SEDRA KI TEITZEI – “My son is a good son- isn’t he?” August 2010
For many of us the first mitzvah given to mankind of ‘Peru Revu’ to procreate and bring children into the world is indeed a blessing.
With eager anticipation we await the birth of this blessing without really knowing what to do. We are not given a handbook or indeed a blueprint to guide us through our parenting years. In the 1960’s in the UK first time parents would read cover to cover Dr Spock’s ‘Guide for Parents’. As jewish parents the Torah indicates our role through the Shema- “and you shall teach them diligently these words”. The words referred to are of course the Laws given to Moses on Sinai. This instruction is to be full time; while sitting at home, going out in public, and lying down at night.
It is therefore hard to understand the Pasuk in this week’s Sedra concerning the ‘rebellious son’ (Devarim 21:18 -20). When parents have a rebellious son who does not listen to them and disrespects them and also is a thief and a glutton, they should bring him to Beis Din and have him flogged.
To calm us more sensitive souls out there, the Gemara ( Sanhedrin 71a) informs us that there was never a rebellious son who was treated in this way by a Beis Din. The matter is recorded so in order to teach us to mind our ways to bring our children up correctly and for the reward we receive for learning the topic.
Last week I mentioned the language and behaviour children bring to school mirrors what they see and hear at home. When in our Sedra the parents complain “He does not listen to our voice (21:20), voice is in the singular denoting that parents are speaking with one voice, together agreeing that what their son did was wrong. However a few verses earlier (v18) “He does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother”, indicates that the parents had not agreed amongst themselves as to his wayward behaviour and he does not listen to either of them anyway.
There is no doubt that children love to play one parent off against the other and the discord between parents only serves to aide the child in his bad behaviour. The lack of unity of the parents encourages the child to continue his bad ways and even later when parents become united and speak as it were with one voice, it is too late as the child will not listen to reason about this and any other matters.
Despite the lack of a parenting guide/handbook we do our best with our children using the Torah as our guide and the ideal of ‘derech eretz’ as our blueprint, spilling over as it does into our actions ‘bein odom l’chaveyro’ and loving our neighbour as our self.
Having a child and being responsible for a child is indeed a blessing. Rabbi S R Hirsch in his work Horeb cites in the section on Chinuch- education the following:-
“If the highest of blessings is without question the bestowal of a blessing, can there be a higher blessing than to receive a being which, itself poor in everything, must derive from your love everything which the world can offer it, which through your love must become whatever it is destined to be in life?. Such is the blessing which heaven bestows on you when it gives you a child.”
Rabbi Hirsch explains that the easiest blueprint to help us educate our child is in fact our own example.
“But do you know the great instrument which you have in your hands for giving him this training? Your own example! In the life of his parents the child sees the picture of what will one day be his own life, and he copies it eagerly and quickly; hence the picture presented by the parents should be only a pure consecrated Jewish life. Let him practise all these duties jointly with you.”
Hirsch cautions parents about outside influences, “Keep watch over yourselves more than ever in the presence of your children, and keep watch too, over playmates and servants, over friends and acquaintances of the house”. Sound advice, more so today than ever before as we let our children fly the nest earlier and earlier with little or no check on destination or friends.
As loving and caring parents we have to give our children the tools to build their future, the instruction by example, and the encouragement to do so, so that we can all say ‘boynoich- builders and not bonoich- children.
When faced with the reality of news about the actions or behaviour of our children which reflect badly on us, with head in hands we ask ‘where did we go wrong? Do not fall into the trap of believing it is not your fault, even in some small way.
Do not utter a desperate plea, “my son is a good son, isn’t he?”
I am trying to set my children a good example, how about you?
Wishing you all an enjoyable Shabbat engaging with your children, TTFN.
( Part of a regular Thursday Shiur at Young Israel Synagogue of North Netanya)
Due to constraints of time this week, this mini shiur is reproduced from last year’s
TTFN, sorry!
