Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail (Part 1): Wills and Estates in Jewish Law

okay good afternoon and welcome back to the boca raton synagogue men's afternoon colonel of the doctor yet balazan base madrish as always tremendous gratitude to the frolic family and the frog financial group for sponsoring the afternoon cola four afternoons a week and i'm very excited to start a new series and a new topic this week motivated and inspired by what we spoke about last week last week we talked about mitzvah kind of amazed the obligation and responsibility to fulfill the interest the will the last will of a person on their deathbed and whether that only applies to monetary issues that applies to other interests that they express other things that they care about and an obligation to to follow through and to listen to them so that was our topic last week which motivates the launch of a new series we're going to do on jewish law the laches of estate planning many of you maybe most of you have done your estate planning your wills and your testament but those who haven't need to know that there are significant and major halachic considerations when it comes to will and testament it's not enough to go to a secular lawyer well versed in the secular law but jewish law has much to say about the issue of our last will the title of this series is failing to plan is planning to fail if you fail to plan if you've not been thoughtful and considerate if you've not articulated your will if you've not included the considerations if you're not planning if you're not if you're failing to plan then you are planning to fail so we're going to view the review of the halache considerations today will probably be just an introduction to the entire subject some of the things to think about when preparing and i want to point out as we begin that we're not talking about living will a halachic living will which is also critically important talks about what a person wants at the end of their life not after their death but really in the transition from this world to the next a person in end of life issues there are critical end of life issues that can come up and there are a lot of living wills there's a living will in which you give power of attorney to people to make a decision when you're incapacitated when you are unable to make those decisions from a conscious perspective but there are also halal considerations in that if a person is on dialysis must they continue persons getting pressers for for their blood pressure must they continue antibiotic for an infection must they continue are you allowed to allow something to run out does it need to be reinitiated dnr do not resuscitate dni do not intubate there are countless countless questions that can come up in end of life issues in fact my brother rabbi dr judah goldberg just published a really important article in tradition the rca journal that has a follow-up article by rafter by willig that endorses his perspective he's my brother's an emergency room physician and an extraordinary talmud and he combines the two for this article which has the endorsement in writing of rav shakhtar and rabbi willig following his article it's in the latest edition of tradition i believe it's available online now it's unlocked you can access you can access the articles well worth reading but that's a totally separate subject the question of halachic living will is a totally separate subject a very important subject but not our topic for today our topic for today is the classic not living will not what you want at the end of your life but a will what you want after your life when you're no longer in this world your possessions your ass assets your real estate your jewelry your leichter your kiddush cup your megillah the dishes that your parents smuggled out of europe where do you want it to go who do you want to have it how do you want them to divide it that is our discussion and failing to plan is planning to fail all that is number one before we even get to that question we're going to look at and we are streaming on several uh platforms simultaneously so we're going to try to do this and see if this works we are looking at the gesher chain source number one gesher to kaczynski it's a great rav of you shalom last century and in gesher which primarily deals with the end of life issues tahara shiva and the like he writes the following call ben adam hayodesh yesh mata banav any individual who knows that there is a meaningful mission that is a goal and mandate to his life in the children's life how much time is spent with lawyers and estate planners how much time is spent trying to figure out how to operate of course within the law but to transfer as much wealth as possible to the next generation without having to share it with uncle sam how much time how much emotional energy how much thoughtfulness how much strategy is invested in those questions and yet people deal exclusively with the realm of the material of the financial of assets and they failed to talk about tachle the essence of life kinamer by vino arishon as it says with our great patriarch with the very first jew the first ivory at least hashem the torah hashem when hashem comes to abram and he says i must disclose to you what i'm going to do to stone i must be transparent with you what i'm going to do to stone and why do i feel obligated why can i not withhold that information why do i love you and why do i cherish you hashem himself testifies because i know the manashitsava is bonov you're leaving eight salva now avram had many assets he was a very wealthy man undoubtedly he had a team of wealth