$1,000,000 to Save the Animals

Question

My father, who was not religious, was a great lover of nature, and it really caused him great anguish to know that an entire species of animals was earmarked to become extinct. As a result, before my father passed away a few weeks ago, he asked me to leave $1,000,000 of his remaining assets to an organization that protects a certain type of animal from becoming extinct.

It is extremely difficult for me to carry out my father's wishes and give such a large sum of money for this cause. I tried to convince my father to give the money to a yeshiva, but my father was not aware of the great merit that leaving money to people who study Torah has on the neshamah of the departed.

My father did not write this request into a will or any other type of legal document, but rather left me in charge of distributing these funds. This puts me in a bit of an awkward position. On one hand, perhaps the correct behavior under these circumstances is to distribute this money to this organization, since the money was earmarked for them and that was my father's last request in this world, so maybe I should in fact distribute the money to this organization. On the other hand, I am sure that my father's neshamah in the next world will not benefit greatly from the fact that this large sum of money was given to protect this endangered species, and if he was able to reallocate this sum of money, he’d want it to be used differently.

What is the halacha under these circumstances? Am I obligated to honor his wish or can I change the appropriation?

Gratefully,

S. M.

Rav Goldberg 

There are halachos that dictate that if someone said something on their death bed, the yorshim, at times, are obligated to carry out the wishes of the deceased. In order for this appropriation to be considered valid, your father would have had to put this money into the hands of a shelish, i.e., a third party, whose job it would be to distribute these funds after your father passed away (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 252:2). Since your father did not do this, you are not obligated to distribute these funds (see Noda B'Yehudah Even Ha’ezer 2:45).

There is a concept called matnas shechiv meira, literally a present given on one's deathbed. Even if your father used one of the special kinyonim utilized to make this transaction a binding agreement while he was on his deathbed, these special gifts only work when a person is makneh the money to a specific Jewish individual. In this case, since your father requested that the money be transferred to an organization, this would not come under the category of a matnas shechiv mara.

Since in this case there is no mitzvah to fulfill your father's words and this does not come under the parameters of a matnas shechiv meira, you are not required to give this money to the organization that your father specified. Since your father set this money aside for charity and it will most certainly benefit his neshamah to distribute it to a worthwhile cause (see Mishnah Berurah 621:19 and Shu”t Takanas Hashavim 1:12), I would suggest that you use it to support lomdei Torah or to help the impoverished.