Taking the Fifth: Honoring Parents

Question

Dear Rabbi,

My parents tell me it’s a big mitzvah to listen to them. Please explain to me the basis of this mitzvah and how big a mitzvah it really is.

Thanks

0

Answers

  1. The Just Ask! - AskTheRabbi.org Team

    There is no mitzvah more rational, moral and just than the mitzvah to honor parents and to treat them with reverence. Honoring parents is a matter of basic gratitude for their bringing a child into this world and raising the child. Also, since people eventually become elderly and incapable of caring for themselves, the obligation of children to care for their parents is a vital societal arrangement.

    At the Giving of the Torah, God placed this mitzvah on the first of the two tablets, among the commandments that pertain to His own honor. The extent to which the Torah obligates a person to honor his parents is mind-boggling: a person is required to accord his parents the honor due to a king and queen, and to honor them like the King of the world Himself! Clearly, this mitzvah is more than just a reminder to act morally.

    By honoring one’s parents, a person comes to realize the need to show even greater appreciation for the Creator, the ultimate source of any benefits he has ever received, both from his parents and others. Had God not created each person with parents and commanded him to honor them, he would have had difficulty understanding his more abstract debt of appreciation to the invisible Hashem. This mitzvah is therefore a stepping stone to all the mitzvahs.

    Our Sages teach that when a person honors his parents, God dwells among them and considers it as if He has been honored. In other words, honoring parents does not just lead to honoring God — it actually is honoring God. In their role as a person’s forebears and the providers of all of his needs, parents represent God, and their honor is God’s honor. In this regard, we are taught that when Rav Yosef heard his mother approaching, he would immediately stand up, saying, “The Divine Presence is approaching!”

    Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team