managers estate managers to help him plan but that's not why god loved him god didn't love him because he figured out how to move the most wealth to the next generation without having to pay taxes god loves him because he's moving the greatest virtue and righteousness the greatest love of torah and mitzvos love of hashem a life of faith hashem he teaches them how to observe the hashem now the rambam by the way when he quotes this passage he says what is that derek hashem avraham is successful in leaving atsavah what we call an ethical will he doesn't only determine where the things should go he tells the next generation here are my hopes and my dreams and my aspirations here's what my life was about and what i sacrificed for and i hope you will embrace the same thing what is that derek hashem basham rusev says that is the famous villas the golden mean to live a moderate life a normal life that whose avram was and that's what he passed on to the next generation and the gesher chaim continues that hashem loved avraham because avram took the time to not only articulate where he wanted the things to go but to tell the next generation what he expected and what he dreamt for them what he wanted what he hoped and so point number one in this new series on planning to failing to plan is planning to fail is that not only must one plan how to leave a will a will according to halacha which is what we're going to talk about but one should leave a sava an ethical will among those who did the gra the girl left an ethical will very famous we have the letter of the guerra rivari levine the great sadiq of you shalom left an ethical will of oba left an ethical will countless of our godolum countless of our great leaders left in ethical will some that we have access to in fact it'd make a magnificent work i don't know if anyone has ever done that collected the ethical wills of greats of generations past for us to read what was important to them you know we like to lump them in a box as if they're all the same and assume that ah they probably all said the same thing keep torah keep mitzvos be a good person but they were different and their dreams their hopes were different and they lived in different places and at different times and so do we so take that time and don't only plan estate planning but do next generation spiritual planning how will you transmit how will you communicate and articulate hopes dreams and aspirations and whether you choose to tie that to the assets is your choice there are trusts that tie meeting certain criteria in order to access assets i'm not a lawyer so the great disappointment now i'm just joking my parents i think are proud of me but i'm not a lawyer but a lawyer can tell you how to tie the trust to those conditions do they have to marry a jew i know a member of our shul who has a condition to grandchildren inheriting that they have to all go on march of the living they have to secure their jewish identity their jewish pride by going in march of the living you can attach the conditions within the law that you want i'm not talking about the conditions for the assets i'm talking about communicating it savvah that word savva will that we're going to use which can apply to either monetary or ethics that word salva is like let's which is mitzvos a mitzvah is a tsava and it really means a connection through mitzvos we have a connection to hashem throughout what we leave what we bequeath to the next generation we remain connected to them but the greatest connection that we hope is the ethical one the spiritual one the one that will last and the one that will drive them for generations to come continues when you write and you divide your things to your children be very careful this is we're going to unpack and study together do not include the word yerusha inheritance person has to be very careful why because it's not arbitrary it's not random and we don't have autonomy we don't have the right to simply decide and determine where it goes but it's given based on the torah's laws the torah's principles if we're trying to circumvent them we have to do it legally and there are what one might call legal loopholes but there are legal mechanisms that enable us to not simply follow the dictates of the torah when it comes to how things are passed to the next generation but one of the things to be aware of says the gesture is don't use the word yerusha inheritance in this will use the lash and use the word matana a gift or a debt and we'll see these are the mechanisms we're going to employ vanish in torah and so on and so forth skip down for example according to according to the torah's hierarchy of how our things are left a spouse doesn't come before children and within children sons inherit daughters don't so assuming one wants to include daughters assume wants to include a spouse then you cannot simply write a will that includes the word inheritance urushi but rather you need to structure it using different mechanisms different tools different instruments of transaction so that it's binding even within allah and that's what we're going to go through says the gesh we've seen many tsavos many people leave wills that are filled with errors that are filled with mistakes chacos of los angeles and therefore it's a mistake it's not structured properly you can't you can't be casual when it comes to this you need to find someone who knows what they're doing and there's one time who's very wealthy says i'm telling a story who decided that in fact he wouldn't have a will he would leave it to the hierarchy and to the way that torah determines where it should go so let's say this man had three