Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Honoring Parents Part 5

[Music] [Applause] [Music] okay welcome to the fifth class in a series on honoring your parents I will start with a introduction that you can use in all your your interactions with people whether it is your parents your children your siblings co-workers who is speaking about honoring your parents but we have to speak generally what is honoring a person why is honor important for people our harkaman say that if you see a man eating on a Marketplace on a street walking and eating such a man is like a dog like dogs do they eat they go to the bathroom without shame and such a man according to some is not kosher as the witness imagine you have a Jew who keeps Shabbat keeps kosher he puts on tefillin is honest in business everything's perfect but he eats on the street he cannot be a kosher witness why not and the Gemara says because he doesn't have self-respect and if he doesn't have self-respect he will not worry if people look down upon him he doesn't care if he lies and he is found as a liar because he doesn't have self-respect anyway he has nothing to lose and a witness is supposed to be somebody who cares for his kavod for his self-respect for his honor in eyes of people and he doesn't want to be caught lying and a person who eats on the street doesn't have self-respect now as an aside this teaches us that when we eat we should also behave with dignity not jump on food as animals do but calmly respectfully sit down with saying Abraha with washing hands with Havana eating slowly but for our topic we see that having self-respect is essential to being a cultural Jew a kosher Jew is a Jew that has self-respect that cares about opinion of people about him because if we realize that people are looking at us that people are judging us we will behave better so having self-respect helps us to do mitzvoth helps us to be a better human being so this is a fundamental desire of every human being every person wants to be respected wants to be liked by people and it's very important to give it to them people want to be respected as it says who is a an honorable man someone who respects others someone who cares about others and gives them what they want the most what do people want the most they want attention they want respect they want honor so the person who recognizes that a human being is a great being the greatest being the greatest creature on the whole earth such a man is a an important man such a man is a respectable man our Hakka meme say that if you would put a scales and on one side of the scales you would put the entire world the entire universe with all its stars planets galaxies and on the other side you would put one human being whether he is a Jew or non-jew who will weigh more in in it's worth all the houses in Queens and in Manhattan who will worth who will be worth more the one human being one human being is worth more than the entire universe and again someone who recognizes this worth every human being a child a non-jew a man a woman no matter what as long as he is a living human being he has a soul he has a spark of God part of God is in him and therefore he is greater than the entire universe now when you give respect to people they like you they are more agreeable they are easier to talk to than if you don't give them respect try screaming at your husband and see if he's gonna do what you wanted him to do and on the other hand try speaking politely to him try respecting him praising him and see if that helps so when we speak to our parents we have to keep that in mind that we have many discussions they want you to do this you want them to do that if you treat them politely with respect it's going to be for your own benefit you are going to be the greatest recipient of the blessing because they will love you that you respect them and not only that when you take away someone's honor you it's as if you're killing them right it says that somebody who embarrasses his friend in public it's as if he killed him why because until now he had respect and now you embarrass him and you took away the respect from him and it's equivalent in the eyes of each person if I don't have respect if it was revealed that I did something wrong I would rather die that's how most people think so imagine you have somebody who thinks that he deserves respect and you tell him that he doesn't deserve respect whether verbally or physically you show him that I don't care about you I don't value you you don't know what you're talking about you're not important in my life it's as if you killed him now he doesn't want anything to do with you he doesn't want to be alive he he he becomes your enemy on the other hand if you change it and you tell him maybe other people don't recognize your worth but I know you are the greatest you are worth more to me the entire than the entire universe whether if you say to your parents or you say to your husband or your husband is going to say to you you are worth to me then more than the entire universe it's going to be true and you're going to create a great friend and admire it you can say to anybody and again you're not lying because every human being is worth more than the entire universe one more point if you take away respect from somebody they have nothing to live for and therefore you just took away what they try to preserve everybody wants to look good in the eyes of others and if you tell them that they have no respect in your eyes then they stop trying but if you tell somebody you know I trust you you're a great person I know you can do it I know you're capable they will try to fulfill your your evaluation that if you believe in them they will try to make sure that they don't fail because since they see that they have respect in your eyes they don't want to lose it if a parent tell shows the child that they trust them the child will behave in a way to show parents that yes you are right you trusted me and I want to keep that trust I want to keep that respect so you have to give a person something to strive for and that is you show them that you respect them and then they will love that respect that you give them