A Wink To Parenting (Ki Tetze #1)

One of the key strengths of Jewish life is the priority placed on having children and raising them properly. The Torah continually emphasizes how important it is to pass our teaching on to our children and to protect our future by protecting our children. Given the Torah’s attitude toward children, the case of the ben sorer umorer has always been both daunting and intriguing.

“If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and they discipline him and he does not obey them, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town ‘This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a gluten and a drunkard.’ Thereupon the men of this town shall stone him to death” (Devarim 21:18-21).

Can you imagine a world in which parents are allowed to give up on their disrespectful and disobedient children and take them out to be stoned? And yet this is what it seems the Torah is advocating.

The oral law clarifies the situation immensely. Presenting all the factors necessary to declare a ben sorer umorer, the oral law demonstrates how this halacha was basically impossible to enact since the boy must be recently 13, have had a balanced parenting and equal warnings from both parents, and should not have any extraneous issues. The boy must also be a glutton and a drunkard.

If it cannot ever be fulfilled, then what is the point of this mitzvah being written in the Torah? Is it a declaration of the importance of kibbud av v’aim? Is it a warning to the children or a warning to the parents? Could it be a way of reminding parents that it could always be harder?

The importance given to the voice of the father and the voice of the mother, to the equal influence of both parents, led to a thought that perhaps this mitzvah is a subtle reminder from Hakodesh Baruch Hu to the Jewish people that they are answerable to the Ultimate Parent. Time and time again, throughout the journey through the wilderness, Bnei Yisrael turned aside and rebelled. Like senseless, self-centered teens, the Children of Israel complained and disobeyed. More than once, Hashem was ready to be done with this stiff-necked people who were disobedient and gluttonous on the gifts Hashem provided. If one looks carefully at many of the incidents, one finds that Bnei Yisrael already had what they needed, but they wanted something more (such as the situation of the pheasants).

The voice of the father is Elokim, the judging aspect of God. This is din – right and wrong. The voice of the mother is Hashem, the merciful aspect of God. These two aspects of God were, thankfully, never in equal measure against Klal Yisrael – and so we were allowed to live, to grow and develop into our beautiful nation.

God understands that parenting is hard. This is one of the lessons of the ben sorer umorer. Parenting – especially teens – can be so hard that one might wish to wash their hands of the obligation for good. But it will never be that simple. In the subtle message of the ben sorer umorer, we can gain chizuk to continue to help our children grow just as Hashem continued to let Bnei Yisrael thrive into our beautiful nation.