Children are commanded to honor their parents. How are parents commanded to treat their children? Is a parent who seeks to destroy their child through abuse still considered a parent?
{Administrator's Note: Related questions about honoring parents are found on JVO at:
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=546
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=132
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=160
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=1188]
Parents' obligations to their children is a complex subject, as is the question of how to deal with a parent who acts wrongly or abusively. Parents are supposed to recognize their obligation to raise their children to be competent adults (be able to fend for themselves, financially, religiously, and psychologically). In that regard, abuse is clearly not acceptable, and a Jewish court would step in to stop it if it had the legal competence to do so.
As to what the child can do to the parent, that's even more complicated. A parent is always a parent, no matter how much he misbehaves (so, for example, a child cannot generally administer a court-mandated punishment to a parent. Even though the parent deserves the punishment, as determined by the court, the child cannot administer it).
That's because, I think, the rules about how we treat a parent aren't based in the parent's qualities or qualifications, it's based in our obligation to recognize the parent as having partnered with God in creating us. That doesn't mean we're required to take the parent's abuse- we can report the parent to the authorities, and we can move away and not see the parent (although we might have to arrange for that parent's care if s/he became enfeebled). But that doesn't permit us to mistreat the parent when we see him or her.
Sum total: it would be nice if parents acted well, but when they do not, it is not our job as children to accept that abuse nor is it our job to go along with it. There are limits on how we are allowed to respond, because a parent is always a parent, but we can and should also act to protect ourselves from any abuse coming ours' or others' ways.
What do children owe their parents? We owe them Kavod (honor/respect) and Yirah (awe). Easier said than done especially in the case when the parent(s) have abused and hurt their children. Nowhere in our tradition, do we owe our parents love.
Other Colleagues on Jewish Values Online have answered this type of question more eloquently than I about our obligations to our parents especially when a parent is abusive and seeks to destroy our lives, so I want to focus my answer on our own souls. What do we receive for offering respect to a parent even if they are abusive and hurtful?
Our mission in life is to strive to be the best individual we can be, to be an example to others and to let others know that individuals and communities are strengthened when we respect one another and remember that each person is created in God’s image. Even the most hurtful and abusive parent is still one of God’s creatures. We are not commanded to like them or to love them, just to offer our respect to them. It may seem counterintuitive to respect the abuser but it will make it easier for the one abused to let go of the anger, the pain and hurt they feel. More importantly offering respect even to the abused parent is an example to others of how we can strive to be better people. Our goal then is not to worry about the feelings of the parent, it is to worry about what others learn from us in how we treat others including an abusive parent. One the most profound lessons, I learned is from my children and my students who look to me, as a Rabbi and parent, to know how to live a life of respect and honor. They remember my words and my actions. If I act with respect toward someone who has hurt me, others will learn they can too. The pain, the anger, and the abuse are real but they do not have to be passed on to the next person. In that moment of learning, we strengthen the community and people learn how to break what may be a cycle of abuse and hurt whether it be in a family or in a community and thus we become stronger.
In the Conservative Movement’s Mahzor Lev Shalem, Robert Saks wrote a beautiful Yizkor meditation in memory of a parent who was hurtful, its words teach me that I have a choice to let go the wrong perpetrated against me so that others will not be hurt in the future.
Dear God,
You know my heart. Indeed, You know me better than I know myself, so I turn to You before I rise for Kaddish. My emotions swirl as I say this prayer. The parent I remember was not kind to me. His/her death left me with a legacy of unhealed wounds, of anger and of dismay that a parent could hurt a child as I was hurt. I do not want to pretend to love, or to grief that I do not feel, but I do want to do what is right as a Jew and as a child. Help me, O God, to subdue my bitter emotions that do me no good, and to find that place in myself where happier memories may lie hidden, and where grief for all that could have been, all that should have been, may be calmed by forgiveness, or at least soothed by the passage of time. I pray that You who raise up slaves to freedom, will liberate me from the oppression of my hurt and anger, and that You will lead me from this desert to Your holy place. (Page 292, Mahzor Lev Shalem)
The commandment to honor mother and father is, obviously, quite important in Jewish tradition as it is one of the 10 commandments that all of Israel heard directly from God at Sinai. In addition, unlike most of the 10 commandments (and most of the other 603 in the Torah) a direct consequence is given for those who follow the command – the ability to live long on the land that God is giving (i.e. the Land of Israel). Given these circumstances, then, it is certainly a reasonable proposition that one may only violate this commandment in extreme circumstances.
That said, there is a particular figure in the Hebrew Bible who is presented as one who walked in the ways of God while significantly distancing himself from his father. King Josiah ascended to the throne as a child of 8 years old after his father, Amon, was assassinated. Amon continued the ways of his own father, Manasseh, and continued the practice of idolatry as king. Josiah, however, went in a complete different direction – purging the Temple of idolatry and related practices. Certainly if he had meant to honor his father he would have not only continued idolatrous practice, but sought out revenge against those who killed his father. Yet, despite this dishonor of his father’s memory, the Book of II Kings (22:2) records that he was pleasing to God and did not deviate from the ways of King David (by this point in the Deuteronomic history David’s legacy had been scrubbed of the ugly Bathsheba episode).
From this, we learn that when one’s parent persists in an evil way, that one is not required to honor the parent any further. Certainly a parent who is abusive to a child (even an adult child) in physical, sexual or emotional ways, is committing an act of evil. If the abuse is physical or sexual, then the authorities should be contacted, without worry of violating this commandment. If emotional, a cutting off of the abusive parent(s) is also an appropriate action.
The Torah has little to say about how a parent relates to a child. In the few places it does it allows a large range of options – including taking a rebellious son to the courtyard of a town to have him stoned to death. That said, it is clear that those considered as good in the bible, do deviate from their parents ways and even separate themselves from their parents (consider Isaac after the binding episode – he never again interacts with Abraham).
In the end, the remnant of the obligation that exists even in the case of abuse, is that a child should see to it that his parents burial arrangements are made (Isaac does this for Abraham). This can be very challenging emotionally, but is often an important part of the healing process. In cases where the abuse is so extreme that the child is not even aware of the parent’s death, then even this obligation is considered waived.
Copyright 2020 all rights reserved. Jewish Values Online
N O T I C E
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN ANSWERS PROVIDED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL JVO PANEL MEMBERS, AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REFLECT OR REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE ORTHODOX, CONSERVATIVE OR REFORM MOVEMENTS, RESPECTIVELY.
