Questions for Yom Kippur Yizkor

What do you want your family to know?

(Ideas for/from Rabbi Weintraub’s Yizkor sermon)

You may have a will.  You may have a living will.  You might even have a designated healthcare proxy.  But do you have an ethical will?

Ethical wills usually include:

• Important personal values and beliefs
• Important spiritual values
• Hopes and blessings for future generations
• Life's lessons
• Love
• Forgiving others and asking for forgiveness

Some questions that might helpin preparing an ethical will AND/OR having important conversations with your family.  Some will be relevant to you.  Others will not be.  Use what is helpful and ignore the rest.  It may be useful to write the answers to some of these questions or to video yourself answering them, so that your family can keep them for the future.  You may want to take them out and revise your answers periodically.

What comes to your mind when thinking about yourself?
What makes you laugh?
What do you do that makes others laugh?
What is your greatest love?
What makes you happy?
What concerns you the most?
What do you like to say? (sayings? catchphrases?)
Why are you Jewish?
What do you do Jewishly?
What rituals do you do that are Jewish in origin?
What family rituals do you have? (Sunday morning brunch, Mets baseball, Islanders Hockey?)
What do you like to do with your friends?
What do you want your family to know about you?
Do you have a personal mission statement?

Where were you born?
Where did you grow up?
Where did you go to school?
Why did you become a painter/doctor/lawyer/plumber/teacher/whatever you did?

If married/partnered:
Where did you meet your spouse?
What attracted them to you?
What did you learn about relationships from them?

Make a family tree.  Update it regularly.  Keep it somewhere safe.

Tough questions:
If Gd-forbid you couldn’t breathe or your heart stopped, what would you want done?  
Would you want to be on a ventilator?
Would you want a feeding tube put in your stomach?
Would your answers be the same if the doctors thought you would wake up again?  Would your answers be different if the doctors thought it would be unlikely for you to regain consciousness or awareness?  Would this be true if you had a terminal disease?

Do you have a clear will?
Do you have a living will?
Does your family know your financial advisors or where the information is for all of your bank/financial/medical/legal account information?  Is there a place where your email/web/facebook usernames and passwords are?  Do you have an address book accessible to others?