Was I just splitting hairs? Rabbi Yair Nahari wondered as we continued our discussion of child rearing and its pitfalls especially when wounded egos come into the picture. Rabbi Nahari if you remember is the founder of Beit Naomi a shelter for girls from religious families who for one reason or another have found themselves homeless on the mean streets.
Rabbi Nahari questioned whether there is really a practical difference between the idea that children are parents’ personal property or that they are in fact a trust deposited in the parents’ hands by the Creator who enjoins those parents to raise them to follow the path set before Avraham Avinu “so that he should command his sons and his household after him that they should keep the way of Hashem…”
“Either way they have to honor us and we have to give them chinuch ” said Rabbi Nahari.
“True ” I answered. “But the difference is enormous. I agree that it’s not always easy to discern the difference because in everyday life we don’t usually need to. Or rather we aren’t aware of it… So when does this enormous difference come into play? In situations of conflict. When our children’s wishes clash with the way we want to raise them.”
The way we as parents deal with conflict exposes our underlying concept of the parent-child relationship. That’s when we see either a gut reaction — which means that we’re viewing the child as one of our belongings — or an intelligent response guided by the Torah.
“Here’s a true story ” I told my friend. “A young man who had strayed from mitzvah observance asked his father to buy him a car. The father agreed on condition that the son not use the car on Shabbos. The son would not accept the condition so the father refused to buy him a car.
“The father was close to the Chazon Ish and he told him about this clash with his son. To his surprise the Chazon Ish advised him to buy the car for his son unconditionally. ‘Your son’s gratitude to you for buying him the car will bring him to stop being mechallel Shabbos of his own accord ’ the Chazon Ish explained.
“But the father couldn’t accept this advice and he didn’t follow it. Do you see what happened here Rabbi Nahari? The father’s reaction was visceral: ‘I’m not going to let my son make demands of me! He’s my child and he has to listen to me; I don’t have to listen to him!’ Psychologically he was incapable of taking the Chazon Ish’s advice. His ego wouldn’t let him. Give in to his rebellious son? Out of the question! Yet had his underlying concept been that the father-son relationship was prescribed not by nature but by the Torah he would have reacted differently.”
Just to prove the point the Rambam brings a halachah showing that for all a son’s obligation to obey and honor his father he still has a measure of autonomy extending to the responsibility of preventing his father from transgressing a mitzvah or conversely declining to obey him if the father should ask him to transgress a mitzvah all with due respect of course. The son isn’t the father’s personal belonging — rather the Torah places mutual obligations on them both. Had the father in the story viewed their relationship this way he would have found it much easier to follow the Chazon Ish’s advice. He would realize that if the greatest posek of the day tells him to buy the car that is exactly what the Torah requires of him in this particular situation. There wouldn’t be any affronted ego to blind him because the relationship wouldn’t be ego-based.
In another more extreme example about 15 years ago a cheder in Jerusalem held a public oral bechinah in Gemara for nine and ten-year-olds. One of the boys performed badly and the next day he appeared in cheder with bruises on his face and looking very sad. It was clear that his father wounded from the public humiliation his offspring had caused him had taken out his rage on the young boy. Was this anything but a visceral reaction stemming from the distorted view that the child was the father’s property and the deserving target of his rage? His shattered ego pounced on the perceived cause of his pain. Had this man taken the correct view that his son was placed under his tutelage by Divine decree of course he would have responded differently.
When I heard about this incident I was incensed. I went to the rav of the community where it happened and told him “If you don’t call in that father and rebuke him harshly I’ll do a story in the paper about it and it will be an embarrassment to the entire kehillah.” What happened in the end? I don’t know. But I can take a guess as to how that boy turned out – unless he experienced a extra-special dose of Divine intervention to save him.
Back when I was actively involved in kiruv I was in touch with a man who had started taking on mitzvah observance but his wife refused to go along with it. He kept lamenting to me about it and following the guidelines I’d received from my own mentors I urged him to leave her be and not try to force the issue. But I wasn’t getting through to him and the clashes between them grew worse. I took the husband to Rav Shach ztz”l and he poured out his woes before the Rav.
Rav Shach listened to the man’s complaints and responded “What do you want from her? You married her as a secular woman.”
“But she turns on the TV on Shabbat!” the man complained.
“So go into another room and learn ” said Rav Shach.
“She won’t even keep a kosher kitchen ” the man wailed.
“So eat out ” the Rav countered. “If she’s agreed to keep taharah and there is shalom between you the other things will work out eventually.”
The man however didn’t listen to the Rosh Yeshivah. He continued to pressure his wife until finally they broke up. Why? Because he couldn’t free himself of the perception that “She’s my wife (that is my property) and she has bend to my will.” His ego was insulted and it kept him from submitting to the dictates of daas Torah.
“Are you saying that the girls under my care are right and their parents have been wrong all along?” Rav Nahari asked me.
“Certainly not!” I exclaimed. “But what these poor girls need to understand is that they can take on the responsibility of free choice between the stimulus and the response. If their parents’ behavior grates on them they aren’t forced to respond in a negative way. They can’t just say ‘I’m not responsible ’ and project their pain and turmoil onto the parents. They didn’t have to come to the point of leaving home and being on the streets. They could have responded differently.”
“So you are accusing the parents of making mistakes of ‘It’ being their fault!” Rabbi Nahari exclaimed.
“No! Chas v’chalilah! I’m not looking to blame anyone ” I told my old friend. “True there is a mistaken perception of the parent-child relationship that causes the parent to feel personally affronted by the child’s misbehavior and the bruised ego strikes out blindly. I’m simply trying to map out the psychology of it not to blame anyone.” —