Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Honoring Parents Part 6

[Music] [Applause] [Music] today I will mention some laws that we mentioned in the past but with more details so some of it will sound that repetitive that you've heard this but there will be some nuances that are new okay number one we said that we're not allowed to call our parents by first name even if the parent doesn't mind still the child is not allowed to call them by their first name what about calling your parents like in Russian with safety as opposed to a veil or even in English can you say you or do you have to speak to your parents as you would speak to a rabbi or a great person in a third person for example when you speak to your rabbi you don't say you you say what does the rabbi thing weighs that Rabbi going when will the rabbi be available you don't say when you're gonna be available what do you think so should you speak to your parents the same way what does my father think when is my mother gonna be available to speak to me or are you allowed to say you so surprisingly it is proper to address your parents as you and even tea that's permissible and we learned this from the fact that even when we speak to God himself to Hashem we say attack second person and in singular not even in plural and if to God we speak with such respect and we still use the word you Atta then certainly for our parents it's enough not only that some say that since parents even though they are someone who has Authority but nevertheless they are the closest person to the child and the child has to be comfortable with them there it should not be at such a distance like a king someone who they feel distant from and the same thing would happen when we speak to Hashem we want to be close to Hashem and we want to feel this closeness and for that we need to address Hashem as you attack Hashem is very close to us and we as a child of Hashem we have part of a shaman in us we very close we say italso - with our parents were part of our parents our parents gave part of themselves to create us and therefore we can and we should call them in the second person we don't have to say my father my mother another question we said that you're not allowed to cause your parents pain whether physical emotional what about sharing with your parents things that may hurt them now emotionally you're their child and they care for you should you tell them about your failures things that didn't work out because it will hurt them yes yeah that's a good question a part of relationship is being open and sharing everything but we also understand the concept that we don't want to cause a person any person unnecessary pain so just like in the laws of Lashon Hara of forbidden speech we're not allowed to just say Lashon Hara unless there is a purpose for example if you know that the person can help you you asking him advice so then you're allowed to relate to him what happened and he'll offer you advice that's considered for a constructive purpose but just to say Lashon Hara that's not I'm not allowed so here with a / with a parent the law is that if they can help you then you're allowed to tell them if they cannot help you and it's only gonna cause them suffering than one I say if you cannot handle it and it's hurting you so much that you have to share it with somebody and the only person is your mother or your father then again you're allowed to because that's a for a purpose but if the only reason is just because I want the openness and I don't want hide I don't want to hide anything and they're gonna be hurt and not sleep at night even though they cannot help you that you shouldn't do similarly even spouses should not tell each other things that will only hurt each other for example a wife should not be rate herself she should not say bad things about herself she should not tell the husband what mistakes she made drunk during the day because both the husband and the wife should look good in each other's eyes and unnecessarily don't make it hard for your to love you don't make it hard for your spouse to love you yes don't worry there will be of controversy without artificially yes for sure for sure there will always be things that you want to share and and things that you will do in front of them that they're not gonna like so you don't have to add yes yes yes that that's a very good question we said that things that that make you look bad in their eyes should not be said but what if it will affect them your failure is going to hurt them eventually then of course you have to here we have to differentiate between two reasons for withholding information on one hand you want to withhold information to protect the person I don't want them to suffer unnecessarily so I'm withholding information because of my care for them and because of my strength even though I want to share with somebody but because I care for them I control myself and I don't share with them on the other hand there can be another kind of withholding and that is out of weakness that is way you want to protect yourself where you are scared how they will react how they will judge you and you are hiding something and there because it's out of your weakness it's not good it's not a good idea to hide because if it will be revealed either they'll find out they'll give them be upset even more or it will eventually affect them and you're not allowed to hurt a person here you pretend to worry about their emotional well-being when in fact you don't care about them and you're hiding information from them and it will hurt them emotionally and physically in the future so that's the test if you're doing it out of strength of character then you should not say it because you can handle it they cannot help you and it will only hurt you hurt them so withhold the information and deal with it yourself but if you're doing it out of weakness trying to hide then become strong and overcome your weakness and share it with them and then you're not gonna have these issues where one spouse is hiding and hiding and hiding whether it is an addiction or or being fired from a job or loss at on a stock market such things have to be revealed because they will affect the other spouse but coming back to parents things that the parents can help us with or if we need to relate it to them too just to be able to handle our stress you can tell your parents but just to talk and that will you know you feel bad so let's someone else also feel bad along with me that is not allowed not to your parents and not to your spouse and not to your children and not anyone else