Q&A: Conflict Between Obligations of Honor
Conflict Between Obligations of Honor
Question
There is a well-known rule that a child is obligated to honor his father, except when his father asks him to violate Jewish law, in which case we say that since the father too is obligated to honor the Holy One, blessed be He, the child must refuse his father. According to that same reasoning, would we also say that a woman is obligated to revere her parents even where that conflicts with her husband’s honor, since her husband too is rabbinically obligated in reverence for the woman’s parents? (I understood that this is not actually the Jewish law ruling.)
Answer
The halakhic conception is that a woman passes from the domain of her parents to the domain of her husband, and therefore when there is no conflict the husband is also obligated in honoring her parents, but when there is a conflict she is obligated in honoring him and not them. But in my view it is doubtful how much room any of this has nowadays, since a woman is not in her husband’s domain in that same sense.
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Questioner:
Why can’t we apply here the rule that if two people are both obligated in the honor of a third party, then in a case of conflict between party A’s obligation to honor party B and party A’s obligation to honor party C, the obligation of honor toward party C takes precedence?
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Rabbi:
I didn’t understand the question. Is it directed at the initial assumption or at my answer? I’ll just say that there is a difference between the cases. The son is obligated in honoring the Holy One, blessed be He, not through his parents but directly. But the husband is obligated in honoring his wife’s parents through her (and therefore, once she herself is not obligated because of his own honor, it is obvious that he too is not obligated).
Discussion on Answer
What does their wisdom have to do with anything? I didn’t understand a word here, and especially not what connection all this has to what I wrote.
A person is obligated first of all in honoring sages, and if his father is a Torah scholar he honors him on a higher level than his rabbi. That is where the question comes from.
A man and his wife are one—they are obligated to honor one another, but that is obvious. The problem is when they need to honor the other one’s parents even though that conflicts with honoring the spouse. In such a case I think honoring the parent is greater than honoring the spouse, because the spouse too is obligated in honoring the parents of both sides.
If there is a person whom one is obligated to honor for two reasons, that overrides an obligation based on one reason. That is explicit in the Talmud regarding one’s father when he is also a Torah scholar (or also his rabbi).
As for honoring the wife’s parents, I explained above why that consideration is not correct.
Could you explain it in other words regarding honoring the wife’s parents, because I’m having trouble understanding.
Honoring the wife’s parents is part of honoring the wife. Therefore, when he is not obligated to honor his wife in that respect (because it conflicts with the honor due to him from her), he is also not obligated in honoring her parents. And consequently she too is not obligated in honoring her parents at his expense. Here it departs from the consideration of “you and they are obligated in honoring Me.”
That’s interesting, even a bit strange, because the commandment is “Honor your father and your mother”—they brought him into the world; the fact that he married her, he is still their son! Even before he married her. So how can the commandment be “covered over” when it conflicts with honoring his wife?
I didn’t understand why you’re bringing God into it.
Moshe, go back and read the question again. The question was why the woman should not be obligated in honoring her parents at her husband’s expense because of the consideration that he too is obligated in honoring them (like the obligation not to obey parents when they instruct him to commit a transgression, because they too are obligated in honoring the Omnipresent).
Okay—apparently I was on a different wavelength when I asked. So it can be summarized like this:
The husband and wife are obligated in honoring their parents on both sides always, until it comes to honor that conflicts with honoring their Maker.
And suppose her parents are wiser than his parents—and than his wife and than him—would he then be obligated to honor them as an obligation?
And I also didn’t understand, Rabbi—if he and she are one, since the two of them are one, then we should understand that he too is obligated to honor her parents exactly as she is obligated to honor his parents.
And what shall we say about their children, who are obligated to honor their grandfathers and grandmothers through their father and mother? Is it possible that they would not be obligated in a case where their parents are not obligated, because of their own honor (the father’s and mother’s), toward their own parents (the grandfather and grandmother)?