and they will not want to lose it so throughout these classes this is what you should keep in mind when you interact with your parents when you speak to your parents give them the greatest respect honor and then they will say my child respects me so much I cannot let them down and then if they ask me for money I have to give them because they hold me in such esteem if they ask me for help I have to give it to them if they ask me not to bother them leave me leave them alone I will do it because they respect me so much and I don't want in any way to diminish that I don't want to behave incorrectly because then they will think badly of me and I assume I don't want to do that so of course it's better to start with respect as soon as you meet your parents in law to start treating them with respect and then from day one they will try to to keep that respect but if unfortunately we messed up and we mistreated them it's never too late to say you know what I recognize how good you are you can even say you know I looked at my friends what kind of parents in law they have and I have such good parents-in-law and praised them and remind them of all the good they did to you and show them that that you appreciate it and then from then on they will be extra careful when they're next to you they will not say a bad word they will not curse they will they will not behave improperly themselves this is a very very powerful tool with your parents with your parents in law and with your spouse and with your children give them trust give them respect and they will live up to your expectation yes it's specifically on the open market but from there we learn what the proper way is so if it's possible if chairs are available you should sit if chairs are not available but the table is available at all table that you can at least stand next to better to stand next to a table and eat as opposed to just walk around if there is no table at least stand in one place as opposed to walking around but again ideally it teaches us that a person should eat in a private of his home not and even if you go to a restaurant choose a private corner don't sit in front of a window that all the buses and cars pass by and look at how you eat sometimes even with my children we drive and they they look in restaurants and they see oh look he's opening his mouth look he's inviting it's just not respectful that people should see how you're fulfilling one of your animalistic functions so a knowing what's the worst and the worst is in a marketplace while you're walking eating we learn what's the best okay just like we have to respect our parents and we have a great Mitzvah we learned that parents themselves should teach children in this means while we should train them educate them guide them but at the same time parents should not make it too difficult for children to fulfill this Mitzvah parents should not demand too much of children you cannot say this to your parents but you as a parent should try to not be too difficult on your children don't ask them too many things if you need a favor only if you cannot do it yourself as them don't make them feel like they're your slaves make it for them an honor that they can serve you show them that you're capable of doing everything yourself and you are only asking them to give them opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah not because you are incapable not because you're lazy has a shallow but rather you want them to fulfill a mitzvah especially as children grow you don't want them to have bad feelings about parents my parents are so demanding the nagging and so annoying you're making by doing this you're making it's so much harder when they grow up to to love you to respect you it's permissible for a parent to forgive the children and tell them I don't require you to do this from you for example a parent it's not recommended but parent is allowed to tell his children I don't require you to stand when I walk in if you feel that it's going to be hard for your children and they might not do it so excuse them instead of them doing a sin every time they disrespect you tell them that I don't expect you to get up I allow you to stay seated when I come in and then they're doing it with your permission and it's permissible and similarly with many other halaqaat that we learned if you give them permission they don't have to do it that's only with honoring you but disrespect you're not allowed to let them do it for example you cannot tell your children you're allowed to call me by my first name that would be disrespectful and anything disrespectful you cannot give them permission yes yes that's a good idea yes especially if they are not used to it they would be uncomfortable also and you are uncomfortable the uncomfortable so if you tell them we learned that we're supposed to get up and when our parents come in if you want me to I will but if you are not comfortable with it just like I am if it's okay as long as they give you permission with a full heart that's okay yes so if you if a child asks can I sit in your chair you can say yes you are allowed to sit in my chair or even before that you can say or here's of your plate here my chair is available I'm not sitting you can sit in my chair so if you give them permission they are allowed another halacha that changes from when the children are young to when they grow is giving them physical punishment when the children are young and you educate them to show them that what they're doing is wrong you're allowed to give them limited physical punishment however when they grow grow up you have to stop because when they grow up and they already have their own strength and if they don't handle their anger their frustration they might hit a parent back and then they will transgress this this prohibition of healing parents and you will cause them to transgress so it's as if you're putting a stumbling block in front of your child by hitting a child who is already grown up what's considered grown up in the olden times when children had more respect for people grown up was considered 20 years old 20 22 years old when he is already a grown up man a grown up woman that was already