Sholom Aleichem’s Ethical Will

Sinai Temple’s class on ethical wills, taught by Norm Pell, begins October 28.

On May 17, 1916, The New York Times published the will of S. Rabinowitz (Sholom Aleichem, 1859-1916), who spent his last years in New York.  The Times said it was described as “a fine example of the traditional ethical will left in all ages by the great men of Israel.”  Here are the beginning and end of its 10 paragraphs:

Wherever I may die, let me be buried not among the rich and famous, but among plain Jewish people, the workers, the common folk, so that my tombstone may honor the simple graves around me, and the simple graves honor mine, even as the plain people honored their folk writer in his lifetime.

* * *

My last wish for my successors and my prayer to my children:  Take good care of your mother, beautify her old age, sweeten her bitter life, heal her broken heart; do not weep for me – on the contrary, remember me with joy; and the main thing – live together in peace, bear no hatred for each other, help one another in bad times, think on occasion of other members of the family, pity the poor, and when circumstances permit, pay my debts, if there be any.  Children, bear with honor my hard-earned Jewish name and may God in Heaven sustain you ever.  Amen.