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HALACHA, HASHKAFA AND PARENTING

Honoring Parents: Money, Names, and the Limits of Kavod

Honoring Parents: Money, Names, and the Limits of Kavod

Part of Halacha, Hashkafa and Parenting · 12:22

A halachic survey of kavod av v'eim: who must pay to feed a father, when honoring a parent causes real financial loss, and whether maaser sheni or maaser ani funds can be used to support him.

Audio Transcript
Changing Names and the Translator’s Restrictions

should change the name, in other words he shouldn't mention the name, cuz a person doesn't mention the name of his father and you don't mention your Rabbi by name. תורגמן אינו משנה לא לשם אביו ולא לשם רבו. The תורגמן, the one that used to repeat, he doesn't change. Gemara will give an example what it means. The Gemara wants to know first: אבוה דמאן? Whose father are we talking about? Is the father of the of the one who is giving the shiur, of the chacham, or is the father of the מתורגמן? אילימא אבוה דמתורגמן, if that if that would mean the father of the מתורגמן, makes no sense. What does it say? The chacham changes, and the מתורגמן doesn't. If it's the name of the father of the מתורגמן, איהו תורגמן לאו בר חיוביא הוא? The the תורגמן doesn't have a chiyuv of כיבוד אב? How could he mention his father's name? אלא אמר רבא, it means like this: שם אביו של חכם או שם רבו של חכם. We're talking about the father, the name of the father of the chacham or the Rabbi of the chacham. And כי הא דמר בר רב אשי, like Mar bar Rav Ashi, Mar the son of רב אשי, כי הוה דריש בפירקא, when he would darshan the perek, would give the shiur, איהו אמר, he would say, אבא מרי. I want to say over something in the name of my father, but he used to didn't say his father's name, which his name was Ashi, Rav Ashi. He would say my father, and he would add the word מרי, my father, my Rabbi. And אמורא, the מתורגמן, אמר, he would he would repeat and he would say, הכא אמר רב אשי, cuz it's not his father, so he could say, this is what Rav Ashi said. תנו רבנן: איזהו מורא ואיזהו כיבוד? You know there are two dinim by a father and mother. There is כבד את אביך ואת אמך, and it's a איש אמו ואביו תיראו. You have to have kavod and mora. Kavod: respect, and fear.

Defining Kavod and Mora in Father‑Respect

What is mora? When did you fulfill the mitzvah of mora and when is kavod? מורא: לא עומד במקומו. If there is a מקום קבוע where the father stands, you're not allowed to stand there. ולא יושב במקומו, don't sit in his seat. ולא סותר את דבריו, don't contradict what he said. If he says don't and ולא מכריע. Don't argue with him. ולא סותר means maybe not not to disturb, not to interrupt him, no? No, סותר, that's not סותר, that's מפסיק. מפסיק would be סותר. Isn't it basically the same thing? It could be, that sounds like the same thing, but one is like מכריע is you give him right, say, oh yeah, I think you're right. You shouldn't do that because it's not kavod, who are you to think that your father is right? So that's מורא, that's things that you shouldn't do. And כיבוד is מאכיל, you feed him, משקה, you give him to drink, ומלביש, and you give him to cover him with clothes, ומכסה, you cover him with a coat, מכניס, you bring him in, מוציא, you take him out, in other words you help him walk, you help him come to shul, go out of shul. Okay, but first thing is you give him to eat.

Who Pays for Feeding Father? משׁל מי?