the cutoff point from that you're not allowed to slap hit any physical punishment to your children however we live in times that even younger than 20 children already have so little respect for adults for those that are older that they will already rebel and will already answer back and hit back and therefore the age goes down some say as soon as the child is married if your child is married 18 17 already they considered adult some say even from their Bar or Bat Mitzvah when the girl is 12 or boys 13 you're not allowed to hit them and some say even younger everything depends on your particular child but if you see that your child has this character this temper and it's hard for him to to control and if you hit them they will hit back then from that point on you're not allowed to hit them anymore in general you you're not supposed to give any person a challenge that they cannot handle so if you demand the kind of respect from your child that he cannot live up to then you are setting him up for failure you are putting a stumbling block in front of him and therefore if you know that you're going to be hard for your child don't demand it don't ask them to help you if you know it's hard and at the same time don't expect them to do perfect job you ask your your daughter to cut up vegetables and it's not so perfect you have to be forgiving you have to maybe in your husband's ear say that it was not you who cut up the salad but don't tell your daughter that her job is not good because she is still young and it's not expected of her to be perfect and the same if you ask them to wash dishes and you find a little dirt on them don't don't demand perfection from them when they are too young and therefore the same idea with hitting them if you hit them and it's a challenge that they cannot handle they'll get so upset so angry they will hit you back you're not allowed to give them such challenge and even with words if you know that your your rebuke will not be heard that they will be hurt upset then don't say it wait for more opportune time wait for when they account when they eating a chocolate bar and then tell them what they did wrong and by the way it works very well with your spouse as well don't tell a person that he did something wrong at that time when it's a stressful situation at the time when they are vulnerable when they just did something wrong when they themselves feel that maybe I shouldn't have said it or done it and then you say to them they are vulnerable and and it will be hard for them to handle it in fact the commentator sharkon show kanaru interprets a verse that says ich emo of Avira which we translate as every man his mother and father they shall fear he translates it a little bit different he says why does it change why does the passage change from singular to plural it says a man his father and mother they shall fear we started with a man why there they shall fear in the beginning we interpret this that it means they refers to both men and women shall fear their parents but shark interprets a difference he says a man if you know that your child is already an adult a man emo Vavi father and mother they shall fear Him parents he says if they recognize the day child grew up already parents should fear their children that the children should not be put in a situation when they will rebel against their parents and therefore if you see that your child made up their mind and they it's hard for them to change it and you force them it's as if you're you are forcing them to rebel especially if there are teenagers already and it's hard for them peer pressure even if you force them in front of you to do something that you require as soon as they leave you they're not gonna do it so you didn't achieve anything it's only superficial obedience but they're not listening to you so it's better to be their friend better to be on their side and guide them and say yes this is wrong but I understand it's difficult for you I understand you your friends are doing it but you should be strong I understand if you make a mistake or if you decide to do it I'm still with you and then if they have a challenge they will speak to you because they know you will listen you will not judge them you will not command them you will not disown them but you will still love them and support them this way we all go through challenges and if there is a challenge that we fail in we have somebody to turn to it's not police they're not going to put us in jail but rather they will understand they will support they will help us to come out of our our problem in the long term that works much better than parent becoming an enemy of a child and commanding and if you don't do what I do what I tell you then is going to be punishment and and don't talk to me then they're not going to talk to you even when they want to talk to you and when they need to talk to you so when children are young the education is different than when they are older when they are grown up you have to treat them as adults and cannot treat them as children anymore an important idea we mentioned already in honoring your parents is to feel gratitude when we were children we didn't really understand what our parents were doing for us when it says when David amela was born he looked how his mother was nursing him and he's saying a song to Hashem praising Hashem for giving him such mother that that takes care of him and feels breastfeed him our children are not yet so developed that when they are nursing babies they can say thank you they can understand the miracles that are going on to create milk and feed the baby but when they grow up and they learn about it they should say thank you to their parents so one exercise is think from the moment you were born and until now what did your parents do for you think from the beginning your mother carried you she gave birth to you she nursed you whether it was bottle feeding or nursing she changed your diapers she washed you she cuddled you should put you to sleep she brought you to the doctor she gave you medicine she didn't sleep at night so many so many things they did for you so much money they spent on you so much worry they put into