sons the older son got a double portion the bahrain gets pishnaya a double portion and the other two sons got simple portions so you take the inheritance three sons you divide it in four the eldest son gets double pushing and the other two each get a single portion and to the daughters they receive nothing and what happened pretty predictable what happened the daughters you can imagine can only imagine they get up from shiva and they shower they change there's a meeting with the estate lawyer who's going to unveil the parents last will and testament and what was determined by this wealthy man daughters ah you're on your own look for somebody who's got money sons two of you you get one portion the oldest ah my br my choicest you get a double portion how do you think that went you can only imagine the animosity the enmity the infighting the jealousy the resentment not only towards one another but towards the father i wonder what that shlosha memorial what that askara looked like what a terrible thing so much so that the observers who saw what it did how it destroyed and ripped apart the family said better that the father would have had nothing and left nothing because at least he would have had an intact family and even the rabbis who saw now you would have thought i would have thought that abundant would have heaped praise on such an individual i might have thought the rabbanum would say wow this individual is so loyal so committed to torah so following through on the torah i might have said wow this individual is so righteous to follow the dictates of the torah but even the rabbanim even the rabbanum were critical why because the ushammi in the beginning of alma says that even though we have hierarchy of how to give the minute the person has to know the contemporary relationships today people are able to write their own will in a halachic way it doesn't mean you can simply have a secular will and it will supersede but it means you can have any will that doesn't follow the hierarchy of the torah and yet it's binding tells us two very important things even before we begin number one don't just worry about your assets don't just worry about your things don't just worry about material possessions but worry about as well worry about leaving a value system worry about communicating transmitting articulating dreams and hopes and aspirations and whether strategically you want to tie it to the trust or what you leave or you simply are going to leave a document that you want them all to read and see then that's something that's important to read number one and number two says something to geshek very bold which is even though the torah tells us a system in a hierarchy don't follow it that's not the minogue you're going to create tremendous animosity don't think that they go honor you at the yeshiva dinner posthumously because you follow the torah don't think there's going to be article biography about you posthumously because you insisted on following the system of the torah in fact the opposite you'll leave a family in absolute disarray the pisces which is a wonderful series of swarm a collection rosh talks about the laws of writing a will and in source number two he writes the following let's say you have your children and your children meet with you and they say abba tati dad mom we're good with whatever you do we are tamid we ourselves that you're a shamayim and therefore if you want to have no will and simply follow what the torah dictates we're good the game is not to worry that if you don't write a will the law of the land may supersede the nearest so two things number one if you don't have to worry that civilly that the land in which you live in the absence of a will will substitute its own laws and number two you're absolutely confident that the next generation are going to adhere to whatever the total wishes for them then fine don't have a will fine however that doesn't happen torah and then he talks about the ethical will we know many gadolin who left an ethical will because there are things that are hard to communicate directly there are criticisms there are things that are hard to say directly and in fact it's more impactful you know when you say it while you're still alive they could blow you off dad mom you always say that fine whatever but when they're vulnerable fragile when they've lost a parent when they're receiving their inheritance and their reading these are the hopes the dreams the aspirations and even the criticisms what did we learn in passages of torah says these gave his sons and what were those brachas those brachas were in some cases very harsh criticisms and all the commentaries point out because a real a real bracha to a child is not to tell them you're perfect and you're amazing and the world should serve you but it's to tell them you're compulsive you're impetuous you anger easily you uh you need to react slowly you need to be more generous more kind um if you know it's not going to work don't write it but he too endorses both of the ideas of the gesh and he continues you should craft the will in such a way that the next generation is bound by it the gamma mekabal loya varadina you shall kashaba oven ghazal yemen yoshim this is very important you also need to craft it in such a way to avoid the next generation potentially violating stealing they could be stealing how because if according to the torah a daughter doesn't inherit and you leave a will that says a daughter gets half the estate let's say you leave a son and a daughter and now the daughter takes half the estate she might be stealing from her brother if you don't employ the halachic instruments to