Planning and Generational Legacy
Those who care about days, sow wheat.
Those who care about years, plant trees.
Those who care about generations, educate people.
(Janusz Korczak)
I was still a very young boy, perhaps six or seven. Yet that evening remains deeply etched in my memory: the launch of the book Janusz Korczak – Master and Martyr, which my grandmother had translated into Portuguese. She was cultured and erudite, self-taught, fluent in seven languages. The ceremony brought together figures from São Paulo’s Jewish community — intellectuals, businesspeople, and family. What stayed with me was the sense of how important that book was.
My grandmother left Lithuania in the late 1920s. She finished high school and came with her entire family to build a new life in Brazil, but her connection to European values, culture, and atmosphere remained ever-present in our home.
Janusz Korczak was a great educator — a Polish Jew recognized for his humanistic, innovative, and transformative approach to children and adolescents.
Although he had no biological children, Korczak left a living legacy. He formed a generation of young people whose lives were profoundly transformed in the orphanage he directed. His many books, articles, and disciples make his work a living inheritance that continues to inspire and influence thousands around the world.
I visited the monument erected in his honor at the Treblinka extermination camp, where his life was brutally ended by the Nazis together with hundreds of children from the orphanage. It was a searing experience, especially given our family’s identification with this remarkable figure.
I believe a significant part of my personal and professional life was shaped by the central place books always held in our family.
Continuity
When we think about generational legacy — about culture and values — we are essentially speaking of education, formation, transmission, and permanence.
The biblical tradition gives this theme a central place. Values are preserved only through constant concern with transgenerational transmission. From birth, a child begins a journey of learning and internalizing the history, values, and foundations of the millennia-old tradition to which they belong. The process continues until the person actively assumes the role of transmitting and shaping the generations that follow. It is a cycle that never ends.
Abraham: The Entrepreneur of Eternity
The Torah narrates Abraham’s story in detail. He was an entrepreneur who launched a fascinating “startup.” His “product” — monotheism — met with remarkable acceptance. Some early adopters joined his journey: Lot, Eliezer, and many others not explicitly named in the Bible. The rounds of “funding” advanced, his influence grew, and the reach of his culture expanded.
But there was an essential problem: Abraham had no descendants. From the very beginning he showed deep concern for continuity. His entire life’s work seemed at risk of vanishing into oblivion.
There is a phrase of Abraham that resonates across the millennia: “And Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will You give me, seeing that I remain childless (ariri)?’” The word ariri — childless — carries existential weight. It is not only about the absence of children; it is the anguish that a mission could end in emptiness, that values, vision, and purpose might die with you.
As Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik writes:
Legacy is built through acts that transcend the immediate. Abraham understood that his covenant with God demanded not only faith, but the establishment of a community that would carry that faith forward through generations.
At the moment of his deepest and most intimate pain, when his wife Sarah dies, he takes on a single project: to secure continuity. Even after Isaac’s birth, Abraham needs certainty that his values will be transmitted to another generation. He mobilizes his entire household to find a worthy bride for his son, so that the Abrahamic home can carry its values and legacy forward.
“Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and God had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to the senior servant of his household… ‘Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the God of heaven and the God of the earth that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac.’” (Genesis 24:1–4)
Abraham was not merely seeking a daughter-in-law. He sought someone who would share and perpetuate the values he and Sarah had built. The continuity of a legacy is not merely biological; it is ethical, moral, and spiritual.
Corporate Leadership and the Imperative of Continuity
In the corporate world, planning and legacy occupy a central place. Especially at the leadership level — C-suite and governance — it is essential to ensure a company will not be left leaderless, that transitions preserve its values, and that market confidence is not shaken by changes in the executive team.
Yet a company’s legacy is not limited to senior management; it extends to all spheres that contribute to its mission. Often, it is precisely these people who represent the organization to clients, translating mission, objectives, and values into practice in relationships with stakeholders, directly or indirectly involved.
This is the core of stakeholder capitalism and stewardship: we are not absolute owners but temporary guardians of a mission that preceded us and must outlast us. As Warren Buffett said,
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. The question for every leader is: what trees are you planting today?