again unless you need their support another rule of speech between us and parents is that if a question is being asked let's say we have guests and somebody asks the question information question we are not allowed to speak before our parents someone is asking what time is it or how many people live in Africa whatever it is you're not allowed to to pipe up to to quickly answer before your parents that is disrespectful that is trying to show that I know better than my parents you have to pause allow your parents to end or if you see your parents don't know you can ask should I answer and if your parents give you permission then you can answer first this we see from homage from the Torah where LaVon answered first before his father between and from there we we learned that number one LaVon was not a good person and from there we also learned what is the proper behavior the proper behavior is to allow your father to reply and if you your parents don't give you permission to speak first don't speak first now that also applies if you are at a public ceremony like a your sraw or a public event a lecture and there are few speakers who should speak first so you're not allowed to speak before your parents unless you ask permission let's say they invite you and you say I can't go before my parents and your parents here and they say no no it's ok go first then you're allowed to or if you know that your parents have nothing to say and they're going to be embarrassed and use you again you come to them and say it is ok if I speak and you say because you know that they they will they will be saved like this from a barrister that is permitted permissible otherwise we're not allowed to speak before our parents that's a good question there is no age limit because they say your parents even if throughout the years you became a professor and they remain the same and they are already 90 and you're 70 and you have all those titles and and you're the most knowledgeable person in the world but you still have to respect them you can ask them for permission to speak to answer but you cannot speak before similarly when sitting by the same table and food is being served we're not allowed to take first before our parents and it's appropriate not to take first before anyone who is older than you I remember when I was in Uzbekistan I was a little boy maybe eight or nine years old I happened to be in the hospital for a couple weeks and our parents would bring us food and one day a few patients it was a hospital for children a few patients we got together we put our food on the same table and we sat down to eat and we're sitting and sitting and I'm looking at everybody they're not eating and I'm asking why you're not eating and and this were this were booze bags and they told me because we know you were older than us and we're waiting for you and of course I was shocked we never heard of that and they were younger than me if I was eight nine they were even younger and because they knew that I'm about the oldest in the group they didn't touch even though it was their food but since we were eating by the same table didn't they didn't touch them of course we have to learn from that and when we are with our parents don't jump and say I want this piece I am hungry I want to first wait out of respect for all the people to take another halakhah about speech that if if child happened to do a lot of favors for his parents he is not allowed to remind his parents of the favors that he did for them because the the concept is it's not a favor that you do to your parents but it's your obligation it's your obligation to honor them with all their - by providing them with all their needs and so it's inappropriate and disrespectful to say remember I drove you remember I gave you remember I did for you not allowed to use it to remind them of how much they have to be how much they have to appreciate what you did for them because as we said in the previous classes that what they did for you when you were little is much more than you can ever do for them from the basic fact that they gave you life and you cannot give them life they're already alive before you were born so the fact that they gave your life gives them an edge and they if it's not advisable for anybody but if they choose to tell you what favors they did to you they are allowed but we are not allowed to say to them yes you you tell him that right now as a child you don't know what life is and you don't appreciate what being a life is when you grow up you will value it and then you'll realize how much I did for you and continue doing for you you know your children will say many things that they don't know or they don't mean and they only say because they cannot control their temper and so you don't have to pay attention to all those things if you feel it's gonna be better to ignore their comment ignore it if you want tell them that they just too little to understand they'll say that they you that they hate you they'll say that you're mean the theory that you're the worst mother or father but they don't mean it is just again as a person who is angry and cannot control themselves they will say things that they don't mean yes of course of course you have to as with any any teshuva any repentance you have to play back the event and in your imagination behave properly and say if I would be in that situation again this is how I would behave and you regret what you did and even if you don't have this opportunity to go through this again but you play it in your imagination and it counts our imagination is very powerful and in our imagination we can create reality a person is not supposed to swear in general but certainly he is not allowed to swear by his parents life he shouldn't say I swear by my parents life that's that's disrespectful because people usually even though the idea is that you do swear by things that are precious to you to show that you're not lying but then if if there will be any if the you're taking a chance that if there will be any exaggeration in your statement or any untruth then you're showing that you don't value your parents life to swear yeah why would you swear oh yeah any yes yes it's better not to use your parents in any in any oath any swearing you shouldn't swear at all especially in our society swearing doesn't add to the validity or truthfulness of your statement anyway not with God and not with anyone's life and just simply I swear you shouldn't say it okay the next halakhah is if you hear that somebody is embarrassing your parents what should you do whether it's your friend your spouse