enable her to access what is due to her if you just leave it as a secular will without the conditions she might be in gross violation of stealing from her brother and similarly other ways of dividing it that are not according to allah unless you engage the mechanism that allows you to direct it toward those different destinations then the people who receive it might be in violation of stealing from those who really were supposed to get it and he writes here in the footnote yes there are people who will take the secular will and go to court and take things for them based on the secular will that are going according to you now maybe you can say that really the ones who are due the money according to the torah of their mokha they're forgiving whether they don't know the way it's supposed to go or they feel coerced to have to forgive umustaminas yashimayam and therefore they've given up any hope of getting it back hares so maybe now they're taking something not stealing so maybe the daughter whose father in the will says that he's leaving his daughter maybe that father is in fact maybe that daughter rather is in fact not doing anything wrong why because she's assuming that the brother's mohammed that he's forgiving because that's what the father would have wanted maybe maybe maybe if all the siblings go to court and they divide it according to the secular will without employing the torah's terms maybe there's an implicit forgiveness the aphrodisiac and even though they didn't belong in a secular court which is in itself a prohibition near the evidence or maybe it's not stealing so let's say if the following a man dies and he has a secular will without any halachic conditions or any halachic uh any variables and now the daughter takes half the assets of the father and now she wants to sell something she inherited the golf clubs of the of the father she has no interest not that girls can't play golf but she has no interest in the in the golf clubs she's going to sell them to you so he writes the episcopalic ocean you have to be careful because if you go buy the golf clubs from the daughter who inherits from the father but inherited incorrectly inherited it inaccurately inherited it stealing because it doesn't really it's not really coming to her then you are purchasing stolen property so you have to be careful and you have to be aware so for these reasons and others it is so critically important to have a proper halachic will not living will which is also critically important but will number one because we want to meet the standards and the way we want the money to go may not meet those standards i for example have seven children kanai nahara i have six daughters and a little boy according to the torah my son according to the way my daughters think i would want to do it my son would inherit 100 of my things but i don't think that would go over very well if in fact shy got everything and the six girls got nothing so correctly i want to be able to leave to all of them i need a halachic will in order to do that in good conscience and in order to make sure that my daughters are not thieves number two is if there's no will in some cases the state will disperse according to civil law which is not consistent with so if you say you know what i don't want to deal with it i never took care of it i'm lazy i procrastinate i don't want to spend the money on it i don't have to think about it so there's no will in the absence of a will then how does anyone know what you want failing to plan is planning to fail but it also means the state might disperse what you have not according to what you want and not really according to your according to your wishes a tremendous goddess today one of the gedoli adore undisputed i spoke to once about this i don't have permission to name but said that it is critically imperative not to follow the torah's hierarchy today use the halachic mechanisms but to follow what's normally done because no matter how firm your children are no matter how early one's children are when it comes to equality among the assets and among what is bequeathed to them they will not be satisfied with the torah delineates and therefore this god pointed out that today we should use and employ the mechanisms available to us to make sure that things are done in an equitable and a fair fashion for continuing the next page torah tells us impressions in uh parshas kedoshim the left-naive mirsha among the prohibitions a long litany of of prohibitions losing can't curse the deaf person and don't put a stumbling block in front of a blind person which we know in fact doesn't apply to literally putting the stumbling block in front of the blind person but applies more figuratively in a set of truths called shiva's mata levi is quoted simulated gimmel and these sources i read many many articles on this topic including from rakhim jakter rabbi willig and many others and the safer so so this uh chuba was quoted and he says the following at the end of now she if children take assets money that's not due to them according to and they keep it they're violating ghazal so not only to ensure that your wishes are followed but to ensure and protect your children from themselves violating the prohibition of stealing it's critically important to not only determine and leave a will of where you want it to go but to do so in a way which employs the halachic mechanisms to to do so and to create challenges the rambam is perhaps source number five the rambam writes something which is a a meaningful departure from what he normally does the mishna tour of the arakazaka for the rambam is a halachic document it's jewish law