03 May KEDOSHIM: HAD DARWIN SEEN THE CHOFETZ CHAIM, HE WOULD HAVE NEVER MADE SUCH A CLAIM
The pasuk states in the beginning of Parshas Kedoshim: “A man, his mother and his father he shall fear, and my Sabbaths you shall keep, I am Hashem your G-d.” [Vayikra 19:3]. This is the positive Biblical command of treating one’s parents with awe and respect. The Torah here links this mitzvah with the mitzvah to observe the Sabbath.
We are all familiar with the exposition the Talmud makes on this pasuk: If a father tells his son to desecrate the Sabbath or to violate any other prohibition, the mitzvah of honoring and revering his parents is suspended. In other words, the responsibility of honoring and respecting the wishes of the Almighty trumps the responsibility to honor and respect his parents.
Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky in his Emes L’Yaakov offers a novel homiletic interpretation to this pasuk, providing a different insight as to why these two mitzvos are linked. Rav Yaakov says that there is a fundamental difference as to how we view parents (and elders in general for that matter) depending on a very fundamental philosophical question. People who believe that the world was created on its own (e.g., the “Big Bang Theory”) and that there was always some kind of matter which developed into the world in which we live, are individuals who feel that this is a godless world. Coinciding with this non-Torah theory is the Theory of Evolution which claims that slowly but surely, over billions of years the world developed. First there was simple life until there developed various forms of animal life, and so forth. We are all familiar with the basics of this theory that man evolved from a primate—an ape or a monkey or whatever it may be. The theory is that slowly but surely these primitive creatures developed until the human beings that we have today came into existence.
According to the theory, modern man is much further along in development than primitive man. Consequently, the further someone moves away from the original “cave man,” the more respect the specie deserves. Therefore, the young do not need to honor their elders, but rather vice versa: The elders—who are closer to primitive man—need to honor the young, who are more developed than the older generation.
However, if someone believes in Creation—that G-d created Heaven and Earth in six days and then rested on the seventh—then the most perfect of human beings was the first one—Adam—who was created directly by the Almighty, the handiwork of the Ribono shel Olam. With this approach, the further we get away from that first man, and certainly the further we get away from Sinai, we witness a gradual descent of generations. Therefore, in Judaism, it is the young who need to honor the older generation, who are one generation closer to the perfect creation—Adam haRishon.
Therefore, the pasuk states: “Man, his mother and his father shall he fear; and My Sabbaths he shall observe…” Because what does Shabbos testify? We say it every Friday night: “For in six days Hashem made the Heavens and Earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” [Shemos 31:17] Shabbos testifies that the Almighty created man (and created everything else in the world as well). Therefore, because of that, people must honor their elders. The elders are closer to perfection than the youth. That, says Rav Yaakov, explains the juxtaposition of the directives to fear parents and to observe the Shabbos.
Then Rav Yaakov adds what he once heard from Rav Elchonon Wasserman [1874-1941]: Had Darwin seen the Chofetz Chaim, he would never have said that man evolved from apes and monkeys. Darwin only saw his own kind of people, which led him to erroneously speculate that man descended from apes. Anyone who had ever seen the likes of the great sages of Israel would never have made such a mistake.