Community Blog

As a part of my Masters in Jewish Studies, I took an online class called Ethical Dilemmas, which was about exploring modern social norms through traditional Jewish ethical lenses. There were some annoying debates in the class forums about acceptance of LGBTQIA Jews, egalitarian Judaism, and interfaith marriages, and a great week where the forum devolved into a very amusing debate about ketchup. The final assignment had something to do with the ethical will of Judah ibn Tibbon, which is arguably the first ethical will as we know them. I don’t remember exactly what the parameters were, but I remember my take on the assignment was to write from the perspective of ibn Tibbon’s wife, who predeceased him, as though her ghost was hovering over his shoulder reacting to the advice he was writing to their son. I really channeled my inner Golde of Anatevka, which the instructor commented was very funny but ultimately still only deserving of a B because ibn Tibbon was a 12th century Sephardic philosopher and his wife would not have sounded like a 20th century American caricature of an 19th century Russian Jew. 

The Book of Deuteronomy is basically also an Ethical Will from Moses to the Israelites, starting with this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Devarim. There is some narrative and new stuff throughout the book but mostly it is Moses recapping what has happened over the last 40 years, and reminding people what the important rules will be once they enter the Holy Land. It feels a bit repetitive to us as readers, so it’s useful to remember the context: the people who will enter the Holy Land are not the people who left Egypt. Everyone Moses is speaking to now only experienced a small portion of the battles Moses is retelling, only heard the initial issuance of a small portion of the rules. Ethical wills are an important tool to pass down family values and expectations, the legacy of the emotional labor of a previous generation. 

And yet, as we see with Moses and ibn Tibbon, historically ethical wills were written and passed down by fathers. Modern studies show that the emotional labor and domestic values of a family are most often done and set by mothers. Now, of course, mothers can also leave ethical wills, and in fact, anyone can leave an ethical will to a following generation, even if not biological progeny. The idea that you can leave behind a legacy even if you don’t have children is actually what led to the aforementioned ketchup debate. But there are generations of women with legacies they didn’t get to record for future descendants who didn’t get to know them. You know now that I already imagined what ibn Tibbon’s wife might have thought about his ethical will. What would the Book of Deuteronomy look like from Tzipporah’s point of view? From Miriam’s? From Aaron’s wife’s, whose name I bet you don’t even know (it’s Elisheva, she is only named or mentioned explicitly in one verse in Exodus)? 

I encourage you all to think about what your legacy will be: to your children, your students, your nieces and nephews, your mentees, or the world at large. And don’t be afraid to state it outright! Write it down, record it, leave it where future generations will find it! What do you hope the people who outlive you will learn from your life? You don’t have to have lived a grand life, you don’t have to have been a philosopher of an important lineage of leaders, you don’t have to have been a supreme leader or prophet or anyone famous. You have a story to tell, a Torah to teach, a lesson to leave behind. Don’t let your gender or class or whatever other perceived station in life that might lead you to believe people don’t want to hear from you hold you back! Imagine the richness of our history we’ve been denied so far. We must not further deny future generations of our legacies. May the life we live speak for us, may future generations know of our morals and values, and may they live on in our name. Amen and Shabbat Shalom!