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Rav Avi: Hi, and welcome to Responsa Radio, where you ask and we answer questions of Jewish law in modern times. I'm Rabbi Avi Killip, Executive Vice President at Hadar, here with Rabbi Ethan Tucker, Rosh Yeshiva at Hadar, a center for higher Jewish learning based in New York City. I'm really eager to have this conversation with you today, because the question that I want to share is one that you've really thought a lot about. And I happen to know that you've not only taught about this question a lot, but done a lot of pastoral counseling. The intersection between mitzvot observance and relationships, in particular, relationships with our parents.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, I have gotten that question and had those conversations many, many times. So let's hear it. What's this version of the question?
Rav Avi: Yeah, so here's the question. The question starts obviously the way we would like for you to submit all your questions. It says, Hi, I love Responsa Radio. And I have a question I'd like to have addressed. I am a teenage ba'al teshuvah, (we'll come back to that word), still living at home.
My parents are less than thrilled. How can I balance my increased observance with shalom bayit? (We'll also come back to that term). For example, I would like to be Shomer Shabbos and not use my phone or other electronics on Shabbos. However, this sometimes creates difficulties, as they will call or text me things during Shabbos and I don't see.
Additionally, if I bring up something like a book I'm reading about Judaism, or mention something interesting from the parsha, they sometimes get uncomfortable. Should I be refraining from sharing things on this topic to avoid discomfort, even if keeping that part of myself separate from them may make us more distant?
Rav Eitan: Yeah, it's an intense question.
Rav Avi: Yeah, I feel like there's a lot here. And, and a lot that's probably relatable in again, in one direction or another. Maybe we'll just start with the definition of terms. This is a teenager who's defining themselves as a ba'al teshuvah and they're concerned about shalom bayit. So tell us what what those two terms mean, you know, in the context of this question.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, a ba'al teshuvah, literally someone who has repented, maybe a master of repentance here used as someone who basically returns to observance, even if it doesn't mean they themselves abandoned it and came back. It's their coming to observance that perhaps they weren't raised with or only existed in their family a couple generations before. So here it just means newly observant and trying to navigate their family. Shalom bayit, peace in the home, often focusing on a spousal relationship won't use too much of that term in the analysis here.
But they just mean, isn't there some value in relatives not being at each other's throats, and having, you know, a way in which they navigate difference with pleasantness and peace?
Rav Avi: Yeah, so where do we even begin with a question like this?
Rav Eitan: Yeah, let me start big picture for a minute. You know, I almost might frame the overriding question here as, do we view our relationships as being secondary to and sometimes an obstacle to leading a life of Torah? Or do we view our relationships as a necessary part of living a life of Torah? Maybe they're even the fundamental place where we first play it out, even as it expands to other places. Just to spell that out for a minute, because I think we have competing strands in our tradition. I want to actually kind of draw us into a thought experiment, though I don't know if it was actually only a thought experiment, that early rabbinic sources engaged to get at how we answer this question.
So here's the case. What do you do if your parent tells you not to return a lost object? Okay, there's you're walking, you're on a hike, you know, whatever it is, and you come across something and someone's dropped something and lost it. And this is your opportunity, actually, to do a biblical commandment, pick that thing up. Maybe it's got a name on it. And there's an ID there, and you can get it back to the owner. And your parent says, absolutely not, we're not taking the time to do that. We're not driving an hour in the other direction. I see where the address is.
I don't want to carry that for the rest of the hike, whatever it is. What do you do? On the one hand, there's a biblical command to return lost objects. On the other hand, there's a biblical command to honor your parents. And assuming for the moment, we can problematize this later, that indeed, in this case, what it would require for you to honor your parents is to listen.
How do you think that through? So the rabbinic answer to this is clear. The practical answer is clear. You ignore your parent, and you return the lost object.
Rav Avi: Where is this?
Rav Eitan: So there are two different places where it comes up, and what's interesting is the bases for that shared answer are totally different. And I want to highlight how, in effect, they are two different answers. So the answer is you ignore your parents and return the lost object. Essentially, the Torah wins when going up against your parent in that case, okay? But listen now to the two different formulations.
