[Avodah] RSRH's Commentary on Shemos 20:12

[Professor L. Levine]

Below are some excerpts from RSRH's commentary on Shemos


20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long on the land that God, your  God, is giving you.


I think he makes some points that some may not be aware of.


God based Jewish beliefs and convictions, and our acknowledgment
of Him as Master of our fate and Director of our actions, not on the
results of our research into nature, but on the historical experiences of
our people, by which God revealed Himself to us and revealed to us
His Will. Heaven and earth had spoken in vain to mankind; what is
worse, their pronouncements were twisted into polytheistic conceptions.
Only the revelations of God in the history of the Jewish people restored
to man's mind the monotheistic idea, enabling him to understand the
workings of nature and history on a monotheistic basis.

Yetzias mitzryim  and matan Torah are the two basic facts in the history of the
Jewish people that form the foundation of our allegiance to God as the
Master of our fate and the Guide of our lives. These two facts are historical
truths. However, the sole guarantee of their authenticity is tradition,
and tradition depends solely on its faithful transmission from parents to
children, and on its willing acceptance by children from the hands of their
parents.

Thus, the survival of the great Divine institution that is Judaism
rests entirely on the theoretical and practical obedience of children to
parents. Accordingly, kibud av v'aim  is the basic condition for the eternity of
the Jewish nation.

Through the father and the mother, God gives the child more than
just his physical existence. Parents are also the link that connects the

child to the Jewish past and enables him or her to be a Jewish man
or woman. From the parents the child receives the tradition of the
Jewish mission, which is shaped by knowledge, a code of conduct, and
upbringing. The parents transmit to the child Jewish history and Jewish
Law, so that eventually he, in turn, will pass them on to his own
children. Just as he looks up to his parents, so will his own children
someday look up to him. Without this connection between parents
and children, the chain of generations is broken, the hopes of the
Jewish past are lost for the future, and the Jewish nation ceases to
exist.


YL
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