CHAPTER SIX - The Aging Process: Late Life Questions

C: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

26. Honouring Mum and Dad [Section 11] (One and a half to two hours)

The aim of this activity is to think through Judaism’s traditional attitude towards the honouring of parents and to examine whether it fits the situation today, or whether it should be adjusted. Please note that there is a preparatory observation activity.

• Each person in the group is asked to write down the basic Biblical injunction on how to relate to one’s parents: they should try and remember the details of the instruction.
  Collect the various replies and see how close they come to the original. There are two formulations, either:

  Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord your G-d is giving you.
  Shemot 20:12
  or:
  Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your G-d has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your G-d is giving you.
  Devarim 5:16

• When one of the correct formulations is pinned to the wall/board, ask the group:
  - What is striking about it:
  - In the formulation, what makes it clear that this commandment is meant to be taken very seriously indeed?
• In small groups, participants should try and work out a series of modern-day rules that translate this precept into reality. Each group should try to suggest five rules.
• Each group should produce a short dramatic sketch illustrating one of their rules.
• The groups present the sketches, with each group explaining the rule on which the sketch is based and adding explanations about the other rules that they worked out.
• The whole group is presented with a number of quotations under title #21 of the text section, reading alound three or four excerpts for detailed study. Explain that these rabbinic stories and ideas indicate the seriousness with which they perceived the idea.
• Each participant should consider their own relationship with their parents privately for a few minutes and try to write down one example of a time when they “honoured” their parents and one time when they did not.
• In pairs or small groups, they should present at least their first stories to each other and try and explain why they did, or did not, fulfil the Biblical instruction in the particular cases (even if they choose not to tell the second story).
  - In their own opinion, were they right or wrong in their behaviour, in the case where they did not honour their parents?
• Back as a group, a few people are asked to share their second case and explain whether they think they were right or wrong.
• Present the following excerpt from Maimonides, in which he sums up the rabbinic attitude towards the question.

  And how far must one go in their reverence? Even if he is dressed in precious clothes and is sitting in an honoured place before many people, and his parents come and tear his clothes, hitting him on the head and spitting in his face, he may not shame them, but he must rather keep silent.
  Mishneh Torah: Mamrim 6:7

• Ask the group to respond to this text:
  - Do they agree with it? or
  - Do they think that there should be different limits to the obligation of honouring parents?
• Finally, first in small groups, and then all together, try and work out a modern formulation of the commandment that the group feels would be a better reflection of the ideal situation that should exist today.