A Taste of Torah in Honor of Shabbat by Rabbi Avi Weiss

A Taste of Torah in Honor of Shabbat
by Rabbi Avi Weiss

Shabbat Parshat Vayishlach

14 Kislev 5758

What should our attitude be to our children if they commit wrongful acts?

Our parsha offers a response. Reuven, Yaakov's (Jacob's) eldest son, committed a heinous sin. According to the literal text he slept with Bilhah, his father's wife. (Genesis 35:22)

Yaakov is so outraged that the sentence describing his response is left incomplete--one of the few times this occurs in the Torah. All the text says is "va-yishmah Yisrael, and Yisrael (Jacob) heard."

Benno Jacob, the German Jewish commentator, has noted that whenerv the text uses the verb shoma, to hear, without specifying what one hears--it indicates to hear but not to listen, in other words rejection. How much more so in this verse where the sentence doesn't even end, illustrating that Jacob was incensed beyond description. No words could adequately portray his feelings then.

Notwithstanding Yaakov's disgust with Reuven, he does not disown his son. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and others have noted that in the very next sentences the Torah states that Yaakov had twelve children, the first born being Reuven. (Genesis 35:23,24) In other words, Yaakov does not cast Reuven out leaving him with eleven sons, and Reuven is still mentioned as the first of the twelve.

An important lesson can be culled from this. In marriage respect and love are inextricably bound. If there is no respect, there is no love. This because marriage involves choice, a contractual arrangement of love between two people.

Not so in our relationship with our children. There love is built in. Unlike marriage, where termination is possible, our children no matter what, will always remain our children.

Hence, while we may not respect our children for something they do or do not do, our love for them must remain unconditional.

And so, Yaakov loses respect for Reuven, telling him on his death bed that his deed was so egregious that he would not inherit the birthright. Nonetheless, Yaakov blesses Reuven first, as he still remains his eldest. (Genesis 49:3,4)

Writing to Rabbi Duber Milstein whose son strayed from Judaism, Rabbi Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel suggests, "We must greatly soften our sacred emotions in order to speak with our children in the way they need, and along with this to believe with complete faith that the light of God rests on each and every Jew, and that all regressions are nothing but great, unintentional mistakes. Therefore my friend, my advice to you is that in any case do not abandon your children, but bring them close as possible, and in the end they will certainly return. If they only begin to turn to good, their children will complete this process after them." (Igrot 113)

The upshot: it's easy to love our children when we respect them, the real test is will we love our children even if we've lost respect for them.

SHABBAT SHALOM

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