Q&A: The Reward for Honoring Parents
The Reward for Honoring Parents
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
In the verses, the matter of the reward for honoring parents is presented as follows:
Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Deuteronomy 5:16: “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that your days may be long and so that it may go well with you, upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
The Sages in Kiddushin 39b raised two possible interpretations of the reward mentioned in the verse: an individual reward in its plain sense, or reward in the World to Come (“a world that is entirely good and entirely long”). I thought of another possible interpretation that could solve the difficulty in the Talmudic passage there: that the reward God promised is a collective reward intended for the Jewish people as a whole. That is, if the Jewish people keep the commandment of honoring parents, then they will merit to live long on the land of the Land of Israel and it will go well with them. And the same would apply to the reward promised for the commandment of sending away the mother bird. In addition, it is known that the commandment of honoring parents and that of sending away the mother bird also apply to someone who has no share in the division of the land (women, converts, etc.), and seemingly such people should have been excluded from these commandments. From the fact that they were not excluded, perhaps one can learn that the words “so that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you” are addressed to the collective and not to the individual. What do you think of this suggestion?
Best regards,
Answer
That is of course a possible suggestion. But the claim you raised at the end—that since this also applies to someone who is not among the inheritors of the land, that proves your point—is not persuasive. Women and converts also live in the land, and therefore they too would be exiled from it if they do not observe honoring parents.