Q&A: The Rebellious Son
The Rebellious Son
Question
Hello Rabbi, regarding the rebellious son:
- It is said that he is judged based on what he will ultimately become—that he will go astray and become a robber or a murderer. But at this moment he is neither a robber nor a murderer, only a glutton and a drunkard. So how can it be that he is sentenced to death because of a concern that he may become a criminal?
- In Jewish law, clearly unrealistic conditions are spelled out for applying this law, to the point that the Sages raise the possibility that it was never and never will be carried out. But how can all those conditions really be correct? If they are, then the entire passage of the rebellious son in the Torah is effectively rendered pointless, as if it were not written in the Torah at all. Was it really the Torah’s intention that this law never be implemented? And if so, why write it?
Answer
1. The standard worn-out example called for here is the cute, funny baby Adolf. If you saw him in his cradle and knew what would eventually come out of him, would it really be absurd to kill him as a baby? But in light of section 2, this is in any case only a hypothetical question.
2. Rabbi Israel Salanter, in his essay Law and Judgment, offers a very interesting explanation. The Talmud itself asks why these verses were written (according to the view that a rebellious son never was and never will be), and answers: “Expound it and receive reward.” Rabbi Israel Salanter asks: Have we already finished the rest of the Torah, such that it needs to provide us with impractical verses so that we can receive reward for studying them? And he answers: these verses were written in order to teach the principle of “expound it and receive reward”—that is, the principle that one does not study in order to implement, but studies in order to study. Study is a value in itself, and that itself is the main lesson of the passage of the rebellious son. This passage also teaches, regarding the practical passages, that their study is not meant for the sake of observance but is a value in itself. Study is our way of cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, through attachment to His will (= Jewish law). Of course, if the opportunity arises then one must also fulfill it, but that is not the purpose of study (otherwise we would have to spend all our time on the practical parts of the Torah, or at least not move on to other parts until we had mastered them perfectly).
Much more could be said about this, but this is not the place.
Discussion on Answer
That contradiction is unrelated to what I wrote. There is a contradiction between the determination that a rebellious son is judged based on his eventual end (which is explicit in the Mishnah), and this midrash, which states that a person is judged as he is at that moment. Many have already addressed this, but beyond all the answers, it could also simply be a dispute between different approaches.
Why not explain simply that in the past the law of the rebellious son was indeed applied, as that tanna testifies: “I saw him and sat on his grave”… and later the Sages imposed restrictions and safeguards and turned the commandment into something (almost) entirely theoretical….
I don’t know the case you brought about the tanna’s testimony, but in my opinion there is no such thing as a rebellious son, because obviously he is warned first, and if he doesn’t change then they stone him—so clearly he is supposed to change.
B. Another possibility: the Torah does not allow secularity. This boy’s parents educated him according to the Torah, but he does the opposite—he does not obey them in following the Torah’s commandments, he eats and drinks excessively, he is of no benefit even to himself. What can be done with him? The Torah answers: his sentence is stoning.
Maimonides brings other things from his own reasoning and from the oral law given to Moses at Sinai; see: http://kodesh.snunit.k12.il/i/e307.htm
It is worth noting that only if both his parents agree to have him judged does he incur stoning.
For me the easiest thing is to make a simple a fortiori argument: if he does not listen to his parents, will he listen to his Creator? Therefore his sentence is death, because the youth will not turn out educated no matter what you do. So it comes out that a person is judged at the very moment of his sin, because not honoring parents is equivalent to not honoring the Holy One, blessed be He, as it says: “Each man shall fear his mother and his father” — and “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but to fear the Lord, to keep His commandments, and to cleave to Him.” And it also says: “You, Lord, are our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is Your name,” and also: “And now, Lord, You are our Father.” There are three partners in a person: father, mother, and the Holy One, blessed be He.
Honoring parents is a commandment that follows from plain common sense! So that is my opinion, but Jewish law determines the ruling, not me!.
To Avi –
Rabbi Yonatan, who said about the rebellious son, “I saw him and sat on his grave,” and about the condemned city, “I saw it and stood on its mound,” was a disciple of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael, and lived decades after the destruction. Capital cases were abolished forty years before the destruction. The law of the condemned city could only have been carried out when Israel had sovereignty, in the days of the First Temple or the Hasmoneans, hundreds of years before Rabbi Yonatan’s generation. So how could he have “seen” a rebellious son or a condemned city in the literal sense? It therefore seems that his words were said by way of parable, as is common in aggadic literature, and as Maimonides explained in his introduction to the chapter Helek.
