
Ethical Wills & How to Prepare Them (2nd Edition): A Guide to Sharing Your Values from Generation to Generation
Leave your loved ones a legacy of blessings, wisdom, gratitude and hope.
"Done right, an ethical will is a gift of love, a way of saying, 'This is what I found gave me satisfaction and gave my life meaning. It animated my relationship to you and to your mother (or father). May it do the same for you. I send this to you with much love.'"
―from the Foreword by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Ethical wills are precious spiritual documents, windows into the souls of those who write them, and are often a treasured part of a family’s history. These “legacy letters” sum up what you have learned in life, and what you want most for, and from, your loved ones.
This book―a unique combination of “what is” and “how to”―offers a step-by-step process to help you prepare an ethical will of your own, and provides a wide range of contemporary ethical wills to help you do it. It reveals the ongoing relevance of this traditional Jewish practice for people of all faiths, all backgrounds.
The emotional power of the nearly one hundred last letters collected here, written by both famous and ordinary Jewish people, will inspire you to live more fully now, and to record your own blessings for the generations to come.
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Book details
- Author
- Jack Riemer
- Imprint
- Jewish Lights, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Formats
- Paperback, Hardcover
- Subjects
- Religion › Judaism
Family & Relationships › Life Stages - Topics
- legacy letters · Jewish traditions · family values · generational wisdom · spiritual legacy · life lessons
- ISBN-13
- 9781580238274 (Paperback)9781683360490 (Hardcover)
About the author
JACK RIEMER is a rabbi and the author and editor of several books on Jewish spirituality, ethics, and mourning. His books include The Day I Met God in the Parking Lot of the Supermarket, Finding God in Unexpected Places and Jewish Insights on Death and Mourning, published by Schocken. He is also co-editor of So That Your Values Live On and editor of The World of the High Holy Days and Wrestling with the Angel.
Riemer serves as rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Tikvah, now known as Shaarei Kodesh, in Boca Raton, Florida. He founded the National Rabbinic Network, a support system for rabbis across all denominational lines, and has conducted workshops and seminars on ethical wills.
Jack lives in Boca Raton, Florida.