So the Mechilta de Rabbi Yishmael, text from the time of the Mishnah around 2,000 years ago, comes from the school of Rabbi Yishmael and their whole approach to Midrash on the Torah, says don't listen to your parent, return the lost object. Why? Both you and your parent are obligated in mitzvot. If I were to translate this almost into like legal terminology from today, your parents are like a circuit court, but the Torah is the supreme court. They also are under the authority of the Torah.
So if the Torah is commanding you to return a lost object, your parent is not a separate source of authority. They're also subject to the laws of the Torah, and therefore, the Torah gets to override them.
Rav Avi: Right. So we might say, you know, in a civil context, like if your parents tell you to speed when you're driving because they want to get where you're going, and the speed limit tells you not to, like, you know, when the cop pulls you over, you can't say like, well, my dad told me to.
Rav Avi: That's right. That's right.
Rav Eitan: Because he's also, you know, living in a world where speed limits apply to him. He's a citizen of the state of New York. Exactly, whatever it is. And even if, though I don't think there really is an analog to this, but even if there were a law in the books of that state compelling people under 18 to listen to their parents, right, or I mean, there are certain rights that parents have definitely to compel their kids. That doesn't matter. It doesn't give the parent authority to subvert the state authority.
Okay. So that's the Mechilta to Rabbi Ishmael. The Mechilta to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, which comes from a competing school of midrash of the group of Rabbi Akiva, says the following. Don't listen to your parent.
Rav Avi: It's sort of like because this is an extra important one. That's what it sounds like. And there you're really hitting on where these two texts are giving the same answer of what to do in this case, but they actually seem to evince two totally different approaches to where parents fit into the structure of mitzvot. According to that second text, if the Torah hadn't used the specific locution of hashev teshivenu, return, return, it had just said return it once, then it sounds like you would listen to your parent not to return it.
Rav Avi: It draws our attention to ask why this mitzvah was brought or whether it could be any mitzvah.
Rav Eitan: That's right. So it does invite you to then say, oh, if this midrash in the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai Mechilta case is pointing to a specific linguistic feature that the Torah uses around returning a lost object as the basis for not listening to your parent, it invites us to think about two things: huh, why is this mitzvah so important? Why does the Torah double this? And that might be a subject for a whole other episode on what's the centrality of returning lost objects in rabbinic thought, which is really beyond what you might expect, but also calls your attention to the fact of, well, without that doubling, apparently for this second school, it's more like honoring your parent is a central edifice in the building of Torah. It's a central piece. It's maybe even the foundation as opposed to just a support structure.
Rav Avi: Yeah, it's interesting. It makes me think about how we have this short list of mitzvot that you should die rather than transgress.
And it's interesting. I could imagine a world in which we would have developed a list of these are the mitzvot you do even if your parents tell you not to. These are the ones in bold, so to speak, with that double phrasing. And all the other ones, you go with your parents, but it doesn't sound like that's the direction.
Rav Eitan: Well, this text doesn't play that out, but I think implicitly we will see some of that is developed. I really like your language of reading the doubling as in bold, right? And there's a way of saying, which are the parts of the Torah that are in bold? And those pieces, parents don't get to override. I mean, even without the specific locution of hashev teshivenu, I think you can't imagine there's going to be any source that's going to say, well, my parents told me to assassinate that person, so therefore I'm allowed to or expected to. The question is then what's in what camp? And it may not be that returning a lost object is completely idiosyncratic from the rest of the Torah, but it may be a mitzvah that of its type, maybe just a garden variety mitzvah without the death penalty or some special punishment, it nonetheless is more significant than, let's say, not wearing wool and linen together or any number of other things. So we'll come back to that. But I think what's so interesting here and a reminder to us and to our listeners, it's never just about what is the answer a text gives on a practical level. How does it reason it and what does that imply about its broader philosophy?