you and not to forget you can even write it down feel fill up pages and pages of all the different things they did every year of your life and then you'll have a greater appreciation for your parents and your gratitude towards them is going to be so much that you will realize that you can never pay back to your parents what they did for you because really every moment that the mother takes care of a baby she is saving his life if she just leaves him for a moment he's gonna fall hasta Shalom break his head if she's not gonna feed him one time he's gonna die from starvation every day every day every hour our parents were saving our life and now can you say that about your parents how how often do you get a chance to save your parents life even if they so all that they require your intervention to stay alive that's not every moment it might be daily it might be every few hours but it's not to the point of what your mother did for you as a baby and most of us don't even get that opportunity while Hashem our parents are either healthy or there are doctors nurses home health aide or nursing home that they do our job so really most of us will never be able to give our parents what they gave to us and for that we have to be thankful respectful and honor them and in no way to give them unnecessary worry unnecessary pain we spoke about the idea that the honoring parents extends beyond the life of the parent even when parents are passed away you still have to continue respect him and we spoke about ways to do it what happens if a person failed and did not respect his parents in their lifetime and then they passed away is their teshuva can you fix it if they're still alive you can go as the forgiveness what if they are not alive anymore so there is there is one option to get 10 people go to their grave and ask them forgiveness in front of the 10 people and then for the rest of your life you have to accept upon yourself Cara what's Khepera in addition to doing to Shiva which is regretting what you have done and saying if I had opportunity to have my parents again I would respect them and I would never disrespect them again you take upon yourself that any suffering that I go through may it be atonement for my disrespecting my parents whether it is disease whether it is loss of money whether it is accident you should view everything as percussion Hashem gave me Khepera atonement you can say it verbally and keep in mind that all the myths were that I will do who should go to the merit of my parents to again to atone for what how much pain I gave them to repay them in some way to give them the benefit in Olam haba what I didn't give them in this world and it will count as respect and it will be very valuable because now when they are not alive anymore every Mitzvah you do for their merit gives them eternal reward and so they will be a very appreciative that you are helping them to rise from level to level and as we mentioned last class that greatest honor that you can give to your parents is to be a good human being to the point that people should look at you and say his parents did a good job his parents raised him well so you are a constant honor in the eyes of everyone for your parents okay now we also have to speak about practical questions for example is it permissible to put your parents to a nursing home or is it disrespectful so here it depends on the situation if a person is able to take care of his parents he should do it whether they live in their house and you come visit them hire a nurse for them of course for most people it's better to live in your own house to be somewhat independent to have guests coming to you or people who take care of you once you move to a nursing home that's it you don't have independence you it's as if you don't have what to live for usually patients die quicker if they in the nursing home and their quality of life is not as good because they feel that I'm abandoned even though it's the best nursing home so ideally if possible they should stay in their home and you take care of them this way they will feel the independence if they cannot do it and you can afford space wise and money wise and the emotionally wise to to take care of them you should do it however if it will put burden on you that you cannot handle and it will affect your solemn body relations with children your stress it will be very difficult then you are allowed to put them in a nursing home but you have to make sure that that nursing home is going to take good care of them Shalom bite your own chalamaiah is more important and if it will create chalamaiah you don't have to take care of them in your home but again ideally you should another question is often one spouse or the other when their parent becomes alone let's say one parent dies and the second parent is alone they often want to either move in with their parents or bring the parents to live with you the question is can one spouse force the other spouse to live with their parents let's say the husband says it's my mother I have to do kyboot of am i have to take care of her I have to respect her I'm her oldest son I am gonna bring her in or we're gonna move to her house can he put this upon his wife right right nobody can force another person to do anything against their will of course especially here as as important as shallow of honoring parents is Shalem bite is even more important and if it will affect the Shalom buyer the husband cannot force his wife with her parents-in-law is going to suffer it's better that there should be a little bit of pain on the side of parents in law saying look my my daughter in law didn't let me live with them they put me in nursing home as opposed to very acute fighting when they actually move in and one more question at home when we do Shabbat kaduche and we say Hamad see the husband usually gives out wine and he gives out a bread now when you're alone the husband taste the wine first and then passes it to his wife and then to children and when he cuts the bread he eats first and he passes to his wife and children what do you do when your parents are there so this question is both ways let's see from the husband's point of view