he's not interspersing it with musser he's not giving jewish thought he's not giving lessons for life it is strictly jewish law and yet an unusual thing the rabbi writes a person the rabbis instructed that a person should never favor one child in their life because we learned the lesson of the brothers of yosef and yosef yosef was favored over his brothers and the consequences were catastrophic and therefore the ram says when considering all of this how we treat our children in their in our lifetime and what will happen with the children after our lifetime a person needs to prioritize shalom bias prioritize shalom bias prioritize the children getting along in the future now i'll tell you a tremendous martial that really resonates for me specifically the gemara the marshalls and the gamora bubba bastard and the gemara there makes a comment and the gemara says bastrila semenya felibanim so i already told you that barack hashem have six daughters and one son in that order people like to ask me they have no right to ask me when i say people like to ask me i mean like the tsa agent when i hand him all the passports well ask me if he didn't come as number seven how many more daughters would you have good question but the gemara says that if you have a daughter first it's a great omen for sons what does that mean according to simple understanding of the gemara it means that and again this is not meant to be sexist misogynistic that if you have a daughter first that daughter is going to help you raise the subsequent babies so if you're first born as a son lazy good for nothing entitled sitting on the couch what's he going to do for you but if your first child is a girl and then you have a baby you'll never hold that baby because the girl's going to be so excited to hold that baby rock the baby take care of the baby so bastard is even if you want to dispute if it's true today and i can tell you it still is true today but even if you wanted to dispute it's not true today it certainly was true then but the marsha has a different interpretation look at what he says i'm sorry it's a little bit fuzzy says anyone who wants these sour sheets i'm happy to email them to you or share them with you later mashallah if you have a boy first it means what do you have and what is the bakur entitled to a double portion and if you give the bahr this double portion it's going to promote and introduce animal enmity fighting among the others so therefore bastrilla simmons you want the children to get along after you die if you're first born as a daughter and you don't ever have to deal with the issue of a double portion semenya that will bode well for the shalom bias among the children after after the fact so the marsha here and the rambam the end of nachos are both writing that a priority a tremendous priority has to be shalom bias when you talk about how we treat our children in our lifetime but also what we plan for them after our lifetime we have to place an emphasis on a priority on shale and bias on everybody getting along it's critically critically important we have to provide clarity on delicate issues we're going to get to this a little bit later also we have a page in here let's see if i can find it skip to it for a moment on a person's wishes to articulate and to spell out and to leave in our file here it is my burial wishes i put this together the letter concerns matters of extreme importance to me i trust you will honor my last and most fervently held wishes and desires i strongly desire to leave this world fully in accordance with the practices of our eternal people and the haste and grief that accompanies the passing of a loved one often irreparable harm is done to the soul and body of the deceased i plead of you to treat my last rights with compassion in accordance with my sincere wishes i think i worked off another document and added to it these are my desires kosher plain wood casket no autopsy no creation no embalming to be buried underground not in a mausoleum no viewing of my remains after death the tarantula to be taken care of by and i made this for myself with the phone number shmeera someone guard to be provided at the funeral parlor to my immediate family members please observe the customer jewish morning practices create a shiva kaddish and so forth any questions contact the jewish sacred society for adherence to my wishes may the creator grant you health and happiness satisfaction knowing you've complied fully with my instructions signed in a phone number if you have any questions contact my rabbi robert from goldberg my phone number and my address on the bottom and then we have the language to add to a secular world which we're going to get to will take us a while to be able to get there so it's very very important to consider not only the ethical will not only not only so in that last will and testament that will sit in a safety deposit deposit box and that the estate planner will hold on to should be of course the actual binding will but it should be preceded by in the folder the ethical will here's my dreams my hopes my aspirations my wants number one number two my last burial wishes now many have barak hashem children for whom everything on that list was a given is obvious gonna sit shiva say kaddish of course plain pine box of course gonna bury in the ground of course but a person doesn't know what could happen and the fighting that could occur and they don't know that who ultimately will be there could anyone have predicted before corona that there'd be funerals where family members were absent that there would be funerals that only barely had a minion that there'd be