ethical values that you hold deeply, principles that have guided you through your life and that you would like to see perpetuated. Your Ethical Will can help you make your moral will known, enabling you to share your moral values and thoughts on important ethical issues in a way that will inspire and influence your family, friends, and perhaps the world at large.

A spiritual ethical will is a personal legacy statement, encapsulating those aspects of life that the author considers of foremost spiritual importance. The ethical will can be a letter, a poem, a series of drawings or photographs, or an audio recording. Writing memoirs or making a video ethical will are other great approaches to preserving your family tree of values, beliefs and philosphies through the ages.

Often, in everyday conversations, there exists neither the time nor desire for each individual to give voice to his or her moral will. Your spiritual ethical will is a wonderful way to solve this problem, and nothing says that you need to wait until your last days to make or deliver one! Even if you are a teenager, your ethical will can make a lasting difference in your life and the lives of those around you.

Detailed oral and written Jewish ethical wills have been passed down within families since Biblical times. Important historical figures, including Isaac, Jesus, Maimonides, Sholom Aleichem, and Theodor Herzl made their moral wills known and thereby affected events decades and even centuries after their passing. You, too, can preserve your moral will by giving others a wonderful product of your mind by which they can remember you.

So give the matter a few minutes' thought each day; go to a quiet, peaceful place where you can think about which aspects of your moral will you would like to communicate. Brainstorm ideas for an ethical will and consider what you would like to accomplish by creating an ethical will. When you've introspected sufficiently, begin the writing process yourself or get help from workshops on ethical wills.

Your basic ethical premises, concerns, aspirations, and insights - indeed, all the crucial aspects of your moral will - can be effectively communicated through a personal legacy document. Take advantage of the opportunity and enable your deepest values to live on! Set an ethical example to your contemporaries or your descendants many generations from now. Share a piece of your wisdom with your loved ones and even with the world, and make everyone's lives a little better as a result.