Rav Avi: Right. And the second text here feels like it opens up the possibility for the questioner to ask, like for the follow-up question to be, well, which is the mitzvah that they are stopping you from doing? And like that matters.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, that might matter. And the first source of the Mechilta de Rabbi Yishmael, just to circle back to that, might not care about that at all because when it says, your parents are under the religious life, just like you, that sounds like they actually have no authority whatsoever to undermine anything where you and they are equally situated.
So let's go to the Talmud here because it gets further litigated there. The Talmud cites another text from the Sifra, early midrash on Vayikra, which is dealing with the phrase, every person should revere, fear their mother and father and observe my Shabbat, my Shabbatot, my Shabbats. What do those have to do with each other, says the midrash. Those seem like two random things crammed together in the same verse.
Rav Avi: So this sounds like option one.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, pretty much like option one, but now bringing in Shabbat and bringing in a kind of prooftext for it. So we almost reread the verse now: Everyone should revere their mother and father, but just remember, you got to observe my Shabbat, and then even read the end, I am God, because after all, I'm God over all of you. So it's an interesting and nice read there. That seems pretty simple. But then the Talmud compares Shabbat there to a lost object, returning a lost object, and says, well, the ways in which they're the same is that the Torah reinforces those mitzvot by talking about them as affirmative commandments and negative commandments.
So when the Torah talks about Shabbat, it'll say, Yehielachem Shabbaton. It should be a day of stopping, a kind of positive formulation.
Rav Avi: Make Shabbos.
Rav Eitan: Make Shabbos, exactly.
Have Friday night dinner, make kiddush, all that stuff. And then there's lo ta'asu melacha, don't do the actions that are forbidden. Similarly, with a lost object, it says, hashev teshivenu, return that obje ct, but it also says, lo tuchal lehitaleim, don't you dare turn your back on it and abandon it there. So aside from just like the doubling of the words, there's a sort of do this and don't not do it.
Rav Avi: Yeah, it feels to me like there's a big difference in these mitzvot that I'm struck by, especially in the example. I feel like the Shabbos text is more useful to me than the returning lost object text, just in that the Shabbat one feels like it's going to come up a lot more often. So for example, this questioner specifically said, They're texting me on Shabbos and I don't want to look at it. But I just imagine in general throughout your life, if you have a conflict with your parents around mitzvot, you will have a conflict with your around Shabbat observance.
The situation where your parent tells you not to return a lost object feels like if it's going to happen, it's maybe going to happen once.
Rav Eitan: Right. I agree. This is the piece where it's hard to know the exact line between thought experiment and practical cases on the ground. And I agree with you, the Shabbat cases are likely to be more practical. But the lost object case may have been important to them, at least to that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai view, because there was something in the formulation of it that enabled them to explore whether the role of the parent should have more weight. But here's what happens in this passage. So by drawing out that shared feature of positive and negative reinforcement of the mitzvot, the Talmud says, these are super strong mitzvot. Why would anyone ever think that you would listen to your parents to override Shabbat or to override returning a lost object? Like, isn't that so obvious? Why do I need a teaching from the verse to make that clear to me? And the Talmud says something amazing. It says, Well, actually, you might have thought that honoring your parents is the most important mitzvah in the entire Torah. The idea here is that it would be reasonable, maybe expected somewhere on that spectrum, that you would say, You know, this person raised me, they gave me life. They even find the fact that the word kabed, that opening word of the fifth commandment in Exodus, which is honor, honor your parents, only appears one other place in the entire Bible where it says, kabed et Hashem, honor God.
And there's a deep way in which our parents are like God, right? Like, they made us, literally physically made us. And the Talmud says, Well, yeah, that's why you might have thought that, Well, of course, my parent asked me to do this, like, that's the ground of everything. In comes the verse and says, No, no, no, these mitzvot override that command.
