Honoring our parents seems to be a given, but is it?
Why are we drawn towards respect for our parents? Why are they like “G-d” in our eyes? After all, they are just two human beings who decided to have us and raise us.
In this week’s Torah portion, we read the Ten Commandments. The Midrash tells us that the first five of the Ten Commandments are between “man and G-d,” while the second set of five is between “man and man.” Based on this idea, why is the commandment to “honor your father and mother” in the first five, between “man and G-d,” and not between “man and man,” which would seem to be more fitting?
Perhaps there is more to begetting children than what meets the eye. A man and woman can be one hundred percent healthy and still not have children, either for medical reasons or by choice. This does not make them any less human. (Did you see the latest issue of Philadelphia Magazine’s cover story: “Why doesn’t anyone want to have kids anymore?”) However, when a man and woman choose to have children, they are acting G-dly. When a couple decides to have children, they are not only procreating, they are bringing G-d into their lives—they are “partnering with G-d.” Therefore, when a child respects their parents, it is not only an act between man and man, but between man and G-d.
This is why it is important for us, when we are children, to not only be kind to our parents, but to have respect, and to be in awe of our parents, for acting “G-d-like” and choosing to bring us into this world. For this act, we should be forever grateful.
In just a few weeks my mother will be celebrating her 70th birthday. In her honor our family got together to celebrate her life and to say thank you for all that she does for us. She is a woman who not only brought me and my siblings into this world but created this family (see picture) and built a world all of its own. Her home is always open. Her Shabbat table is always surrounded by guests from around the world. The bedrooms are constantly filled with people from who-knows-where. And, if you think she would have slowed down after my father passed way more than ten years ago, you are wrong. My mother is a positive person, always living life to the fullest! She lifts us all up, inspiring a generation to do more good, to change the world for the better, and to make our homes, G-dly homes.
May G-d bless her to live a happy life, a long life and may we all merit to give her much Jewish nachas. Shabbat Shalom.
