Discover the Tradition of the Ethical Will

The ethical will is one of the best ways to make your legacy live on in the minds and hearts of your loved ones, friends, and even colleagues and the general public. Anybody can write an ethical will, at any stage in life, and the messages in ethical wills can be as diverse as the individuals composing them.

Your Ethical Will will give you a thorough introduction to the ethical will: its extensive history, its role in modern lives and cultures, numerous examples, and great step-by-step advice for preparing your own.

Ethical wills originated as a Jewish tradition; Hebrew ethical wills, called Zevaoth, existed since Biblical times and involved such famous Biblical figures as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Today, Jewish ethical wills remain widespread, along with similar personal legacy statements in Japanese, Muslim, and Christian cultures. The ethical will has been becoming increasingly popular in contemporary American society in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

The ethical will can take on a multitude of forms. A poem, an ethical essay, an audio recording, or even a video ethical will are all excellent ways of expressing one's moral values, each suited to different kinds of individuals. Writing memoirs can be a wonderful way to prepare an ethical will that will literally tell others volumes about you. Past writers, like the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides, made their ethical wills into full-fledged moral treatises!

The ethical will can be a great way to commemorate a special event and express hopes for the future. A message to a newborn child or a personal statement on the occasion of a wedding are two wonderful opportunities to prepare an ethical will. Your ethical will need not be written all at once; as you gain new insights and experiences, you can add to and revise the will.

When is the best time to get acquainted with a spiritual ethical will and begin thinking about preparing one? Begin as soon as possible. When you write an ethical will, you guard your most precious ethical values, insights, and experiences from the regrettable fate of being forgotten. Even if they slip from your mind later on in life, you will have a written account by which to recollect them.

One of the most wonderful aspects of the ethical will is that in can benefit you for decades during your own life; it can strengthen friendships and enable other people to understand you much better by learning your deepest beliefs, motivations, aspirations, and values. These documents can explore the ethical issues that matter to you most and can ensure that you become an ethical example to many others for years and decades to come.