This sheet on Exodus 20 was written by Shai Held for 929 and can also be found here
The fifth of the Ten Commandments reads: “Honor (kabed) your father and mother, that you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is giving to you (Exodus 20:12).” Noting that we are commanded to “honor” both our parents and God, the Talmud concludes that Scripture equates the honor due parents with the honor due to God (BT Kiddushin 30b). And yet the parameters of the obligation are not obvious: What is required by the commandment, and even: to whom is it addressed?
Patrick Miller writes: “The commandment was not primarily directed to children, to tell them how to treat their parents, but to adults; this means that this commandment has in mind especially how mature adults are to treat their older or elderly parents.” Caring for the frail and infirm can be exhausting and enervating, and the Torah worries about the all-too-human temptation to abandon them. The fifth commandment thus “focuses on the mature person, no longer under the control of parents and now probably stronger than they are in every way” (Deuteronomy, 1990, p. 84).
Walter Brueggemann writes that “the fifth commandment reflects parents who have by aging lost their productive capacity and therefore their social utility... it comes close to the Sabbath command that affirms that life does not consist in productivity. Sabbath is the celebration of life beyond and outside productivity.”
Taken together, then, the obligations to observe Shabbat and honor parents make a powerful—and in our own time, urgently important—point: Our worth as human beings does not derive from our jobs or from how much we produce, but from the simple fact that we are created in the image of God.
Patrick Miller writes: “The commandment was not primarily directed to children, to tell them how to treat their parents, but to adults; this means that this commandment has in mind especially how mature adults are to treat their older or elderly parents.” Caring for the frail and infirm can be exhausting and enervating, and the Torah worries about the all-too-human temptation to abandon them. The fifth commandment thus “focuses on the mature person, no longer under the control of parents and now probably stronger than they are in every way” (Deuteronomy, 1990, p. 84).
Walter Brueggemann writes that “the fifth commandment reflects parents who have by aging lost their productive capacity and therefore their social utility... it comes close to the Sabbath command that affirms that life does not consist in productivity. Sabbath is the celebration of life beyond and outside productivity.”
Taken together, then, the obligations to observe Shabbat and honor parents make a powerful—and in our own time, urgently important—point: Our worth as human beings does not derive from our jobs or from how much we produce, but from the simple fact that we are created in the image of God.
(יב) כַּבֵּ֥ד אֶת־אָבִ֖יךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּ֑ךָ לְמַ֙עַן֙ יַאֲרִכ֣וּן יָמֶ֔יךָ עַ֚ל הָאֲדָמָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לָֽךְ׃ (ס)
(12) Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the LORD your God is assigning to you.
Rabbi Shai Held is President, Dean, and Chair in Jewish Thought at Hadar
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