This last testament of the famous Mayor of Tel Aviv might be thought of as in the tradition of a centuries-old form of Jewish national expression—the ethical will, as typified by such other writers as Judah ibn Tibbon, Nahmanides, and the Eleazar of Mayence. MEIR DIZENGOFF was one of the pioneers of Palestine, and one of the leaders in the upbuilding of that land. He made the first purchases of land near Jaffa in 1905 as co-founder of the land-purchasing society, Geulah; a few years later he helped found Tel Aviv. A great figure in the development of the city, he served as its mayor for six years. He knew the people, and they knew and revered him. He died in 1936, and was universally mourned. Before his death he gave this article to the editors of the daily labor newspaper Davar, where it was published September 23, 1936. The translation is by Mordecai S. Chertoff.—Ed.

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I want my death to be “with a kiss.” For is it not written that every Israelite can be even as Moses our Teacher? And since he died with a kiss, why can’t I too hope to die the same way?

While still a child I pictured the matter corporeally and very simply: when Moses and the emigrants from Egypt reached Mt. Nebo, the Holy One blessed be He came down from the heavens to the mountain in all His glory, called Moses to Him, and kissed him, and at that very moment his soul took flight. In a later period, when my pious teachers had taught me that God has neither body nor form, I conceived of this “death with a kiss” in another way: on the summit of Mt. Nebo, from which Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan Valley are visible, God revealed Himself to Moses and said to him: “Enough, Moses my servant, you have done enough. You have taken the Children of Israel out of Egypt, led them across the desert, given them the Torah and brought them to the threshold of the Chosen Land which I promised to give to them and to their seed as an eternal heritage. Now that land, so delightful, is before you. Look upon it from the mountain, for your task upon earth is completed. Ascend!” Moses died, and none knows his burial place to this very day. That was death with a kiss, because God took Moses to Himself.

From this standpoint there are many deaths which may be characterized as with a kiss. For example, the last moments of Rabbi Cook, of blessed memory, and the manner of his death. As the death-throes approached their climax, all his friends, the rabbis, gathered around his bed and prayed, continually reciting the prime exhortation of every believing Jew: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One! The dying rabbi answered them with enfeebled voice as he passed away: “ . . . is One.” That, too, was death with a kiss, for Rabbi Cook died serene and composed, like one who has fulfilled all of his earthly obligations, and at the last moment expressed in one word the sole aim of his life. Of one such as this one may say: “A righteous man in his faith liveth and in his faith dieth.”

Here is what my mother of blessed memory told me about the death of her father, who had been a Reb in a small town in Russia and who also died a kind of death with a kiss. On that last day—he died at the age of ninety-five—he asked the family to bathe him and wrap his tallith around him, and he began the Vidui and the Al het. Then he closed his eyes and prayed until noon. Suddenly he stirred and looked at his family, at the heads of the village standing around his bedside, and declared: “I beg the pardon of any of you whom I may have insulted, and I forgive any of you who may have been guilty of lèse majésty towards the Torah. ‘And thou shalt pore over it day and night!’—I believe with a thoroughgoing belief . . .” and with these words his soul took flight. Such a death is not one of compulsion, where one dies in spite of oneself, but rather acquiescence in death; a transition from one state to another, from one world to another, and such a death I call “with a kiss.”

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When I consider my own death, the W thought does not arouse within me any feelings of grief, of sorrow, or of mourning, for the whole process of exchanging one form for another is natural and normal. The time has come to close all accounts with my life and work in this world. I now stand upon the threshold of a new period and a new world which are unknown to me, beyond the bounds of the knowable. The assignments which I filled during my lifetime give me complete spiritual satisfaction, knowing that I spent not my days in vain, and that all my public work was for my fellow Jews and for the good of our precious land.

I picture my last day this way:

Behind my bier the children of Tel Aviv—those angels and darling cherubs whom I so loved—will trudge. In sturdy compact lines, their heads held high, they follow the casket, and I hear their murmuring as though crying: “Don’t leave us, Grandpa dear, we love you so. . . .”

Behind the children stride the youth, for whom boundless opportunities in the work of reclamation and redemption are open, who live always in an atmosphere of dreams and idealistic aspirations. I always considered myself a friend to this young generation, with whom I’ve ever felt an affinity of soul and spirit. When asked my age, I would answer: I don’t know exactly how many years have passed me by, but I still feel myself ready for any excesses or daring undertakings, only provided that they bring us to the desired goal. This youth will inherit our places upon the platform of public service, it will carry on our battle and bring us to a realization of our national aspirations. It is not surprising, therefore, that it should accompany me to my last resting place; I am content that when I am in my grave, even then when I am beyond the bounds of the knowable, the contact will be maintained between me and these bold young people.

And a large group of women take part in the procession too. These are the mothers who bore this young generation, and who guard the transmission of the tradition from father to son. These mothers, through their milk and marrow, through the cradlesongs they sing to their infants, transmit all the good, the lofty, and the noble which they in turn inherited from their own mothers, and which is preserved in the treasury of the people as faith and hope and will-to-live, and will continue our history.

Besides all these, surrounding the procession—masses of people. Men, women, and children of all walks of life and all occupations, coming to accompany to his last resting place him whom they had become accustomed to see working and striving on many fronts in the campaign for the redemption and resettlement of the land, some fifty years.

When my corpse is finally lowered into the cold, damp grave, and they cover the coffin with earth, I imagine that light will emanate from the procession itself, and the rays will soak through the clods of earth to light the way in which I must go, and to tell me that I died not against my will, but rather “with a kiss.”

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