VaEtchanan
“Honor you father and your mother as Hashem your G-d
has commanded you, so that you will lengthen your days and so that it will be
good for you on the land that Hashem your G-d has given to you.” (Devarim 5:16)
In this week’s parasha, Moshe reviews
the Decalogue. Our passage states the obligation
to honor one’s mother and father.
The
Talmud in Tractate Kiddushin asks an interesting question. In order to understand this question a brief
introduction is needed. There are two
commandments regarding our basic obligations towards our parents. Our passage is the source for the obligation
to honor our parents. However, we are
also obligated to fear our parents. The
Torah tells us, “Every person must fear his mother and father.”[1] What are the two obligations outlined in
these two commandments? How does the
obligation to honor our parents differ from the obligation to fear our parents? Maimonides discusses this issue. He explains that the commandment to fear our
parents prohibits us from sitting in our parent’s place, contradiction our
parents, referring to them by their first names and similar behaviors. The commandment to honor our parents
obligates us to care for our parents.
We are obligated to make sure that our parents are provided with food
and clothing. The mitzvah to honor our
parents also creates a general obligation to serve our parents.[2] In short, the obligation to fear our parents
requires that we treat our parents with reverence. The mitzvah to honor our parents requires that we care for their
needs.
The
Talmud’s discussion begins with a simple observation. The commandment – in our parasha – to honor our parents places
the father before the mother. In contrast,
the obligation to fear our parents places the mother before the father. The
Talmud asks the obvious question. Why
in discussing the commandment to fear our parents is the mother placed before
the father but in discussing the commandment to honor our parents the father is
placed before the mother?
Before
considering the Talmud’s response, it is important to acknowledge that the
Talmud’s comments assume a family in which the father and mother have very
specific and different roles. In our
society, these roles are not as clearly demarcated. So, the observations of the Sages may need some adaptation for
our times. But they are still very
relevant. The Talmud comment will be
more contemporary if we understand them as reference to parenting models rather
than gender specific references. In
other words, the role that the Talmud assigns to the mother should be
understood as a parenting role which today we may find assumed by the father or
shared by each parent. Similarly, the
role that the Talmud associates with the father may today be assumed by either
parent or shared by both.
The
Sages observed that the child – in the family that they envisioned – typically
experiences a different relationship with his/her mother and father. They comment that the Creator recognizes
that the love that we feel for our mothers comes to us more easily and
naturally than the love we should feel for our fathers. After all, it is typical for the mother to
be more demonstrative in expressing affection.
The child responds with a reciprocal, deep and enduring love for his/her
mother. In turn, the child’s love
engenders a desire to care for his/her mother.
As explained above, the obligation to honor our parents is essentially a
requirement to assure that they receive proper care. It is an expression of our love.
In short, the child has a
natural desire to fulfill the duties that the Torah includes in the mitzvah to
honor our parents. The desire to
fulfill these duties in regards to one’s father is not as natural.
The
Sages also observed that the father is responsible to teach his son Torah. Therefore, fear and reverence for one’s
father is more natural than fear and reverence for one’s mother. The reverence that is required by the
commandment to fear our parents is a natural expression of our relationship
with our fathers.[3]
In
other words, the Torah recognizes a natural tendency for the child to honor his/her
mother and to fear his/her father. We do
not have the same natural inclinations to honor our fathers and to fear our
mothers. However, we are not permitted
to follow this natural inclination. We
must honor our fathers and fear our mothers.
Rav
Yosef Dov Soleveitchik Zt”l was fascinated with the Talmud’s contention that
the child’s feeling of love develop more naturally for one’s mother. Does the child not appreciate all of the
efforts that his/her father makes on his/her behalf? Why does the child not feel a reciprocal love his/her father?
Rav
Soloveitchik observed that this discussion in the Talmud follows a briyta – a
teaching of the Sages – that delineates the obligations of a father towards his
child. The Sages instruct us that among
the father’s responsibilities towards his son are the obligations to teach him
Torah, to support him in finding a wife, to teach him a trade, and to teach him
to swim.[4] Rav Soloveitchik observed that these
elements of the father’s obligation have a specific theme. He must teach his son Torah, a trade and to
swim. All of these areas of instruction
are designed to instill within the child the ability to achieve independence
and self-reliance. Certainly, helping a child begin a family is an expression
of this same theme. Rav Soloveitchik
concluded that the Sages regarded this as the primary role of the father in the
raising of the child. It is the
father’s responsibility to foster in the child independence and self-reliance.
Rav
Soloveitchik observed that this relationship between the father and his child
inevitably communicates a mixed or confusing message to the child. The child does recognize and acknowledge the
love of his/her father. But at the same
time, the father’s role of fostering independence results in the father making
demands and establishing expectations.
The father often feels he cannot coattail or indulge his child. The child perceives a harshness or distance
in his/her father that is difficult to reconcile with the love that the child
knows the father feels.
This
relationship is very different from the relationship that the child experiences
with his/her mother or mother-figure.
The mother’s role is not to push the child towards adulthood and
independence. Instead, the mother is
more indulgent. Her love for her child
is expressed more demonstratively and intensely. As a result, the child’s feelings towards his/her mother are less
ambivalent. The love that the child
receives from the mother is unambiguous and unconditional. In this relationship, the child does not
sense the harshness or demands that characterize the relationship with his/her
father or father figure. The child
responds to the obvious love communicated by his/her mother with a sense of
devotion and affection that is far less ambivalent than the child’s feelings
towards his/her father.
But,
in truth, the father does not love the child less than the mother. Instead, this love finds expression in a
different form. The mother’s love may
be more demonstrably communicated. But
it is the father’s love that motivates him to take on the difficult task of
teaching his child and making demands.
It is only because of this love that the father figure is willing to
endure the conflicts and friction that are often the result from the demands
and the expectations that he places upon his child.
These
feeling towards our parents develop during childhood. As we mature, to some extent, our understanding of the roles and
efforts of our parents develops and matures.
But despite our more mature views and understanding, it is often
difficult to completely alter the feelings we developed as children. So, even as we mature into adults, we may
tend to more naturally feel affection for our mothers and reverence for our
fathers.[5]
Let
us reconsider the comments of the Talmud.
As explained above, the message of the Torah is that we are not
permitted to follow this natural inclination.
We must honor our fathers and fear our mothers. It seems that according to Rav Soloveitchik,
the Torah is telling us a profound and far-reaching idea. The feelings that we develop towards our
parents do not dissipate as we mature into adults. We advance cognitively.
But many of the feelings that we develop as children remain with us into
adulthood. As a result, as adults, we
experience a sort of confusion. We
cannot easily outgrow or abandon the feelings that we develop as children. But as we become more mature and become
parents ourselves we recognize that these feelings are simplistic and based
upon immature perceptions developed in childhood. We are trapped between the feelings developed in childhood and
the cognitive perceptions developed in adulthood.
Essentially,
the commandments to honor our fathers – as we do our mothers – and to revere
our mothers – as we do our fathers – admonish us to accept that our feelings
are not based upon a mature and accurate appraisal of the roles that our
parents have played in our development.
In other words, we must recognize that although our feelings are intense
and very real to us, these feelings do not reflect an accurate mature appraisal
of the reality of our parents’ love and concern for our well-being.