your sibling a stranger so if they are verbally embarrassing your parents of course you have responsibility to stand up and protect them how do you protect them you can only protect them verbally you're not allowed to raise your hand against somebody to protect your parents even though they're saying bad things about your parents but you're not allowed to hurt somebody in order to protect your parents even if somebody has a son curses your parents you're not allowed to hit them and not only that let's say you have peaceful parents and your parents don't want you to fight with anybody and if somebody says bad things to them they will ignore they will forgive and they won't want you to get into a fight with anybody so then knowing that even if somebody speaks badly about your parents you have to stay quiet because that's what your parents would do in your in you in your place and it's important to remember this even with your spouse of course we should never speak negatively about anyone's parents especially your spouse's parents but if your spouse speaks negatively about your parents you have to remember that you cannot hit them and you cannot start speaking badly about his parents you have to tell them that what they're saying is a Shannara that you don't like what they're saying and they shouldn't but don't make it worse and on your part don't ever say anything negative about your husband's parents because people are sensitive sometimes they can handle an insult to themselves but they cannot handle it when it's addressed to their parents what if a parent is mentally sick or even if they have Alzheimer's and because of that they behave in a way that's embarrassing to them and embarrassing to the child for example they they put their clothing inside out or they say things or they behave like a child and it happens that the child says you know what I I'm a good child and I'm gonna take care of my parents and they bring them into their house but once in a while they cannot handle it and they get overwhelmed and they scream at their parents or has a song they hit their parents is it better for them to take care of such a parent at home or to put them in a nursing home even though you will provide better care for them and the parents will like it more but those few times that you will scream at them in those few times that has ashram you might hit that are not worth it and it's in such a case that the child has to put them in a nursing home that they put in them yes you're putting them in nursing home in order to protect their dignity because you as a child have prohibitions you're not allowed to embarrass them and you're speaking to them in such a way is much more nursing than a nurse or doctor saying the same thing and we say in general that you're not allowed to do a small Avera a small cent in order to protect someone from an even greater sin and even though someone else will do a sin as well equal or even greater your responsibility towards yourself is first and therefore if in order to protect someone else you will or make someone else's life better you have to do a sin you're not allowed to do it we mentioned that a child should rise when his parents come in unless his parents excuse the child that he doesn't have to rise what if the the child is praying they saying Sh'ma Tehillim MA bukata Mazzone and the parent comes in should you rise or not and the law is that you have to rise even if you are involved in prayer even if you're in saying Sh'ma unless you're saying the first verse and you close your eyes so then you don't see your parents coming in but for the rest of Shema are the blessings even bill cut Amazon you have to pause rise and I'll sit down and continue even if you learning Torah you have to rise unless your parents give you permission that you don't have to rise in front of them it's a good question if if it's not noticeable that you're rising for them then you don't have obligation to rise no so you're sitting in your room somebody observing you sees your rising from your desk and sitting down they're not going to understand why you're rising so that's not considered honor for your parents if your parents will come into the room then it is and not only that let's say you're sitting by your desk facing the other wall and you hear somebody comes in even then you don't have to rise it's only when you see your parents but of course if if you know it's your parents and you do rise you're gonna get extra credit you do show them respect you know for baccata Mazzone ideally should be sitting if possible so here just pause and then sit down and continue yes that's a good question we we have to rise every time parents come in and if you live in the same house in the same apartment and you're going to be seeing them coming in and out every few moments it's gonna be overwhelming so in such a case the best thing is to actually speak to them and say is it okay if I only rise once for you and most likely they're gonna say yes and many people rely on that that if they live in their parents home or their parent lives in their home we understand that that's that's probably parents wish that they don't want you to constantly be gaining up and they will give you the permission either it's implicit that even without saying it they we assume that they gave you permission or the best is to actually ask them even if your parents are visiting you for Shabbat for example and during that Shabbat you're gonna see them a hundred times it's better to ask them if if you can and by for organizing for example that's the law that if you live together with parents and you see each other many times you only have to arise once in the morning and once in the evening so twice a day when apart when when the parent gives gives the child excuse not to rise before him if there are other people present it's still good for the child to rise because other people don't know that the parent gave you permission and they're gonna see oh this child doesn't respect his parents so in such a case even though he they gave you permission still rise similar to what somebody asked what if a lady is sitting in the ladies section and the ladies section is on a second floor and she sees downstairs her father entered into the main shoe should she rise so this is similar to what we said before that since you are in different domains and it's not noticeable that you're rising for your father you don't have to rise he doesn't see you and nobody else knows why you're rising so you don't have to rise in addition to parents we respect all people that are older than us