Thursday, July 12, 2012

WITSEC, Ethical Wills & Personal Financial Life Planning


Healing Personal Financial Anxiety:
WITSEC, Personal Financial Life Planning & Ethical Wills – Part I

The origin of the ethical will  is said to be verbal from a  dying Jacob gathering his sons to give them  blessings with the request they bury him in Canaan (to be Israel – Jacob/Yaakov’s other name sake!) not in Egypt (Mitzrareim – restriction, limitation.) “”Genesis 49:1-33. Another ethical will example is when Moses instructs the Israelites to be a holy people and teach their children (Deuteronomy 32:46-47)

            Annually on my birthday, I revisit my Ethical Will.
            Today, the writing of an Ethical Will (Zevaoth in Hebrew) once a Judaic tradition is an anachronism except for a few revival attempts just like the practice of writing one’s mission/purpose statement on Yom Kippur (the Judaic day of atonement/at-one-ment. Ironically while the ethical will is to be read upon one’s proceeding underlining one’s legacy, and the Yom Kippur mission statement is to remind one’s his purpose today, both practices refocus on the question of ‘why am I?

Exercise #1 WITSEC
            A valuable exercise to start one’s mission/ethical will is hypothetically considering one had to enter the WITSEC program (Witness Protection administered by the Department of Justice featured in TV Show In Plain Sight).
Per the witness protection program protocol, tomorrow you will lose your present identity, be relocated, and not allowed to contact anyone past or present who knows you. The challenge given this clean slate – how will you reinvent yourself – in particular in vocation, and mission in life now – and 20 years from now looking back?
Clean slate – no baggage – what will you be when you grow up this time, what is your ‘why am I?’

It’s only your life – In Plain INsight     

Exercise 2: Mission/ Vision

            Recycle this exercise twice: first, relative to mission – what can be; secondly, relative to vision should be and then see if you can reconcile mission and vision.
            Note: You must define ‘the is not’ as well as ‘the is’ otherwise all you get is ‘snot’ (vague motherhood Obamaesque slogans – all hat no cattle - like ‘hope and change’ type statements that result in ‘self hoax and chump change.’)


What (and what not – you can’t do the same vocation)
Why (and the whys you won’t pursue)
How (and how’s that are not acceptable)
Where (and where not).

It’s only your life – In Plain INsight.

Exercise 3: Yom Kippur Assignment
(You Die / Proceed Today)

(name), age ,died yesterday from.
He  is survived by  
He was a member of 
He will be remembered for:
He will be mourned by
The world will suffer the loss of his contributions in
He always wanted but got:
The body will be .

In The Future (10 or 20 or 30 years hence)

(name), age ,died yesterday from
He  is survived by
He was a member of 
He will be remembered for:
He will be mourned by
The world will suffer the loss of his contributions in
He always wanted but got:
The body will be .

            The above become the foundation for an ethical an outline of which will be illustrated in the next blog…

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