funerals ives on funerals during corona that were me a child and the funeral director that was the whole funeral so would anyone have predicted it and the more that we articulate now that my burial wishes is not binding legally i don't believe i don't think that you can force someone based on it but the more that we articulate and the more that we share and the more that we communicate both before our death and certainly after it and the less guesswork we leave is a great and generous gift we leave the next generation and it's a gift we leave ourselves because it means that our will will be followed rather than in the absence of it speculation that could lead to fighting but also could lead to violating ultimately what we want where do we want to be buried i can't tell you how often including just this week i have a conversation with a family who loses a loved one very suddenly and did they ever have a conversation about where they want to be buried forget the day every bar buy plots which by the way a burial plot is a piece of real estate and it's only going up in value it's only becoming more expensive the sooner you buy it and you know you have it the gift to the next generation that doesn't fall on them because it's only becoming more expensive going forward but did you leave instructions where you want to be buried do you want to be buried in america do you want to be better than ever to stroll where do you want to be buried i'll never forget a couple years ago i went to cuba for a day with a group a humanitarian mission we brought things to what is the barely holding on jewish community in cuba really humanitarian they didn't have access to toilet paper and basic medicines and while we were there one of the rabbis who went to the jewish cemetery in havana and one of the rabbis who was with us grandparents had fled the nazis and made their way to cuba as many did and went to visit his grandfather buried in the jewish cemetery in havana in cuba and there's a beautiful headstone made of marble his grandfather's buried there his grandmother is not why because after castro regime took over and they had to flee as many who were in a position to do did the grandmother left with the family and she's not buried with her husband in cuba but as we stood there it occurred to me it occurred to our whole little group that this rabbi's grandfather is buried in cuba and when he was buried there was a thriving jewish community kololim and yeshivas and mikva girls schools all kinds of schools youth groups shules there was a thriving jewish community and did they ever anticipate that jews wouldn't be able to come back nobody could come back i understand today maybe even the government is reversing its policy and listing cuba again as a as an adversary of america reversing a change that uh occurred five years ago so did anyone ever dream that so we can never predict the future so a person has very thoughtful where they want to be buried and maybe we'll get to next this is going to take us a little while this series will get to the merit of being buried in israel versus outside of israel is there is it a virtue what is the merit of being buried in israel outside of israel where will generations to come likely still be going and where but may they never go again that we don't anticipate right now who knows so the more we articulate the more we share advance the greater a gift to our children the greater gift to ourselves to ensure that that will be in fact that that will in fact be followed shalom buys shalom buys at what age should a person write such a will when should a person write such a will when should it be prepared so the shahbaz rabbi safar on yerusha writes that yaakov called yosevin towards the end of his life so the key is that things are prepared in advance how far in advance who knows but prepared in advance don't wait till it's too late don't wait till it's too late the uh kluger or kluger uh sees it differently kluger walks off it works off of possible posix says in source six and passes bihar sources sanctify the fiftieth year and proclaim it yovel is in the fiftieth year is yovel and what happens in yeovil the shavu the shaft is a so every person goes back to their land isha mishpachto sort of kluger says that what does it mean everyone when is it that you go back to the earth at 50. so a person should have their last will of testament written by the age of 50 by the age of 50 because at 50 is when a person goes to the land is returned to the land the shaft therefore homolytically he's suggesting not halal homiletically by the age of 50 a person should write a will others say you should write your will early on my father taught me and he's on person has certain responsibilities when you get married and you have increased responsibilities when you have your first child you got to get life insurance you have to have disability insurance and you have to have a will the moment there are consequences to your absence meaning there are people for whom decisions have to be made is when you're responsible to articulate them it's not very romantic i'm not telling you that in the middle of chevy brackets you should draft the will i will tell you that when you graduate you they try to sell you burial plots but that's not for now i will tell you that it's not uh during shovel brothers that you have to draft your will i'm not telling you that after the bris the same day draft a will not that you have a child but with the responsibility you have to you have to write this will so by the age of 50 is the mclugar's homelandic interpretation based on the shaft of so others say yaakov did it before