Generational Estrangement – Part 1

While our tradition teaches all commandments (mitzvot) are of equal value, honoring one’s parents is primary.

The midrash quoted notes only two mitzvot mentioned in the Torah (out of 613) allow for specific reward:  honoring parents and shooing away the mother bird (from a nest from which you are collecting eggs). “From the least to the greatest Mitzvah the reward is the same.”

Deuteronomy supports this valuation when it declares a stubborn and rebellious child, who “does not listen to his parents” is to be put to death.

And yet, the last prophetic book of the Bible (Malachi) describes the return of Elijah, (who will herald the coming of the messiah) as one who “will bring the hearts of parents back to their children and the hearts of children back to their parents.”

In the abstract, honoring one’s parents is of primary importance but is often more difficult in “real” life.

As a rabbi new to pastoral work, I found distraught parents dealing with their children’s alienation from the tradition. Assimilation, rejection of observance and intermarriage were significant issues.

But as the years passed, I noticed a cultural change. Now I was approached by parents and children estranged from each other.

It is seemingly easy (and not a little bit lazy) for us to require parents and children to get along – to blithely deplore such dynamics.

But what do you do when a parent insists on showing grandchildren his gun collection over the protest of his children? How do you reconcile with an adult parent who verbally or physically abuses their children? These are today’s issue.

For me, one of the most poignant and powerful narratives in the Hebrew bible takes place after Abraham’s death. Isaac and Ishmael, his sons together to bury him (Genesis 25:9).

There is no love lost between Isaac and Ishmael; Ishmael is expelled from the camp and left to die in the wilderness because of his treatment of his younger brother.

Nor, it would seem, is there is any love lost between father and sons: Abraham leaves Ishmael to die in the wilderness and tries to sacrifice Isaac.

To be fair, the rabbinic interpretation modifies both narratives to make them less violent – but the pshat (plain meaning of the text) is clear.

And yet, when Abraham died both sons come together and honor their (estranged) father.

Why is it powerful? Perhaps because they were able to resolve the traumas they experienced and go on with their lives despite their history. I would like to think that despite their relationship they were able to make lives for themselves and their families – because at some point, you have to take responsibility for your life. Only then can you grow and thrive.

What was not possible in life can be put to rest in death.

I began this piece saying that the tradition equates the least mitzvah (shooing away the mother bird) with the greatest (honoring parents). But today, I am no longer sure of this. We shoo the mother bird so that she will not experience the trauma of her children taken – or is it that the children will not feel abandoned and blame the mother bird for their predicament?