Dear Friends;
I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;
” Parsha in a Nutshell “
Seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 commandments are in this week’s Parsha. These include the laws of the beautiful captive woman, the inheritance rights of the first-born, capital punishment for the wayward and rebellious son, burial and dignity of the dead, returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird before taking her young, and the duty to erect a safety fence around the roof of one’s home.
Also recounted are the judicial procedures and penalties for adultery, for the rape or seduction of an unmarried girl, and for a husband who falsely accuses his wife of adultery. The following cannot marry a person of Jewish lineage: a bastard; a male of Moabite or Ammonite descent.
Our Parshah also includes laws governing the purity of the military camp; the prohibition against turning in an escaped slave; the duty to pay a worker on time; the proper treatment of a debtor and the prohibition against charging interest on a loan; the laws of divorce (from which are also derived many of the laws of marriage); and the procedures for yibbum, marriage between the wife of a childless deceased to her brother-in-law.
Parsha concludes with the obligation to remember “what Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt.”
” Dvar Torah “
One of the most difficult tasks for any parents is to raise their children. There are no set of rules to follow. Even if there is, there is no guarantee that it will work on every child, since each child is different. One of the biggest nightmare for parents is, G-d forbid, to be faced with a problematic and rebellious child. How can they avoid to have such a child?!
Well, in this week’s Parsha, the Torah talks about a wayward and rebellious son (Ben sorer u’moreh). The Torah says: ” If a man will have a wayward and rebellious son, who does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, and they discipline him but he still does not listen to them, then the parents shall grasp him and take him out to the elders of the city and say to them, ” This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not listen to our voice, he is a glutton and drunkard ….. All the men of the city shall pelt him with stones and he shall die;”
The Chachamim say that the reason the boy is put to death is because the parents notice a trend in their young son’s spiritual development that will almost inevitably lead to a lifestyle involving robbery and even murder. One of the requirements for a child to be considered a “Ben Sorer U’moreh” is to be a glutton, indulging in meat and wine, excessively. If a boy displays an uncontrolled lust for meat and wine, he will inevitably reach the point where he will rob and murder in order to obtain the money he needs to satisfy this lust. Therefore the Torah advises that he should be put to death “at the stage in life when he is still innocent,” rather than allowing him to mature to a point where he will actually be fully deserving of death.
But the Talmud says that an actual case of “ben sorer u’moreh”, stoning of a child, has never happened and will never happen. No parents would have the heart to take their son to be stoned to death! The Torah is merely mentioning this law just for educational purposes. So, if the whole purpose of this law is to educate us, let’s see what we can learn from it.
The Torah says: ” If a man will have a wayward and rebellious son, who does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother……..”. Accordingly, our commentators come up with the following question. Why does the Torah mention the voice of the father and the voice of the mother separately? Why doesn’t it just say, “a son who does not listen to the voice of his parents?! Our Torah which is so careful with the use of words, why suddenly became so generous with throwing extra words?!
Rabbi Yissachar Frand gives an interesting interpretation. In describing a rebellious child, the Torah is trying to stress that the parents were not of one voice and one opinion! The child did not listen to his father’s voice and independently he did not listen to his mother’s alternate voice either. When the child hears mixed messages, he does not listen to either parent and he goes after his own heart and hence, he becomes rebellious. When a child hears one thing from the father and another thing from the mother – that is a garden in which weeds can grow. Only subsequently, when the child has already left the right path, do the parents come and, sadly, tell the elders of the court: “Now we are together. Now we have a unified voice. Our son is not listening to OUR voice!” Unfortunately by then, it is too late. The son has already became a rebellious child, and it’s very hard to bring him back!
Yes my friends, There are no secret formulas for raising good children. Raising children is the most difficult job in the world. However, there are clearly certain things parents should try to avoid. Parents should always present a unified message of their expectations to their children. Parents may have disagreements among themselves as to what is the proper course in raising children. But those disagreements need to be decided among themselves; in private! When parents come before their children, they need to articulate a clear, decisive, and uniform message. For example, if a son comes and ask the mother for $20 and the mother says no, and then he goes and asks the father for $20 and he gives it to him, that’s considered talking in different voices. If the parents would have always talked in a unified voice, then the son would have never gone to the father and asked for $20! When the parents reach the status of “our voice” rather than “the father’s voice” and “the mother’s voice,” their chances of raising a proper child will be much greater.
So my friends, the lesson that we can learn from “Ben Sorer U’moreh” is not how to kill a rebellious child, but rather, how to raise a good child who is respectful to his parents.
Shabbat Shalom & Regards;
Martin