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Every Friday afternoon, just before lighting the Shabbat candles, my mother dropped eighteen cents into a blue-and-white JNF box. She did the same thing in her classroom each Friday, where she taught first grade. It was never the amount that stayed with me. It was what she said. We give to remember that we are responsible for others. And what we have is meant, in part, to be shared. I have thought about that sentence often in the decades since. I have thought about it especia

Most people who want to write a legacy letter wait far longer than they mean to. The intention is there. The desire is real. But something keeps getting in the way. Sometimes it is not knowing where to start. Sometimes it is not being sure what to say — or worrying it will not come out right. Before you write a single word, there are two questions worth considering. They won't write the letter for you. But they will make beginning possible. 1. Who are you writing to? This is

In My Friends, Fredrik Backman writes, "Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people." When I first read that line, it felt familiar. Jewish tradition has long asked a related question: what are we passing on, from generation to generation, through the words we choose to say — or choose not to say? Words are not fleeting. They shape memory, form identity, and linger long after the moment in which they are spoken. Gratitude voiced, love articulated, pride shared, forgiven

My mother was a master teacher. Teaching wasn't just her profession; it was her heartbeat. As a sergeant in the Israeli army, she taught immigrant children learning to find their place in a new land. For 27 years, she taught Hebrew to children in the United States. Even in the final chapter of her life, as a resident of a senior home near Jerusalem, she found joy in teaching Hebrew to a class of Filipino caregivers who cared for her and her friends. Creating, innovating, shar

There is a particular look people sometimes give when I tell them that I lead workshops on writing legacy letters. It is not unkind. But it is unmistakable. It is the look that suggests discomfort—an unspoken question hovering just beneath the surface: Why would anyone want to think about death before they have to? I understand the reaction. In many cultures, we are taught—implicitly and explicitly—that talking about endings is morbid, pessimistic, or even inviting misfortune

When I read Mitch Albom’s recently published novel Twice , I couldn’t stop thinking about how many of us long for do-overs in life—not so much to fix our mistakes, but to say the things we left unsaid. In the novel, Albom introduces us to Alfie Logan, a man with a secret power: he can rewind time to moments he has already lived and experience them again. When he says the wrong thing, or when life feels messy, Alfie resets and tries again. Each rewind creates new consequences,

In his 2025 memoir Born Lucky , journalist Leland Vittert shares that out of everything his father ever wrote, one column is remembered more than any other. Its headline was stark: “I’d give every asset I have if I could just have him back for one day.” The column wasn’t about regret. It focused on the questions his father never had the chance to ask his own dad-- how he fell in love, how he built his career, why he was so tough, and why he loved so deeply even though he rare