By Gary Konecky
“Honor your father and your mother…” – Exodus 20:12
“Every man shall fear his mother and his father…” – Leviticus 19:3
Imagine the scene: A hospital in Florida. The family’s mother is dying. The family’s father passed away years ago. The daughter lives in Florida. The mother lives in New York and was visiting when tragedy struck. The son who lives in New York flies down to Florida.
Money is tight. The son lost his job sometime ago. He has no place to stay because the area hotels are very expensive as this is peak vacation time in that part of Florida.
The son and daughter do not get along because the son is gay and the daughter feels that her children will catch being gay from him, besides she believes that all gay men are AIDS carriers and you could also catch that from them. She has therefore prevented him from having any contact with his nieces and nephews for years. She has also made it a point to be hostile to him at every opportunity. She has also taught that hostility to her now grown children.
Now the mother is dying. The mother’s health care proxy and living will are in New York. The entire family is in Florida.
The family springs into action. The son and daughter fight. The nieces and nephews take sides and actively participate in the family feud. The daughter makes groundless accusations to hospital staff that the son is trying to kill his mother. The hospital then restricts the son’s visitation privileges. The son and daughter agree on only one thing, not to tell the hospital staff that the mother expressed her wish not to be resuscitated, thereby violating their mother’s wishes.
Is the above scenario honoring the dying mother?
What would happen if this were the case? The son flies down to Florida. As a great crisis has fallen upon the entire family, they set aside their differences. The daughter opens her home so that he has a place to stay. They meet with the hospital staff and tell the staff of their mother’s wish not to be resuscitated. Instead of fighting, they pull together and honor their mother, the woman who gave birth to both of them.
G-d is not a wishing well. G-d listens to our prayers because He wants to. G-d grants our requests because He wants to. Is it possible that because of their respect for their mother, as shown in the second scenario, G-d will be more likely to show mercy on their mother and grant their prayerful requests for their mother’s recovery? Could them showing G-d how much they want to honor their mother make a difference in G-d’s evaluation of their situation? I am not a prophet and I do not claim to know the answers to these questions. Yet it seems possible that the better we behave, the more G-d might be inclined to listen to us.
Why is it that when a crisis comes upon a family, all too often, instead of pulling together, it becomes another opportunity to behave badly, not merely badly, but worse then usual? Much as we like to think the world revolves around us, it does not. It is not about us. It is not about who said or did what to whom. It is not about old grievances (real or imagined). It is about what we are told G-d wants from us: “…what the L-rd demands of you; but to do justice, to love loving-kindness, and to walk discreetly with your G-d.” – Micah 6:8
May G-d grant us the strength, the wisdom, and the insight to behave kindly toward each other, especially when it matters most.
My thanks to Rabbi Joseph Telushkin for his insights into what it means to honor your father and mother.
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