should he give it to his wife first after heat or he should give it to his father first and mother first and then wife so we have three different opinions well Hashem some say you should give it to your parents for some so you should give it to your wife first some say wine to your parents and bread to your wife some say it depends the fourth opinion depends which house you're in yeah which parents house and depending on Weber savage like if my husband said then it turns out that you have to give it to the grandfather over there father so this is a difficult question because if parents watch what's going on and and they care about their honor they want to be served first it will upset them but at the same time hih logically you are supposed to give to your spouse first whether it's a wife serving the table and there's her parents there and her husband she is supposed to give the from the husband first and then her parents and the same with the husband however in order to avoid bad feelings it's better to to have a few cups in front of you and pour in a few cups and then send to everyone at the same time for example you can have a few little cups on one plate a few little cups on the other plate and you send it and this way your parents will see that you didn't just send it specifically to your wife maybe you did give it to her first but since you're giving the second plate with cups to the other side maybe to your father and one to your spouse this way both are going to be happy or when the husband cuts the bread the first piece heats himself and then don't you shouldn't cut one and pass because then he's identifying your first in your second let him cut a few at the same time and then if his father is on one side his wife on the other he should give it to them together or if they're far away he should send a basket or he should give a piece of bread to a child to bring it to his wife and then give it to his father in in a way that it shouldn't be obvious that you are choosing your spouse over your parent if they don't mind and then it's fine yes give it to your spouse first and then to your parents the husband and wife are considered like one unit so just like you eat first you have to give your spouse first and by the way we mentioned it in one of the previous classes both men and women have mitzvot of saying kaduche and Hammad see and therefore a husband is allowed to give the honor of saying these blessings to his wife but this should only be done if they are alone when other people are not there meaning guests because it's not modest for a woman to say blessing for congregation for others but in in the private of their own home that is permissible and to say kaduche and and Hammad see sometimes the question is also who should make the the collusion who should make Hammad see you have your parents or your parents in law should your husband make you Duchenne how much like he does every Shabbat or should you honor your parents were your parents in law or another guest so here the law is that you are allowed to honor others with kaduche and a cup of wine however the blessing hamotzi should be done only by the owner of the house and that is because he knows how much hala how much bread they have and he knows how to estimate how much to give to each person for example he knows we have a lot and he's gonna give large slices to everybody as opposed to a guest he doesn't know and either he's going to give small pieces because maybe this is the only loaf that they have so he's gonna give small pieces and it's gonna be disrespectful to Shabbat or he's gonna give large pieces cuz he's gonna say in my house we have a lot of bread maybe they also have he's going to give large pieces and then the the the hosts are gonna say oh we don't have anything to eat for tomorrow so to avoid this the husband or the wife whoever the one that knows the the host should be making the blessing for bread and dividing it to guests yeah if you give each person his own set of two two loaves of bread that's fine they can make it for themselves or if you give two sets of kiddush cups each person can make their own kaduche but if there is only one it's okay to give the honor to someone else but bread you keep for yourself some yes um hold that that that it's good to eat crumbs from shabbat challah some collect them and eat them some are not careful about it if you eat just a little bit you fulfill both if you can give it to birds it's better but if it's illegal or it's messy and inconvenient you can just wrap it in a bag and then just gently put it in a garbage just with bread you're not allowed to throw it on the floor that's okay because you're giving in front of them but just to throw it yeah yeah that but but the point is if you're doing it with disrespect that's not good so if you just throw it in the garbage that's disrespectful if you wrap it politely and and just nicely put it in a garbage wrapped that's okay yes yes yes yes for most blessings if two people are equally obligated in the blessing one can say blessing keep that in mind and the other will just say a man and you fulfill the just like we do Kadosh on Shabbat one person says Braja we say Hamad see in olden times one person used to say biscuit Amazon as well now we don't do it because it's very hard for people to concentrate for so long yes but way it happens it's permissible yes I mean no yes yes it doesn't matter if it's your father and your father-in-law you can give one time to this one time to this okay any other questions even once is already respectful yeah two times is even better but even once is okay so some some people complain that if you throw bread in the middle of the street and the birds come and they mess up the street they and then you step on where they went to the bathroom and then it it's fixed to your feet you know it's in trying to do a mitzvah you are causing suffering to people and so you have to think about it not to hurt others and so if you live in a community where either it's illegal or it people are upset that you feed birds then don't do it or feed it on your balcony on your roof but but not on a street okay shall go at all you [Applause]