Rav Avi: Yeah, this feels to me especially acute in the teenager life moment, like where this question that we've received comes from like, I'm a teenager who lives at home. Like, when you are a teenager who lives at home, you live by the grace of your parents, you know, like, here but for the grace of God, it's like, they decide what city you live in, they decide which room in your house, they decide what's for dinner, you know, they decide where you go to school, they make most of your life decisions. So to then say, like, but they don't get to decide whether I'm returning this wallet or not, it has something has to be really outside of the norm. Obviously, the norm is what my parents say goes.
Rav Eitan: Right. All of us with teenagers at home have at least once used the line of, you do what you want when you're paying your own rent. But when you're under my roof, these are the rules. And yeah, that seems reasonable. The Talmud says, had we not had a verse that explicitly said, look, honor your parents, but actually, Shabbat trumps, you never would have gotten there.
But this opens up a marvelous ambiguity. Because here too, we have to ask ourselves, what did the Talmud mean there? I'll just sketch out the two possibilities. One possibility is that well, the conclusion of that discussion is parents have no role in saying anything about religious life and discipline. Kulchem chayavim b'chvodi, ani Hashem, I am God, you're all obligated in my honor.
You might have thought that parents are really important, but like, no, this text teaches you that the Torah, God, religious discipline trumps all. Essentially, that this sugyah, this passage in the Talmud is like that mechilta d'Rabbi Ishmael, model one. You are both obligated in mitzvot. The parental authority evaporates to the extent it comes up against the Supreme Court of the Torah.
That's one way of reading the Talmud. But it's actually also possible to read the Talmud as saying, no, no, no. Remember, what did we think? We thought maybe parental power and authority is so great that it would even override double-reinforced mitzvot like Shabbat and returning a lost object. The verse teaches us that's not the case.
But maybe parents do still override single-reinforced mitzvot. Maybe all the Talmud taught us was, no, no, no. Shabbat was singled out as the model of thing parents don't get to override. And anything that's like Shabbat where you can identify a positive command and a negative command or a punishment at the hands of heaven, the hands of a court, sure, parents don't override.
But what about garden variety prohibitions in the Torah? What about rabbinic violations, which aren't even in the Torah at all? Is this sugyah, is this passage weighing in on that? It's actually a marvelous ambiguity in the Talmudic text.
Rav Avi: Those would point us in really different directions.
Rav Eitan: Super different. This is one of those amazing cases where you get an eruption of argument around this in the 18th century. Later on, of two interpreters, Rav Chaim Florentine, who is the author of the Me'il Shmuel collection of responsa, and Rav David Pardo, who is the author of Michtam leDavid collection of responsa.
They just take different sides on this. Rav Florentine, getting some help from how he reads a passage in the Rambam in Maimonides, basically says, here's the right way to read the Talmud. There's two rules. If the mitzvah in question is a simple biblical command and it's not doubled, there's no special punishment attached, so I'll give some examples of that, like eating pig. Okay? The Torah just says, don't eat pig.
Rav Avi: It doesn't have other for real, don't eat pig.
Rav Eitan: It doesn't say it's not bolded per se. Right. Exactly. Okay? Like we're not minimizing it as a problem. We're just saying it's not bolded in the way the suggah talks about that.
Or for instance, shaving facial hair with a razor. The Torah talks about that. It doesn't double underline it. Like these are things that the Torah says explicitly, don't do them. They're serious biblical violations, but they're not in bold, right, to use your terminology. So he says, for any of those things, the command to honor your parents trumps it. Okay? Now, let's just play that out for a minute, right? What does that mean, the command to honor your parents? So even Rav Chaim Florentine doesn't think that you honor your parents when they are spitefully trying to get you to violate a religious commitment as some kind of like a loyalty test to say, I want to see if you really love me and I don't care about this thing, so demonstrate it by showing you don't care about this thing. Right.
Rav Avi: Like I went out of my way to order the pepperoni pizza to see if you would eat it.
Rav Eitan: Exactly. That he would not put in the category of honoring. It's not like parents have the ability to just command you to dance on command to do whatever they want. But he's talking about a case where a parent has a genuine need. Okay? Imagine, I don't know, they want for emotional or other reasons for you to be with them at something that you can't actually easily get to without violating Shabbat. Okay? Now, Shabbat doesn't fall in this camp, at least the full-blown violation of Shabbat, but construct something where they need you to help them with something. Maybe your father shaved with a razor his entire life, and then he is older and has certain standards of dignity that he wants to uphold and can no longer shave himself and asks you to shave his face with a razor, which is a biblical violation, but they're asking you for a need.
We can debate which of these cases qualifies, but Rav Florentine says, assuming you can construct a case where a real genuine fulfillment of a parental need will conflict with what is just an unbolded part of the Torah, actually the parent's need trumps. Okay? That's his take. Rav David Pardo hears this suggestion and loses it. It's a very intense response, and he says, that is totally wrong.
That is totally the incorrect way to read the Talmud. The whole point of the Talmud is Ani Hashem, I am God, you are all obligated in my honor. Going back to the Mechilta the Rabbi Ishmael approach, this is all about everyone's under the framework of mitzvot. When parents start to play a role in destabilizing religious commitment, they're just out of the picture.
It doesn't mean you're a jerk to them. It doesn't mean you don't honor them in other ways, but they never get to trump religious commitments. They just have zero authority. He says their authority in those cases is ke'efes ucha'ayin, zero, nothingness.
Rav Avi: Wow. He's like, don't even ask the question.
Rav Eitan: It's just, yeah, to him it is so basic. How do you see relationships in this larger framework? I think Rav Chaim Florentine at the end of the day says, I can't really imagine a system of Torah that is not built on the foundation of the parent-child relationship. And Rav David Pardo is saying, what are you talking about? You would leave your parents' lost object on the street if you had to return your teachers. They just don't play that role in the system.
Rav Avi: The purpose of parents is Torah versus the purpose of Torah is relationships, in particular, parental relationships.
Rav Eitan: Right, or the foundation of Torah's relationships. But exactly, the purpose of parents is just to support Torah is the way the Michtam leDavid, Rav David Pardo would think about it. These are both viable readings of that Talmudic passage. These are both reflected in some of those earlier texts. And it's interesting, this is one of those things, it doesn't get codified in the Shulchan Aruch. It's a more subtle sort of under the surface thing. So it's a little difficult to just get to a here's the answer. I'll give you my sense. You referred to the fact that I've not only thought about this a lot, but had lots of conversations with students and others over the years who have faced these kinds of situations.
In terms of practical guidance, where I've given practical guidance is I'll say, look, I don't really feel comfortable. I'm saying personally, I don't feel comfortable going against Rav David Pardo's objections here when it comes to biblical level mitzvot. All right. In other words, even though Rav Chaim Florentine says, if it's a biblical mitzvah, it's just not bolded, that's trumped by parents.
That's a big step to take. I don't feel comfortable giving that guidance. But when it comes to rabbinic violations, or an action that you can do in a way that it will not be a full blown biblical transgression, that starts to feel to me, it's kind of extreme to say, you will hold the line against your parents for something that even we ourselves, the system itself acknowledges is not in the Torah. So what's an example of that where it will come up? So as we've seen, like Shabbat violation is not something that's on the table for parental override, according to anyone.
But there are certain things that are not allowed to do on Shabbat, but they're only not allowed to do on a rabbinic level. So you know, for instance, like if someone else is driving a car, and you're just getting in the car and sitting in there passively, we could go through all the reasons or context of why that is a problem and you can't do it and it's not the way Shabbat obse rvant people get around, at least in most circumstances. Nonetheless, we could acknowledge you're not committing a biblical violation by sitting in that vehicle passively.
There's no theory of halakha, in which that's the case. And so then at that point, there's a question of, I don't know, you know, someone I've had questions like this over the years where people say, my parents really want me to be somewhere as a whole family gathering, they're going to feel dishonored if I'm not there, etc. And I'll sort of say, look, if you sort of take this debate in, there is a way to potentially construct a rabbinic violation as being something that you would do if it's the only way that a parent can be fully honored.
Rav Avi: Yeah, I'm curious if you think about this differently, or if you advise people differently when it's a teenager asking versus it's an adult, like, you know, I don't know what I mean by adult, but someone who's like coming home who really doesn't live at home versus a kid.
Rav Eitan: I do. For me, it's actually less about child, adult, it's more about short term, long term, there are situations where we have a conflict, which is a one off, it's not going to repeat. There's a single event where something crazy is coming up, it's not going to be a precedent for anything else, and the stakes may be very high, etc. And when you're in a situation like that, with a parent, which sometimes happens, well, that's where it seems to me pulling out this compromise position between Rav Florentine and Rav Pardo feels stable, otherwise, gives a sense of I'm really balancing a number of values here, and I'm not doing anything extreme in terms of compromising my religious integrity. This is actually what the Torah would want or a plausible reading of the Torah. When you're talking about a longer term relationship, you got to think about the long game and you have to think about, well, what are the norms that are being set up? And what are the expectations that are being made? In some relationships, and in some contexts, being flexible in a given situation is deeply appreciative and relationship building. In other contexts, that flexibility transmits a message of, oh, I guess this wasn't that important to you. Or maybe if I push harder next time, you'll bend further. And if you really are going to have a relationship over 20 to 30 years where your parents are going to get in a car on Shabbat, and you're really not, you may have to, not in a stubborn, unhelpful way, hold your ground, but you may just sort of for clarity purpose have to say, we're not going to build a relationship going forward where you have an expectation that I'm going to get in a car.
And we're going to have to work that through, and that's not going to be simple. And if you're taking on that commitment, part of what you're committing to is, well, you're going to sometimes walk six miles by the side of a road, or you're going to find a way to spend some extra money to stay in a hotel. This is not a burden you throw back on your parents. You are entitled religiously, and I think personally, to your commitments and not to be bullied out of them.
You're not entitled to be inflexible and difficult.
Rav Avi: Right, or to never show up ever again.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, or to never show up. So, of course, every situation is different, and some roads are easier to walk on than others, and you have to navigate that, and that's beyond what a podcast can do. But that's one axis that's very important to me, which is sort of long-term, short-term. I want to give another axis, though, which sometimes competes, and it goes to the teenager. Sometimes you also have to remember and understand that you are in a particular chapter of life, and there are going to be future chapters, and they will not look the same.
So, a teenager is in, as you so effectively describe, in the sort of they're like at the lowest rung of self-determination in a relationship with their parents. It's in some ways the worst combination because you have the most intellectual independence and sense of agency without the ability to fully realize it. So, in that sense, conflicts in that space, they're the worst. But to the extent I have conversations with teenagers or parents dealing with teenagers at home, you got to remember this is actually going to be over in like three years, like for good or for bad. Like this child's not going to live here. You're not going to live at home. You're then going to move to a relationship. What's it like if you're in college or away? I'll also remind people. They'll come to me with questions about the Seder and navigating conflicts, and I'll say, you know, your parents should live and be well. But in 20 years, you're probably going to be hosting them. And in 40 years, they probably won't even be at the table with you anymore. And you actually have to remember that life is an arc. Not every moment is like the Armageddon battle that's going to determine everything that's going to be a certain way for the rest of your life. You may have to figure out, OK, how do I grapple in this moment with being the best child that I can, nurturing my own commitments, and recognizing there's certain aspects of my independence that aren't going to manifest until later.
Rav Avi: Yeah, this is very compelling to me. In some ways, it almost feels like it could be the opposite of your comment about short-term, long-term.
Rav Eitan: Right, It's intention.
Rav Avi: It's like, oh, the long-term actually might be a release valve as opposed to the long-term being the pressure cooker. Well, if I give in this time, I'll have to give in every time.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, I think if I were to sharpen it, to the extent to which long-term makes you have to stand your ground more, it's when the same scenario you know is going to repeat over and over. And the sense in which long-term is a release valve is realizing life has different stages, and it's not going to be the same scenario every time. And there's some degree of just wisdom, of cultivating the wisdom of understanding that. And I think it's hard for whether it's a teenage listener at home or a parent who's thinking about that from the other side. It's not simple navigating this in the moment because what it requires, and I think this is particularly difficult from someone in their teenage years, is the ability to simultaneously have a kind of integrity and spine and commitment to certain things that you're willing to say directly, look, this is important to me, and I've really become committed to it, and I need you to understand that about me.
And then the ability to practice some tzimtzum, some withdrawal, some pulling back from conflict when it's not necessary. So yeah, going back to our questioner...
Rav Avi: Yeah, I was going to ask about this. The second half of the question was sort of not actually about violating something.
It was should I not talk Torah at the dinner table if my parents roll their eyes? What do you make of that?
Rav Eitan: Yeah. So I think the two components here, the thing of, oh, they're going to send me a text, they're going to call me and I'm not answering it. Well, that's the area where I think you want to say, look, this is my commitment now. Let's figure out another way to communicate. That's where you're standing up for yourself. And actually, parents don't have the right to completely determine the behavior of their children. There's something kind of powerful about that. But yeah, in that second half of the question, I would say, yeah, find a way to go with that flow.
Don't impose conversation topics that are not going to be enriching and uplifting. Here too, I would say, have the future frame in mind. Under the assumption that you want to have a long life of as positive and enriching a relationship with your parents as possible. What are the ways you can interact with them that are going to do that? And we all have to ask that question of, is a bike ride going to be nice? Is going to a show going to be nice? Is just spending an afternoon reading next to each other on the couch being nice? You have to apply that to the rhythms of Torah and Jewish practice. And if there are things that annoy them, don't put those front and center. That's not actually the core of what you're trying to accomplish as you carve out your place in the world.
Rav Avi: I'm curious if you advise people to have these conversations directly with their parents or not.
Rav Eitan: When I've had the opportunity to sit down and have these conversations with people, which I always consider it actually a great privilege to be entrusted with being pulled into, I always try to get a sense, whether directly or indirectly, like, what's your relationship with your parents like? Like, forget about this. Because a lot of times there's something beyond the Jewish observance. If you don't have a relationship with your parents where you ever directly discuss just about anything, probably won't go so great to discuss this directly. If, however, you talk about stuff all the time, but you're afraid of raising this, well, maybe you should push yourself. You guys have had some frank discussions. Go ahead and do it.
Rav Avi: That's really helpful.
Rav Eitan: My guide is really also just remember as the child, even when you are not bending on a point of observance in the face of parents, you still have a biblical obligation to honor them. And that entails the way you speak to them, the way you display gratitude to them, and the sense in which, yeah, it's a little bit your problem to figure out how to navigate it, even if some of what you may do is saying, I'm sorry, I can't do this. But it's got to always be with the utmost respect.
There are cases where there are, God forbid, abusive relationships, and those are beyond the scope of what we're talking about here. I will say, parenthetically, some of the voices here that encourage children sometimes to stand firm in the face of parental pressure can be very helpful to those who, God forbid, have suffered abuse or have a sense of I'm trying to carve out my own sense of autonomy. But aside from those cases, there's just a ground assumption that you approach all of these things with the sense of reverence and dignity and honor that the Torah demands we pay to all of our parents.
Rav Avi: Yeah, I think this is a really important final point, and it's a really important place for us to end, actually, is to say even though in any given moment you have to decide to do something, to behave in a certain way, and that can feel like you're picking winners and losers, am I doing this or doing that? But they all apply, right? Just because you choose to observe Shabbat doesn't mean you don't have to honor your parents. And just because you honor your parents, give priority over that doesn't mean you don't have to, you know, observe these other mitzvot or customs even. These have to coexist, actually. We have to hold both of these together. Going back to your opening frames, life is about how our relationships help and lead us to fulfill mitzvot, and life is about how mitzvot help us to build our relationships. Even though we may lean more into one of those frames in any given moment, we need them both and we have both, and that's what leads to the richness of our relationships with each other and with God. Thanks.
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