the very end of his life even though he was already essentially terminally ill and ended uh nearing his his deathbed but refiver cohen points out the contrast medulla d'or source number seven command chavez tells us the following a person should always try to repent one day before they die don't wait to die to for atonement don't have death be your atonement your kapara try to repent try to repair try to reform a day before you die shout out to me so a student said them yamas now that's nice and thought it's nice in theory but none of us get we don't get a calendar invite that tells us when we're coming upstairs nobody tells us the day that is coming to visit so how could a person know how to repent the day before they die none of us get a memo about when is the day we're going to die some allah says exactly now you understand what i was getting at which is if my message is repent the day before you die and you don't know which day you're going to die then repent every day because who knows if tomorrow you'll die very again sanguine thought a very sobering thought god forbid god forbid but one never knows accidents illnesses terrible tragic again we just did a funeral yesterday for a woman 55 years old who died suddenly on friday out of absolutely nowhere one never knows and therefore one should live every day as a country song live every day as if it's your last because you never know now why do you live every day as if it's your last i think the country song i don't really know the song but i think the country song means go out party have fun live every day as if it's your last. that is not what the gamer and chavez and what ruby eliezer are saying live every day as if it's your last carpe diem what'll be eiser saying is don't have regrets don't have regrets there are conversations you need to have have them there are plans you need to do do them don't have regrets in that sense so therefore the five of cone says on his conscious medium the door based on this gamer in chavez just like don't wait to do chuva don't wait to become a better version of yourself because you can't wait till the day you're gonna die to receive atonement no one knows which day they're gonna die so too don't wait to do your estate planning until right before you die because you probably won't be in a condition to do it then and we don't get a memo of when we are going to when we are going to die continues the wisest of all men says your garment should be white and your head never lack oil in other words purify yourself as much as possible as often as possible because you can't say ah the upon f now when i get there i'll da field me when i retire towards the end of my life i'll finally do sitter snippets and start to learn one word of what i'm saying i'll get to that later none of us ever know if we're getting to later so don't procrastinate don't delay and don't push off the things that one needs to do now which include shuva include becoming the best version of ourselves but also include doing estate planning it's critical to do it as soon as possible you compare it to a king who invite servants to us but didn't tell them so the wise servants of the king they dress for a royal affair the yahshua passed away and they went outside the king they say does the kings pass lack for anything so it should be ready any moment they invited us then tell us the time we're talking about the king over here the tips the fools they went to work the fools went to binge watch netflix and they didn't get dressed and they weren't ready ah it takes effort it takes time so they're not ready they're not ready what happens suddenly without warning the king summons everybody the penguin to the banquet pikkhan shabbat necklace allah so those who are wise they're ready they're adorned they're dressed in their finest because they were anticipating they were ready by tip but now the fools they have to run in and they're all dirty dirty physically or dirty metaphysically from that which they were doing in the process so the king was thrilled to welcome the ones who were dressed in their finest who were prepared who were ready and he was furious at those who had neglected to be ready so omar the king says hello yes those who were ready sit eat drink but those who aren't ready you can stand on the outskirts you stand on the perimeter and watch us party watch us indulge in this banquet so the same is true this muscle for this world if you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait until it's too late you're watching from the outside but if you're ready every day then you'll be ready when that day comes and therefore what applies to our personal transformation and growth spiritually also applies to our estate planning don't wait don't delay be ready be ready for when the time calls be ready for when the time calls okay we're going to leave it here for today as the introduction covered the introductory topics we'll pick up next time first by talking about stucca how much can you lead to stucco is it properly to sucka how do you balance between what you're leaving your children and what you're trying to leave to make the world a better place beyond just your children uh what what are the proportions or ratio or amounts that dictate how much you go to stakka versus not go to staka and then from there we'll go into the mechanism what's the torah's hierarchy and what instruments do we have that we can employ in order to complement shall we say the halacha's instructions if that doesn't meet exactly what our goal is and how we want to disperse our assets after 120. we'll pick it up next week with part two have a wonderful day