18 Aug KI TEITZEI: CAN YOU FORGIVE YOUR CHILD? HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH CHILDREN WHO PUT YOU THROUGH THE WRINGER?

Why Death?
The law in this
week’s parsha
concerning a
wayward son seems
absurd and horrific.
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son
who does not obey the voice of his father
and the voice of his mother, and does not
listen to them when they discipline him;
then his father and mother shall take hold
of him and bring him to the elders at the
gate of his town. They shall say to the
elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and
rebellious. He does not obey our voice. He
is a profligate and a drunkard.’
“Then all the men of his town shall stone
him to death. You must purge the evil from
among you. All Israel will hear of it and be
afraid.”
How are we to understand this Torah
passage? First, are we to believe that
parents would actually take up the Torah’s
advice and have their son killed if he acts
like a monster in his teens!
Can you imagine a Jewish mother sending

her son to the High Court to be punished:
“Here, Ben, I want you should take along
these cookies I baked for you; and don’t
forget to wear your cardigan; it gets cold in
the death chamber.”
Besides, a death sentence for what? For
eating meat and drinking wine? For
stealing food? Isn’t this punishment
excessive? He is only a 13-year-old kid?
And did his offenses really merit capital
punishment?
The Mishnah and Talmud, quoted in Rashi
on our parsha, gives this answer:
He is not being punished for his current sins.
Rather, given his outrageous current
behavior, the Torah testifies that it is
inevitable that he will grow up to be a
robber and murderer. So better to kill him
now, before he murders other people and
before he destroys his own soul. The
patterns of his behavior demonstrate that
he is doomed to a life of inevitable evil. Let
him die an innocent man.
Yet this seems absurd. All of Judaism is
based on the idea that even a sinner can
repent. Certainly, a 13-year-old boy who is
at this point not killing yet, certainly he

may change his ways. How
can we be certain that he will
become a murderer?
An axiom in Judaism is,
“Nothing stands in the way
of Teshuvah.” The most evil
Jewish king, Menashe, was

accepted as a baal-
teshuva. And here we say

that a 13-year-old troubled
boy is destined to grow into
a monster? Why?
True, as the Talmud says, this story never
happened nor will it happen. This Torah
law is theory, not practical. But how are we
to understand the law in theory? What is a
lesson the Torah is trying to impart in this
law?
Forgiveness
There is a beautiful answer given by the
Shem Mishmuel, authored by Rabbi
Shmuel Bornstein (1856-1926), the Rebbe
of Sochotshov, Poland. (He was the son of
the Avnei Nezer, Rabbi Avraham
Borenstein, and grandson of the Kotzker
Rebbe).
He raises one more question. The
Talmud says that at any point, a wayward
son whose parents forgive him is
forgiven and not punished.
But wait. We don’t kill the boy because
of what he did to his parents. We kill
him, as the Talmud explains because the
Torah testifies that he is destined to
become a killer. So, what does it help
that his parents forgive him?
The Holy Chain
The answer contains one of the most
critical lessons for our day and age in
terms of how parents and educators deal
with children who are difficult,
challenging, and often take us through
the wringer.
Every child, even the greatest menace, is
inherently holy and good, Divine and
sacred. For each of them carries the
genes of Avraham, Yitzchak and
Yaakov—each of them has a Jewish
soul, which is eternally connected to the
Divine.
To reveal that connection, a father and a
mother must keep the bond with their
children strong. When we sever our
relationship with our children, even if
we have good reason to do so, we
deprive them of the ability to experience
themselves as part of the golden,
unbreakable chain from Avraham to this
very day.

Says the Shem Mishmuel: When the son
feels the love inherent in his parents’
willingness to forgive him, despite all of
his misdeeds, this keeps him connected to
his roots. And since his roots are so deep
and sacred, there is now strong hope that
he will find the ability to transform himself.
If the parents do not forgive their child,
they do not allow him to forgive himself
and start his life anew. They ensure that he
continues in his destructive path.
Conversely, the moment they forgive him
internally, the moment they can accept
their child and love him despite his terrible
and heartbreaking failures, they now allow
him to discover his own spiritual power,
which is deeper than all of his failings and
trauma.
Never Disconnect
This is the great message the Torah is
teaching us. Never ever disconnect from
your child, even if it is not easy. Sometimes
we are compelled to break the connection,
to sever the bond, to alienate him or her. It
is simply too painful to be in a relationship.
But the Torah is telling us, this is the
primary reason he will never be able to
come back. You need to learn to forgive
your children, to see the infinite light
hidden in them, that light you saw in the
child when he emerged from your womb as
innocent and angelic as ever. Yes, there
have been disappointments, perhaps
betrayal, shame, and serious misdeeds.
Your child is broken. So, what does he (or
she) need to find the stamina to repair
himself? He needs to be able to believe in
his soul, in his future, in his goodness.
How can we help him achieve that? If we
can love him, if we can forgive him, if we
can show him that he is not a worthless,
helpless case, but a particle of the Divine, a
ray of infinity, a fragment of G-d in this
world.
Keeping him connected to the chain will
allow him to see himself, ultimately, in the
context of a 4,000-year chain, of which he
is the next rung.