[Avodah] Parents and Children

[Professor L. Levine via Avodah]

The following is from pat RSRH's commentary on


You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a zealous God, Who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me,   ???? ????????????? ????? ????? ????????? ???? ??????? ??????? ????????? ??? ?????? ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ??????????? ????? ????????? ?????????:

Perhaps the meaning is that God carries over the sins of parents to
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; He makes them responsible
for atoning for the sins of the parents. Instead of quickly destroying the parents
because of their sins, God waits until the fourth generation: perhaps
grandchildren or great-grandchildren will return and rectify the deeds
of the parents. Only then, if there is no betterment, does He allow the
generation to perish in their continued guilt.

Whatever may be the true nature of this Divine attribute, two fundamental
truths emerge from it for our most earnest reflection:
The one and only God wants us to accept upon ourselves the yoke
of His rule over all our actions and to recognize Him as the Lawgiver
for our whole lives, and it is He Who grants us life and sustains us for
the fulfillment of His Law. It is in our power to build up our lives or
to ruin them, all according to the measure of our adherence to, or
defiance of, His Law. God lives and endures, and He judges a person
according to his deeds. There is no escape from His judgment.
Furthermore, the weal or woe of the children depends on the parents
- all according to the measure of their virtue or vice. Children are
fruit growing on the tree of the life and fate of the parents. For the sake
of our children we should preserve our health; for the sake of our
children we should act morally and charitably; for the sake of our children
we should be spiritually vigilant and valiant.

Just as it is certain that God sends each child into this world with a
perfectly pure soul, it also is certain that parents bequeath to the physical
nature of their child their flawed propensities, weaknesses and defects.
These present the child with a formidable task, and to overcome them the
pure soul of the child must test and prove its godlike power. The parents'
sins line the cradle of their infant with unhappiness, sickness, and the example
of moral degeneration, and the little citizen of the world is destined
to climb a hard steep path of trials until he prevails in the moral test.

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