and the greater the person the more respect he deserves the greatest respect that we give is to a person who is called a god all hador God Allah door is one of the greatest people of the generation for example people that we remember let's say Rabbi Ovadia yourself he receives more honor than even our parents so let's say rabbi why do yourself or a person of a similar stature whether he's Ashkenazi God or or Sephardic adult is present in a room and he's sitting and you're singing with him and your parent comes in in such a case you are not allowed to rise before your parents because you are now by sitting next to this great person showing honor to him and your parents and you have to show him honor by rising for your parents you're showing that your parents are more important than him which is not the case and in such a case you just continue seeding this isn't surprising exception to the rule of rising before your parents and that teaches us how careful we have to be in our respect to our great sages our Hamim say that when when you respect your parents it's as if you're respecting Shaheena God's presence and that's for your parents and imagine how much honor you have to give and fear to somebody who is one of the greatest people in the generation as the Cohanim say that the fear that you should have towards your Eddie or Agudelo Haddad is equivalent to the fear you have towards God himself okay the next yes well by Rabbi we mean either one of the greatest leaders of the generation or the rabbi that taught you majority of your wisdom majority of your Torah knowledge usually we don't have such rabbis now because we learned from everybody we learnt we go to different lectures and even in school every year in yeshiva you may have a different Rebbe so we don't have the classical Arabia that they used to have in terms of Gomorrah where you would learn from one Rebbe from beginning till end but with the with the God all hador it still applies so now the next hahaha is is a little bit different topic what if you lost an object and you're walking on the street and you see your object that you lost but then you notice that next to that is an object at your parents lost your father your mother lost and now you only have a chance to choose to retrieve one object your hands are full you can only take one or the river is coming and you have to quickly grab one and run away which one should you take if you can only save your lost object or your father's lost object which one should you save very good you're not supposed to have financial loss to honor your parents even if your parents object is more expensive it may be logically a good idea to save the object and if you are voluntarily willing to forego your loss and your object you can do that if you know it's better to save your father a hundred dollars then to protect your ten dollars you'll feel good about it but if you cannot afford it and you need that object you're not required to save your father's object at the expense of your own object and similarly this is not so practical if your father has a solemn is imprisoned and your Abba is imprisoned and thereby Rabbi I mean either the God Allah door or the Rebbe that you learned the most from here we're gonna say that eurabia is higher than your father and similarly in the most object if it's your a B against your father Europe is gonna be higher however if it's you or your parents we say person's life comes first meaning if has a sort of you in the situation where you can save one life which life should you choose just like when you fly on the airplane they tell you when the the oxygen masks fall out you have to put one on yourself first and only then take care of others so this is a Jewish concept as well that if you're in danger and you can only save one life save yourself first yes maybe yes or your father or yourself you save yourself first and then once you save yourself you save your Arabia God Allah door and then your father okay that many laws about it about saving saving life we're not going to go into it just to show that sometimes your welfare and your property your financials are first before your parents you respect your parents but not at at a loss when the child sits in the same room with a parent he also has to sit in an honorable fashion without raising his feet towards the parents of course and sit like you sit in front of an honorable person if you would visit white house or if you are being filmed you would sit straight you will sit honorable you wouldn't slouch you wouldn't lean on your back you'll sit straight and and respectfully so that is how we have to sit in front of our parents yeah yes yes that's okay but let's say your parents come in you shouldn't sit slouching and say just come in and make yourself comfortable if you cannot get up at least sit straight and respectful at least show them that you you're trying you know let's say a person cannot get up okay but you can still show respect even in a sitting position now we said that a child cannot sit in the same chair as the that is designated for their parents now that only applies in two cases either this chair is in a place where your parent usually sits let's say your father sits at one end of the table your mother at that end of the table so a child shouldn't sit on either end of the table and and that applies to any chair any chair you put in that place you cannot sit there because that is their place not only not only their chair but it's their place but what if it's their chair which is special let's say all the chairs are regular and there's one chair that's that's armchair and your father six on it so such a chair becomes his personal chair and you're not allowed to sit on it not only if it's at the head of the table but even if you put it aside you still cannot sit on it now what if you need a chair to climb on to get something from a high shelf can you use your father's special chair to climb on that makes sense but let's see if there is nothing else available you are allowed because it's only sitting in a chair that shows that I'm just like my father I'm sitting in the same chair as he but if I'm standing only because I need to get something from the high place I'm allowed to we mentioned last week that if you have guests who should you serve first and you should always serve your spouse first and this week I happen to see even it says Kay ballistically not only according to halakha but even K ballistically you have to serve your spouse first both the husband should serve the wife first and the wife should serve the husband first otherwise it it says it messes up Hashem's name the husband represents the one letter of Hashem's name the wife represents the second letter of Hashem's name and the flow of giving should be from one to another directly not somewhere else first yes even in the presence of parents yeah doesn't matter even if you're in some in their house you are like one you are like one individual and you serve each other first now in order to avoid embarrassment we mentioned that you can serve both of them at the same time that's okay if you they usually sit together the husband and wife and because of the guests they have to sit separate that's okay and maybe that is in some cases even preferable for the new treasons that you want to separate men and women and that's okay and you should still serve your husband or wife first yes yes yes first the husband and your parents then your guests yes if your parents ask you something for a cup of tea let's say and your husband asks at the same time for a cup of tea you have to give your husband first you can always be smart about it and go to the kitchen they they don't see you and and just bring two cups and give give both both of them at the same time that's why God pays them with two hands yes yeah yeah we do give honor to Cohan in the case when your father is there and the Kohan is there you still serve your father first but if your father tells you serve the corn first then you listen to your father and you serve the Kohan first usually we say the rule that when do you have to serve Cohan it says called Dabashi big Ducie when it's related to a mitzvah so for example who has to receive the first Aliya by sefer Torah so it's the Kohan who has the merit to recite Becket Amazonians amoun it's the cohan but but otherwise it's a nice thing but it's not a requirement another question about sitting by the table what if your husband usually sits at the head of the table and now his parents are coming in should you put the grandfather at the head of the table or should your far your husband the head of the family sit by the at the head of the table you should still set DiPaola vine yes so yes yes I it's true that ideally it's good for the father to be at the head of the table the children view him as their role model however if his father comes in he should at least offer it for the father and here it depends if the father the grandfather is knowledgeable and he knows how to sing kaduche and amazi and lead the table then that's fine and even for children that's fine they'll still have a important person a role model leading them if however the grandfather is going to be out of place he doesn't know what to do so then it's gonna be better for the grandfather not to be in the center of attention because he's gonna be embarrassed then she should offer it to him and if he declines then then the son can sit at the head of the table yes yes that's a good question so similarly we said that you are allowed to give the honour to recite kaduche to your guests right we said that the bracha for bread should be recited Bible abide by the owner of the house but for kaduche you can give this honor to the guests what if your your parents the grandparents are your guests it's good to give them this honor to recite kaduche but what if they don't know how to do it or they can read it but they're not gonna have Cavanaugh to include you in their blessing so then out of respect you can still sorry allow them to recite the kaduche however every person in the family should say word by word to them the words of kaduche quietly because if a person doesn't keep you in mind or he mispronounces words then you might not be you're not gonna fulfill your obligation and so just quietly say the words to yourself not to embarrass the person and by the way that's what's being done in some synagogues let's say people don't know how to say Kaddish and if they not saying Kaddish properly you can't even say Amen to them so usually in such a case either the gabbai or the hassan or the rabbi they say Kaddish along with them so that at least people are answering a man to a kosher Kaddish not to embarrass the person who doesn't know yes you should still offer them to see it you can tell them please see it you're gonna say Kaddish for us you'll still lead the table and then they'll say I don't know how to do it and then they themselves will choose to sit on the side but if they can they can yes yes if they choose to sit at the head of the table you let them but if they choose to sit on the side and again it depends on the family we in some families the person who says kaduche sits at the head in some families the oldest person sits at the head so depending your tradition that is fine now I just want to read for you this holla holla botton Yom Tov a person should the the husband should cut for himself a small piece of one key side and that represents let a youth which is a smaller letter and then for his wife he should cut the double the size he should cut a bigger piece for his wife and send it to her and that represents the second letter hey of Hashem's name which is a bigger letter and that is why he is sending her a larger piece and it says that I feel him sadqa' doll she made several excellent and even if a rabbi is sitting next to you as we said you have to honor the rabbi first but here you you have your rubber as your guest still you send to your wife first because otherwise you will change Hashem's name however it says at any place where you choose your spouse over your parents you should ask them forgiveness whether you're serving them first or giving them any other I mean your spouse you you give your spouse preference ask your parents forgiveness forgiveness meaning excuse yourself say this is the the law this is the law that I have to do it like this this is the yes we are we are supposed to for Shalom bite you can tell them it's for Shalom bite rabbi say you have to serve your spouse first and then serve your parents if they don't notice dun dun just ignore it make it do it quietly that they shouldn't be embarrassed if your husband directs you to okay then you listen to your husband yes no if it's a if it's a longer II a big plate you just put in a center and everybody serves that's fine we're talking about when when you serve individual portions then you should and if the wife is in there in the kitchen and she sends the portions with children the plates so she should instruct the children to bring this first to your father and because parents also have to respect their father first before their grandparents next week [Applause] you