Legal Wills bequeath valuables; Ethical Wills bequeath values.
The biblical roots of Ethical Wills date back 3,500 years when the Hebrew patriarch Jacob gathered his 12 sons around him while on his deathbed and he articulated moral guidance to each.
Then the practice was oral. Over time, Ethical Wills, sometimes also called Legacy Letters, have evolved into all sorts of writing forms. Importantly, they remain nonlegal and nonbinding, so one freely can express heartfelt values, without following state law rules.
My late attorney father, Carl Morgenstern, and I drafted many wills that complied with Ohio law where we practiced. For safekeeping, we offered clients the option of having their original wills kept in our ornate safety deposit box at the First National Bank Building in Hamilton, Ohio, where our offices were located. We gave each client a copy. I always felt the process was special, listening to our clients’ wishes and legacy plans in the confidential and safe confines of our law offices.
Today, people of every age, ethnicity, faith, tradition, economic circumstance and education level benefit from writing an Ethical Will.
Here are two examples of what can be included in an Ethical Will. Both concern the terrible legacy of polio. \An easy format is to simply write a letter. Here is a letter I wrote to my children because I wanted them to know about their grandparents, my parents, Carl and Marilyn Morgenstern. This letter is about their experience in the 1950s with polio, which my mother contracted after I was born. It is a story about my parents’ courage and resiliency, about medical miracles and our small-town of Hamilton, Ohio, which united to battle this worldwide, devastating and highly communicable disease.
The second writing again concerns polio. It is from a selection of Ethical Wills from the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio, a document study led by Dr. Gary P. Zola, Executive Director Emeritus. Cincinnatian Jane Meinrath Bloch wrote this ethical will from her hospital room where she was confined to what became known as an “iron lung” after contracting polio. From what many would consider a physical prison, she wrote an achingly beautiful letter to her then 15-year-old son Peter Bloch on May 4, 1963, full of hope and optimism.
Click here to read Jane Meinrath Bloch’s Ethical Will.