Yitro 5775

Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik

Congregation Kol Shearith Israel, Panama

The fifth commandment has always stood out for me: “Honor your father and your mother that you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you.” (Ex. 20:12)

Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is the only one that holds a reward; perhaps, as Rabbi Johanan ben Zakai says, this is because it is the hardest mitzvah to fulfill (Midrash Tanjuma, Evek, 2); or maybe, like Saadia Gaon (Egypt and Babylon, 10th century) states, honoring father and mother is more important than the other nine commandments.

It could also be that I have a special interest in it, because I am part of that generation whose parents always told them to respect and listen to them, and now our children tell us the same thing in their relationship towards us…

However, I believe the main reason for my attachment to this commandment stems from somewhere else.  

In his commentary, Rabbi Elie Munk (France, 20th century) claims that by placing it in this position, the Torah wanted to formally proclaim that the natural representatives of God in front of children were their parents.  This statement matches a beautiful passage from the Talmud (Kidushin 30b): “When a man honors his father and his mother, God says: it is as if I lived among them and they honored Me.”

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (Germany, 19th century) takes it one step forward and maintains that this precept holds a privileged spot in the Decalogue, since “the respect for father and mother is the fundamental condition for the survival of the Jewish Nation.”  He further explains that the parents are called upon to transmit to their children the traditions, values and customs that constitute being Jewish: “The link of generations would be broken without these connections…”

I think we can take it even further.  

A beautiful Midrash (Shmot Raba 28:1) asserts that the Tables of the Law measured 6 Tefahim (approximately 60 centimeters).  “Two Tefahim, so to say, were in the hands of God, two Tefahim were in the hands of Moses, and two Tefahim were in the middle.”

The Midrash tells us that God challenges Moses.  If you take the two Tefahim from the middle, the Tables will be yours, otherwise, they stay here.

If we transfer this analysis to the text of the Decalogue, we find that the first commandments are “Bein Adam Lamakom”, between man and God.  Not only do they guide the relationship between man and his Creator, but they clearly are rulings arising from the divinity without human logic.  The last commandments are “Bein Adam Lehavero”, between man and his neighbor.  They are logical and rational laws that, despite their divine origin, could be a product of the human mind.

And in the middle, like a hinge between both types of commandments, we get the fifth one, the precept of honoring our parents.  This constitutes the two empty Tefahim of the Midrash.  That is where the human and the transcendent converge, divine law with natural law.

Herein lies my fascination with this commandment.  It is not only the point where our fate as just recipients of the Tables of the Law is defined, but it is also our capacity to recognize that in this mitzvah, “the hand of God” and the hand of man can touch, and with that touch generate the spark that leads our existence into a much more meaningful dimension.  

Shabbat Shalom

Gustavo