A thought on פרשת כי תצא

'''...Ki yi'yeh l'ish ben...''
''...when a man has a son...'' (21:18)


The subject of the ben sorrer u'moreh has excited much discussion and inquiry since the time of the Mishna and onward. The idea of a youngster earning the abject withdrawing of his parents to the degree that theY bring their despair to the Sanhedrin for severe adjudication is a difficult one for us. There is an opinion in the Talmud that such an event never actually occured in our nation's history; rather the Torah presents the chapter with the charge that we study and learn from it.

What do we learn from it? What eternal lessons does HaShem want us to derive from these unusual and perhaps hypothetical concepts?

The Ralbag offers a novel angle. Much of what troubles us about the ben sorrer verses is that a child who shows early evidence of defiance and disregard for his parents is to be executed, although still not of adult age. We know that there is no other such case in the Torah where a child is judged prematurely as an adult, nor of any person being sentenced prior to actually comitting a capital offense. The Ralbag says that the Torah is in essence employing a form almost subtextual paradox. What we are asked to examine is that childhood is the time when children are ripe for our modeling and grooming them in the ways of morality, deceny and wholesome standards. This is the time of life when it is the responsibility of fathers and mothers to set an indelible and enduring tone of discerning between right and wrong for their children. The verses paint a vivid picture of 'worst case scenario' for us in order to impress upon us how essential our task is as parents. This is what the Talmud intends when it says ''never was there an actual case of ben sorrer but we must examine it and garner merits through studying the underlying message''.

The underlying message, according to the Ralbag, is that we recognize how we must guide our children while they are still young.

Wishing you a good Shabbos from afar. D Fox
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