Recognizing Finitude as a Principle of Action
The great scholar and philosopher Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz offers a notable insight into the honesty and candor a true leader must possess:
True ownership begins with recognizing mortality and planning beyond oneself.
Humility and vulnerability must move us to transmit values and foundations, preparing future generations to continue this mission.
As Hans Jonas wrote,
Responsibility is the care for the future made present.
The true leader is one who lives the future now, acting in the present on behalf of those yet unborn.
This sense of intergenerational responsibility is what turns leadership into a moral act. Planning the future is not merely forecasting results or successions; it is ensuring that the values sustaining an organization, a family, or a community remain alive, authentic, and faithful to their origin. The recognition of finitude is decisive for actions that ensure continuity. Peter Drucker rendered the point succinctly: “There is no success without a successor.”
Abraham’s Plea: A Mission Greater Than the Self
Scripture records Abraham’s plea — an ancient and recurring concern with continuity and transmission: “O Lord, what can You give me, seeing that I shall die childless, and the one in charge of my household is Dammesek Eliezer!”
His plea was sincere: How will my legacy endure if I have no descendants?
Abraham did not seek fame or personal recognition. He bore a message of redemption for the world. His responsibility for a society built on justice and kindness transcended his person. If we truly represent something deep and timeless, then as important as the values we defend is ensuring that our mission continues and that those values remain alive in the generations to come. Abraham modeled the importance of transition and generational legacy.
Living as if We Were Eternal
As Lord Emanuel Jacobovits said,
Live as if you will die tomorrow, but plan as if you will live forever.
More than three decades ago, I had the privilege of meeting Lord Jacobovits, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, in person. On a damp, rainy afternoon in London, after evening prayers, he invited me for tea at his residence. It was a memorable encounter. Nobility and learning were palpable in every detail. The depth of his thought resounds in that powerful line: on the one hand, the recognition of finitude; on the other, the responsibility to plan for eternity. And yes, it is possible. How? Through the values we hold, the teachings we share, and the example we leave in our actions.
The best illustration of this I find in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:
You achieve immortality not by building pyramids or statues, but by engraving your values on the hearts of your children, and they on theirs, so that our ancestors live on in us and we in our children, and so on until the end of time.
When I served as a school principal, I had these words printed on the wall leading to the teachers’ lounge. It was a way to honor educators, too often under-recognized in modern society, and a daily reminder that through their classes they were building immortality, timelessness, and eternity — sowing in their students’ hearts values and principles that would endure.
Corporate Legacy: Long-Term Value Creation
In the corporate world, this perspective transforms how we lead and plan for the future.
In the words of Paul Polman:
We don’t inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children. The moment you put short-term profits above long-term value creation, you’ve lost the plot.
There is a rare and precious combination here: long-term and value creation.
Thinking long-term and offering what truly adds value turns a company into a moral patrimony — a living culture and an asset of social relevance.
Alfred Nobel put it differently: “Second to agriculture, humbly and cautiously practiced, I believe that the greatest good lies in those enterprises which build something that lasts beyond oneself.”
Authentic corporate legacy is not measured in quarters but in decades; not by market cap, but by the lasting impact an organization has on its employees, customers, communities, and the market itself. Admirable and transformative companies understand that their purpose transcends the current generation of leaders. They cultivate a culture of stewardship in which each manager sees themselves as a temporary guardian of permanent values.
The Legacy That Crosses Generations
Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook taught:
A person is not created for themselves alone, but for generations. Every act of holiness reverberates through time, shaping the world that our children will inherit.
Janusz Korczak was not a businessman; he was an educator. He recognized the potential of his mission and, as a true leader, left a legacy that crosses generations.
Abraham did not build pyramids; he engraved values on hearts. Sarah did not accumulate wealth; she sanctified each day of her life.
And what about us? What trees are we planting today? What values are we engraving on the hearts of those who will come after us?
Parashat Chayei Sarah reminds us: true legacy is not what we accumulate, but what we transmit; not how long we live, but how we live; not what we conquer alone, but what we make possible for future generations.
Those who care about days, sow wheat.
Those who care about years, plant trees.
Those who care about generations, educate people.
