Friday 5 February 2010

The 14 Commandments & Being Punished for Our Father's Sins...

In the end part of this week’s Torah parsha (parshas Yithro), G-d proclaims the Ten Commandments, commanding the people of Israel to believe in G-d, not to worship idols or take G-d's name in vain, to keep the Shabbat, honor their parents, and not to murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness or covet another's property. The people cry out to Moses that the revelation is too intense for them to bear, begging him to receive the Torah from G-d and convey it to them.

Interesting side note, all the Christian Bible translations of the Torah are erred in saying the “10 commandments.” There were no 10 commandments. What it says in Hebrew, in the Torah, is that there were עשרת הדברים (aseret ha-dibrot), which means 10 Sayings, 10 Utterances, or 10 Statements. In fact, within the 10 Utterances, if you read it, you will see there are really 14 main commandments (which are later separated into 613 mitzvos). It’s hard to believe something so clear could have been so poorly translated and misrepresented. But that’s neither here nor there.

Within the 14 commandments lies one in particular that I would like to discuss more in-depth, as I find it particularly meaningful.

From Shemos (Exodus), 20:5

{“You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them [idols], for I, the L-rd, your G-d, am a jealous G-d, Who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me”}

Rashi, the “father” of Talmud/Torah commentary takes issue with the wording, לשנאי [lisonay - those who hate Me (meaning G-d)] and is bothered by the idea of a son being punished for his father’s sins. This is a great question for us to think about. When a father sins, why should the next four generations be punished?

Rashi says this is to be understood that G-d remembers the sin of the fathers against the children only “when they hold the deed of the fathers in their hands” meaning that they maintain their fathers’ sinful behavior.

I found it interesting that the word the Torah uses for לשנאי (lisonay) can also mean “to repeat.” This shows that he who is punished most is the person who repeats the sin of his father; because, as Rashi explains it, he will be punished for his sin and the sin of his father.

Another great sage, Rabbi Judah Loew, known as the MaHaRaL of Prague asks the question, “Why should a son pay for his father’s sin even if he himself is guilty of the same sin?” In his masterpiece the Gur Aryeh al HaTorah, the MaHaRaL brings a proof from another part in the Torah that supports his concern: “A man in his sin shall he die.” If a man sins, let him be punished for his own sin; don’t let him be punished for his father’s sin as well.

The MaHaRaL goes on to explain that the son is part of the father, just like an ענף (anef) “branch” is part of a tree. He also explains that a son is the foot of his father. He comes to understand that a son and his father are one in the same, and is therefore punished for his father’s sin on top of his sin because they are made of the same fiber. The only exception, he notes, is when the branch breaks off from the tree, when the son does not follow the sins of his father.

In his other masterpiece, Tif'ereth Yisrael, the MaHaRaL delves deeper in his explanation. He teaches us that a tree can grow straight, like a righteous person, or it can go off the derech (the ‘way’ or ‘path’). And when it goes astray (ie when a father sins), the branches go out in four directions. He adds that when a son follows his father’s evil, he remains part of the tree.

What we learn from this is that if the tree grows straight, it can grow high, it can reach the heavens. If it does not, the branches go in four directions, symbolic of the four directions of the world (North, South, East, and West); meaning that once Man goes “off the derech” and starts sinning, he will sin in every direction, in every way. If a man starts lying, it could easily lead him to cheating and stealing, for example.

The The MaHaRaL also teaches us that the seed, or zera, of a man is like the zera of a fruit. We can interpret that by saying if a fruit is spoiled, it will spoil the seed. And if that seed is spoiled, it will grow into an entire tree that is spoiled, producing more spoiled fruits with more spoiled seeds. It’s a seemingly endless cycle.

When learning this from the Torah and the sages I had two additional thoughts.

On a simple level, Rashi and the MaHaRaL comment that the son is not punished if he does not follow his father. On a deeper level, I would disagree (and so would Rashi and MaHaRaL). If the sin the father commits is so terrible and scarring, it punishes his sons and every generation to follow. The father might find relief that his sons and subsequent generations won’t be punished for his sins, but what he doesn’t realize that the consequences of his actions have a lasting effect on everyone in his family. What he does not realize is that just by having to live with what their father has done, all the sons and subsequent generations will suffer more than the father himself could ever suffer.

Another question that has been bothering me is, “What happens to the father if the son doesn’t follow?”

We have seen from all the great commentators that if the son does not follow in his father’s sins and poor decisions, the son is not punished. But wasn’t hurting the son one of the father’s biggest punishments? Wasn’t that how G-d promised to punish the father? By making his sons suffer for four generations?

So how is the father punished if the son doesn’t follow the father’s ways and thus incur the punishment?

There are a couple of thoughts that come to mind. As we learned from the MaHaRaL, the son is the leg of his father. So if the leg breaks away and separates from the father, what happens? If you take a man’s leg from him, he can no longer walk. We also learned that a son is a branch from the tree which is the father. And if you break the branches from the tree, there will be nothing left on the tree to bear fruit. The branch will form its own tree, separate from the infected tree. And if a seed somehow remains pure even when surrounded by a poisoned fruit, the purity of the seed will prevail and will allow for a new, pure fruit tree to grow, leaving the genetics of the poisoned fruit behind.

In the next verse, 20:6, the Torah continues:

{“and [I] perform loving kindness to thousands [of generations], to those who love Me and to those who keep My commandments.”}

Rashi comments that G-d “guards the kindness that a person does to pay reward to the descendants of the one who did the kindness for thousands of generations, because G-d’s aspect of mida tovah (goodness and loving-kindess) is greater than his mida pooranoot (punishment).” While the ratio of punishing evil to remembering kindness is 1 to 500, we learn from the text that G-d infinitely rewards chesed (loving-kindness).

This reminds me of what happened when Cain killed his brother Abel, when G-d promised to punish Cain as well as his descendent seven generations later. On the other end, we see that Avram Avinu (Avram our Father), the Patriarch of the Jewish People, who himself was mida chesed (loving-kindess) was protected by G-d and promised that his descendents would flourish and be protected for the emunah (faith) and chesed that he had. And we see thousands of years later we, the Jewish People, sons of Avraham are still protected by G-d and the chesed of our Father. This must surely be related to the verse in the first prayer of the Amidah (Shmoneh-esrei), in which we thank G-d for being “magen Avraham” (the shield of Avraham). G-d has shielded and protected the Jewish people for all these years because of the chesed he performed.

To Conclude:

If the seed of a poison fruit were to keep the poison of the fruit, every subsequent generation of tree, seed, and fruit would be bad. But if that seed can somehow change and become pure and good, even though it is surrounded by a bad fruit, and not allow the poison to turn it bad, it can start a new tree, a good tree, which will produce new seeds, good seeds, and new fruits which will remain pure and good forever. Without any bad seeds to keep its cycle, the bad fruit will rot and perish while the cycle of the good seed will last forever.

May we all plant good seeds, seeds of chesed (loving-kindness) and watch them grow to continue the chesed, forming good trees that will forever bring good fruit, for generations and generations.