What Comes Around Goes Around

Purim is coming up this Friday (February 23-24). This is a Jewish event many Jews celebrate. It is one of those stories: What Comes Around Goes Around.

Two generations ago, a nation attempted to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. Purim is a holiday that takes us back to the first time in history such a genocide against the Jews had been attempted – some 2,300 years ago.

The holiday of Purim marks the Jews’ salvation from the plot of Haman, a high officer of the Persian Empire, an advisor to King Achashveirosh.  Haman’s rage against the Jews was incited by the failure of a single Jew, Mordechai, to bow before him as he passed by.  Rather than seeking to do away with Mordechai alone for this slight, Haman plotted revenge against Mordechai’s entire people.

Haman sought, and gained, permission from King Achashveirosh to do as he pleased against the Jews, and Haman took this license and ran with it. He legislated an action that would wipe out every living Jew in the empire on a single, blood-soaked day.

The King happened to do away with his first queen – and happened to replace her with Esther, a girl who happened to be a Jew.  Mordechai, Esther’s relative, happened to overhear, and foil, an assassination plot against the King.  It also so happened that he was not rewarded immediately for that deed.

One night, Haman decided to go to the king to get permission to hang Mordechai. But that very night, the king couldn’t fall asleep. He asked for the Book of Records to be read to him -- and the book just happened to open to the page recording Mordechai’s long forgotten act of loyalty towards him.

The King asks Haman how the man the King wishes to honor should be treated.

Haman, thinking the King wishes to honor him, advises making a royal parade. Does that advice get used?  It surely does. But it is used to honor Mordechai, not Haman. Haman constructs a gallows to hang Mordechai. Does that gallows get used? It certainly does. But not the way Haman imagined. He himself is hanged on those gallows.

In the end, the Jews were saved from Haman’s plot – but, pointedly, they were saved in a non-miraculous fashion. The message of the Book of Esther is that God is there even when He doesn’t seem to be there.

Q & A: WHAT IS THE MITZVAH OF HONORING ONE'S PARENTS AND HOW IS IT FULFILLED? By Rabbi Joey Grunfeld  (Summarized by Kini Cosma)

Included in the Ten Commandments, is the mitzvah (commandment) to honor your father and mother. The Torah writes: "Honor your father and your mother so that your days may be lengthened upon the Land which the Lord your God gives to you" (Exodus 20:12). 

Later in Deuteronomy, in the restating of the Ten Commandments, the verse reads: "Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you in order that your days may be lengthened and that it should be good for you upon the Land which the Lord your God gives to you" (Deuteronomy 5:16).

Another relevant verse from Leviticus: "Every man shall revere his mother and his father and you shall observe My Sabbaths; I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:3). 

We see from these verses that there are two mitzvot (commandments): 

1) To honor your parents and
 2) To revere your parents.

Love motivates one to do positive things; fear keeps one from transgressing the negative.

What difference does it make if a child learns this principle as a commandment from God or he picks up his attitude towards parents from his society?

A rabbi was sitting next to an atheist on an airplane. Every few minutes one of the rabbi's children or grandchildren would inquire if they could bring him something to eat or drink or if there was anything they could do for him. 

The atheist commented, "It's wonderful the respect your children and grandchildren show you; mine don't show me that respect." The rabbi responded, "Think about it. To my children and to my grandchildren, I am one step closer in a chain of tradition to the time when God spoke to the whole Jewish people on Mt. Sinai. To your children and grandchildren -- unfortunately, you are considered to be one step closer to being an ape."

Are children more inclined to respect their parents if they think they are one step closer to being an ape or if they believe that their parents are one step closer to being created by the Almighty who heard God speak?

From the Torah perspective, a parent is a paradigm for relating to God. A parent loves his child unconditionally, sets boundaries, reproves, feeds his child though the child did wrong, wants only the best for his child. 

A parent is not always understood or appreciated and is sometimes suspect of not having the child's best interest at heart. (Mark Twain once commented, "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned.") Hopefully, the children eventually appreciate their parent's motivation.

If one does not show gratitude and respect to his parents who gave him life, how is he expected to show gratitude and respect for God who not only is a Partner in giving him life, but Who has given him the whole world? The Torah helps us train our children in how to relate to their parents and therefore how to relate to the Almighty.

The Almighty has implanted in parents an innate love for their children, but this does not lessen the Torah obligation to honor and respect one's parents. We must be grateful for the numerous acts of kindness that our parents have bestowed upon us. We have no right to minimize their efforts on our behalf by questioning their motives.

Here are some basic halachot, (Jewish laws) instructing us how to respect our parents:

•         A child should consider his parents distinguished, even if others do not consider them so. 
•        We must always speak to our parents with a soft and pleasant tone. 
•         A child must not contradict his parents. (Yorah Daiah 240:1 -- The Code of Jewish Law) 
•         A child must not call his parent by name. (Yorah Daiah, 240:1) 
•         A child must not sit in a place where his parent usually sits. 
•         A child should fulfill his parent's requests with a pleasant facial expression. 
•         You are obligated to stand up before your father and your mother when they enter the room (YD 240:7) 
•        A child has no right to humiliate or embarrass his parents, regardless of what they do to him. 
•         If a parent tells a child to violate either a Torah law or rabbinical law, he is forbidden to comply.  
•       A child must be careful not to awaken his parents.

Parents should make sure that their young children show respect towards them and others. If a young child forms the habit of being disrespectful to his parents or others, he will also lack respect when he grows up. (This is why I never let my children call adults by their first names even if my friends introduce themselves to my kids using just their first name.) The reward for honoring parents is long life. Therefore, if a parent sincerely loves his children, he should make sure that they fulfill this commandment!