|
|
May 21, 1999/6 Sivan 5759, Vol. 51, No.34
Respect, responsibility key to parent-child relationships
RABBI DAVID REBIBO
Special to Jewish News
What is to be learned from the killings in Littleton? There is a dissipation of respect for authority, contempt for the establishment, disdain of moral codes and a failure to give our young people direction and cultivate respect. Youth desperately need both direction and authority. They need to have some code they can cling to. And when we fail in our homes and our schools to fill this need, their energies are rechanneled. Our children seek out and enthusiastically embrace alien ideologies, often dangerous and self-defeating.
Secular society has distorted much of our thinking; too many of us have allowed the media to mold our attitudes, shape our standards and impose on us a lifestyle that is alien to the disciplines of Torah and halacha (Jewish law).
In our homes and our schools, we have become too passive and quiet. School officials are reluctant to assume the role of guardians of moral codes, sanctioned by all religious faiths and accepted by civilized society for many centuries. They have forgotten the corollary three R's - respect, responsibility and reverence. They fear enforcing their own rules and hoist the white flag of surrender. Students think they can violate rules and regulations with impunity, and violation can lead to violence, defiance to disruption and destruction. Our children suffer.
We all must be concerned: To ignore the rebellious spirit would be folly, to dismiss it as a passing trend would be tragic, to panic would be disastrous. Certainly we Jews, as part of society at large, must attempt to resolve the problem.
Youthful rebellion is no new phenomenon. The generation gap is quite natural. The key to relationships is the recognized authority of parents, teachers, and elders with "derech eretz" (proper behavior), the guarantor of meaningful respect and a sense of responsibility for the fruits of this relationship. This does not mean that for centuries we lived in an authoritarian society. It does mean that the classic Jewish home is one where parents listen to their children but don't submit, while children speak to their parents but don't talk back. The lines of communication are open because there is a common language, a common sense of values, and a common code by which they all live.
The purpose of Torah is to teach man a "derech h'chaim" - a way of life. This concerns how to behave in his private life, how to conduct himself in relationship to his fellow man, and how to serve God in his every action and deed. The disciplines of Torah are all encompassing, touching upon every aspect of man's existence. The Torah, however, does not tell us to "be good" but commands us to "be holy." Holiness is not a rejection of this world but its affirmation, not isolation from society but involvement, not a begrudging coexistence with man's needs and nature's laws but a joyful acceptance of all God has granted us, with the realization that we are to sanctify, hallow and ennoble it.
Rabbi David Rebibo is the spiritual leader of Beth Joseph Congregation in Phoenix.
|