From the very condition that the Torah established—that the mother too must join in demanding that the son be put to death—it is fairly clear that the scenario is unworkable: “Can a woman forget her suckling child, have no compassion on the son of her womb?” All the more so a Jewish mother, who would give her life to save her son.
The purpose of the law of the rebellious son is value-based: to teach us how severe wild, heedless behavior and contempt toward one’s parents are—that one who behaves this way morally forfeits his right to exist. Internalizing this insight in one’s heart is the greatest “receive reward” of all. It is what creates a restrained and respectful society.
With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger
Rabbi Levinger, with all due respect, you solve one problem and return to the first one. We emphasized here that this is a rational commandment, so there is no need to teach us this. In addition, the Sages themselves said: there is no such thing as a rebellious son. Then the tanna came and said he sat on his grave—so why did he add that if, from the outset, according to the Sages there is no such thing? And they said, “Expound it and receive reward,” and then this tanna came afterward—what did he add? He only reinforced their words. What did we gain from him?
So according to your conclusions, it would be preferable to kill him, because whoever is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful. That is very bad! So here we return to the first conclusion: maybe such a thing is possible, but… the Sages ruled that even if there were such a case they would not stone him… until Elijah comes and resolves it.
In short, in my opinion, leaving around a boy like that, who scorns his parents, is no less than walking arm in arm with a grenade whose pin has already been pulled.
Even if you explain it that way, the opinion of the tanna who says it never existed and never will still requires explanation. The question is not historical, but what that tanna thought.
A Jew answers with a question:
Why don’t you ask him? That’s his view—if he were here, he would explain his position, and I wouldn’t have to look for an explanation myself. By the way, it would have been enough for him to say, “It never existed,” and we would have understood on our own that it never will exist, because if it didn’t exist, why should we care why it was never created? That too is unnecessary. Or it would have been enough for him to say, “It never will exist,” and we would infer: study it and receive your reward.
Our Sages said (Bava Batra 12b): Rabbi Yohanan said, from the day the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to… fools and children. [I don’t know if that’s appropriate here, but study it and receive reward.]
Now seriously: the tanna held that it did not sit right with his intellect and faith that there could be such a person—someone educated in religious values who suddenly loses his mind and is unwilling to listen to his parents. Or he is claiming that if there were such a person, they would not kill him, lest he be mentally incompetent, and such people are exempt from many commandments.
And what do you think about the tanna who contradicts him and said, “I sat on his grave”? That is really an unresolved difficulty in every sense.
Whose words are stronger? In my opinion, the words “I sat on his grave,” because that is more realistic, and he is pained that “the boy is gone” and prays for him—even though the Sages say it is for his good, because it is better that he die innocent rather than guilty.
I suddenly got it, in the sense of “I toiled and found”:
It says, “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be lengthened,” and it says, “he does not listen to the voice of his father and mother”—implying that his life will be shortened. That is really the plain meaning! “Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother; and all the people shall say, Amen.” What do you think?
There is no need to say that Rabbi Yonatan actually saw the execution of a rebellious son… only that he knew (perhaps by tradition) that there indeed was one……. It seems less likely to me that so much ink would be spilled on analyses, discussions, clauses, and sub-clauses of commandments that are completely theoretical…..
Not only that. It is possible that he meant to say that he saw his grave. In any case, the fact is that there is a tannaitic opinion that this is a theoretical topic / passage, and that does not stop anyone from spilling mountains of ink over it.
In Bereishit Rabbah, parashah 53, section 14, it says:
“As he is there.”
Rabbi Simon said: “The ministering angels leapt up to accuse him.”
They said before Him: “Master of the universe, will You raise up a well for someone who is destined to kill Your children by thirst?”
He said to them: “What is he now—righteous or wicked?”
They said to Him: “Righteous.”
He said to them: “I judge a person only as he is at that moment.”
Now this also teaches us how we should judge the cute, funny baby Adolf—as he is there, at that moment—even though we know what will eventually come of him. In your opinion, how can this difficulty be resolved?