[Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:
: R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not
: so sure.
...
: So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially
: making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the
: honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent?

I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter.

Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the
parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if
He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's
birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I
am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.)
And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha
still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory.

One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment
of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would
treat one's Parent in heaven.

And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that
role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to
the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced with a decision ask yourself,
micha at aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter