The recent columns discussing Rabbi Yair Nahari’s enterprising project to shelter young girls who have landed on the streets brought on a flurry of letters. Many parents who compelled by circumstances to take the extreme measure of sending a son or daughter out of their home were deeply injured by what they read. In particular they were offended by the exchange between me and Rabbi Nahari in which I expressed my inability to comprehend how parents could send a young girl out to fend for herself on the mean streets seemingly indifferent to her safety or welfare.
And my worst offense it seems was my mention of the “R-word” — revenge. Many parents expressed their lacerated feelings by repeating the words Rabbi Nahari himself said to me: “Don’t judge your fellowman until you’ve been in his place.” And they added truly painful descriptions of the suffering they went through with a son or daughter before reaching the point of expelling their child from the house.
I would like to answer these parents with a personal disclosure: Unfortunately I am no stranger to the sort of tragic situation you suffer from. True I have never sent my own child away baruch Hashem but I have been intimately involved with some very close relatives grappling with this horror — navigating the situation both actively and emotionally with all its sad twists and turns. In addition in my role as an educator and lecturer over many years I have met countless parents as well as boys and girls embroiled in such struggles and have had long and penetrating conversations with them. I don’t look down upon this dreadful plague from an ivory tower; it is part of my own life and I too have no rest because of it.
Perhaps a clarification is in order: the sharp language I used was in no way meant as criticism of any parent whose place I have never been in but quite the opposite — it was a pained attempt to understand what it means to be in that place. As parents what are the thought patterns that activate our relationships with our children in general and particularly when a son or daughter strays from the path we have set for them?
This was our focus as I continued my conversation with Rabbi Nahari who in the course of his work in Beit Naomi has become skilled in the psychology of parent-child relationships. I hope that you my honored readers — and especially the offended parties — will bear with me and try to understand the insights I will present in these next weeks. These ideas aren’t my own invention; I heard them directly from great mussar personalities and outstanding educators and they have a solid foundation in our holy Torah. Perhaps the suffering of parents and children alike will be eased if they take these ideas to heart. My experience over the years attests to their effectiveness.
In my conversation with Rabbi Nahari on that chilly Yerushalmi evening we analyzed various reactions of brokenhearted parents and we discerned a common thread: there was tremendous anger at their children. We identified a sense of deep insult a feeling that their daughters had betrayed them these parents who were so devoted to them who raised them with endless love and gave them all they had to give and more… and now? A slap in the face and an unanswered question fills the air: “Why did she do this to me?”
“The parents’ feelings ” I said to Rabbi Nahari “generally tend to go in this direction of ‘How could she do this to me?’ The child has abandoned the mitzvos of the Torah but she did it to me. I am the injured party the victim of this awful humiliation. And do you know why they take it so personally?”
“What is your explanation?”
“It’s not my explanation; a very great mechanech opened my eyes to it years ago. The problem he said is that we parents all of us consider our children our personal possessions and this is a huge mistake! A child is not our possession to do with as we please; that child is a deposit entrusted to our care. There are halachos in the Shulchan Aruch pertaining to a deposit and they are different from the halachos regarding private property.
“And so this sense of personal affront that we parents tend to feel is based on a deep-rooted erroneous perception. In most cases these feelings are latent and we might not even be in touch with them. But the misperception hidden as it may be that the child belongs to us gives rise to much of the anger frustration and sense of humiliation we feel when our child’s behavior is not to our liking. It has a part in most of the tensions between parents and children.”
This mechanech pointed out a passage of Rambam from Hilchos Mamrim chapter 6 detailing a child’s obligation to honor and revere his father. A perusal of these halachos reveals how much a child is required to be obedient and submissive to his father and not to affront his honor in the slightest way. It would seem that a child who fulfills these halachos comes to a meticulous level of complete self-effacement before his father absolute loss of autonomy.
And then the Rambam suddenly brings a halachah requiring the son to refuse to comply with his father’s wishes under certain circumstances. If for example the father asks him to light the gas range and prepare him a cup of coffee on Shabbos he must refuse to comply. Furthermore the son is required to register a protest every time his father seems to be about to transgress a mitzvah of the Torah. Suddenly the self-effacing and submissive child who jumps to do his father’s bidding has to show a spark of independence! The child has an obligation to keep his parents from doing an aveirah. How could that be? My child my possession is suddenly telling me what to do?!
“What these halachos teach us is that a child’s obligation to honor and obey his parents does not stem from the fact that the parents brought him into the world. Rather it stems from the Torah itself which commands him to listen to his parents. And the same Torah that commands the son to honor his parents also assigns him the task of policing them keeping an eye on them lest they sin. The child does have the privilege of taking an independent stance against his father. In other words you don’t have to obey me because I’m your father; you have to obey me because the Torah that we’re both subject to lays obligations on both of us. You have to honor me and I have to educate you. Are you with me Rabbi Nahari?”
“I get you but where is this taking us?”
“It’s simple. Parents who have a healthy perception of their role vis-à-vis their children — knowing that they are not tyrants ruling by biological right but rather Jews fulfilling the role given to them by the Torah — can dispel a great deal of the tension that naturally occurs with their offspring. If I as a father demand of my son or daughter to act in a certain way because I wish it that approach will naturally arouse opposition. But the fact that the Torah commands me to teach him how to behave gives me an alibi as it were. I’m not to ‘blame’ for the demands I make of my child to stay on the path of the Torah; the Creator Himself has imposed this task on me. From such a starting point parents and children are on an equal footing both of them subject to Hashem’s commandments. If parents genuinely view their role in these terms their entire attitude toward a son or daughter who has begun to stray will be different.”
“This is nice in theory but how does it translate into practical terms?”
Rabbi Nahari asked a good question. But dear readers the subject is huge and the space is limited. I will im yirtzeh Hashem continue next week. Meanwhile please ponder this crucial concept: that children are a deposit placed in our care and not owned by us. You’ll find that it frees you of a heavy emotional burden. —