איבעיא להו, so there was a question asked, משל מי? When it says you have to give him to eat, whose food? In other words, at whose expense? רב יהודה אמר: משל בן. It's a mitzvah the son has to spend money on food to give his father food. And רב נתן בר אושעיא אמר, רב נתן בר אושעיא says, משל אב. There's no דין that you have to spend money to feed your father. It's the father's food, the father's money, but you have an obligation to feed him, to give it to him, to bring it to him, to feed him. And אורו ליה רבנן לרבי ירמיה, the רבנן פסק'נד to Rabbi Yirmiyah, ואמרי לה, some say to the בריה דרבי ירמיה, Rabbi Yirmiyah's son, כמאן דאמר משל אב. Yeah, like the one that holds משל אב, so the halacha is that the father the son does not have to spend money. Now though if the father has no money, it's a different thing, then it's a tzedakah. Yeah, if he's poor, you have to give tzedakah. עס איז עניי עמך, the closest one. Oh, and always the klal is that כל הקרוב קרוב יותר. So since your father is the closest one, so you give him. But it's not a דין of כיבוד אב. It's considered tzedakah? Sure. Well, if he doesn't have food, any person doesn't have food and you give To your father, right, it's considered tzedakah because you have no chiyuv to spend money on him as chiyuv of כיבוד אב. So it's tzedakah. But if he does have money, then you still have to feed him, but then it's the actual giving him, it's the the the act. That's how you pask'n. Meitivei, the Gemara asks a kashya. Ne'emar, it says כבד את אביך ואת אמך, honor your father and mother. Ne'emar, there's a pasuk, כבד את ה' מהונך. You should give kavod to ה' from your money. To give kavod to ה' costs money. Buy a nice pair of tefillin, costs money. To to to learn Torah, sometimes you have to ask someone to teach, I mean to serve So it says you have to be kavod to ה' with your money. מה להלן בחסרון כיס אף כאן בחסרון כיס. Since the pasuk says the two together, just like by the Eibershter it means you should spend your money to give kavod to the Eibershter, so the same thing should be you should spend your money to give kavod to your father, to your parents. ואי אמרת משל אב, if you're saying that you don't have to spend money, you just take the father's money, מאי נפקא ליה מיניה? So what's the p'shat it's a חסרון כיס? We learn out from the כבד את אביך כבד את ה' מהונך that you have to lose money to כיבוד אב.

Financial Loss for Honoring Parents (חסרון כיס)

What do you lose money. The Gemara answers בביטול מלאכה. You don't have to, his money, but while you're doing it, lose much more money with that. Not always. You're really out of taking off from work. Taking off from work, taking off from work. So that taking off from work is is money. Go back and forth and all over the place. And you So it comes out an interesting thing: you have For the food itself you don't, but you can't ask your father to compensate you for the time that you spent to to drive him to the hospital, to drive him to a doctor. You can't ask him for it. Could cost you more than the food. Yeah, and it's possible it costs you more, I'm saying. Not always, but it's possible. But that's what he has to time off from work. Depends how much you get paid. Depends what kind of food you give him. Not always do you take take off time from work where you're working a a job that pays a lot. And if he offers, and if he wants to pay for it? He could take. Why, anybody can give anything. Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm mixing in. It says it says, שונא מתנות יחיה. Would you Would it be mevatel the כיבוד? No, no. Okay. Because the כיבוד has nothing to do with the money. So the Gemara, תא שמע. Come, with another she'eilah. Says in the beraita like this: שני אחים, two brothers, שני שותפין, two partners, האב ובנו, or a father and a son, הרב ותלמידו, or a Rabbi and his תלמיד, פודין זה לזה מעשר שני, could take off maaser could to redeem maaser sheni one for another. Let me just explain what that means. When you When you What's maaser sheni? There's no chomesh. What's maaser sheni? Maaser sheni is when the the the first and second and fourth and fifth year of the shemita, you take off teruma, and you take off maaser rishon, and you take maaser sheni. What do you do with maaser rishon? You give it to the Levi. Maaser sheni you give to nobody, you keep it yourself, but it becomes holy, and you take it to Yerushalayim, and you have to eat it bikdusha, and you can't be tamei, etc. What happens if you have a lot? You have your maaser is is is ten So you redeem it for money, and you schlep the money to Yerushalayim and then Now, there's a difference: If if you

Redeeming Maaser Sheni for Yourself and Adding a Fifth

do it for yourself, if the person redeems his own, so whatever the value is, he has to add a fifth. The Rambam says the reason probably comes out from the Rambam: because if you for yourself, maybe you'll be too stingy, you know. So the Torah said add a fifth. If someone else would If someone else comes, say, \"You know what? I'll buy it, I'll redeem it,\" and so then you don't have to add a fifth. Now, what happens if it's two two partners? One wants to be the one to redeem his partner's maaser, or a brother, or a father and a son, or a רב ותלמידו? It's like selling. It's not like selling. It's like selling, you're redeeming. If this fruit is worth a hundred dollars When you said someone else wants and he wants to say, \"I'll give you the hundred dollars and you give me the food.\" Now the hundred dollars will become will become מעשר, הקדושה of maaser in the food. So you would think that a father and a son or all these partners are like one, so just like if you yourself redeem it, you have to add a fifth, so maybe a partner also has to add the fifth? A father and a son has to add the fifth, because we're all like one, the father and eat together? The din is not like that. You could be podeh one for another maaser sheni without adding a fifth. ומאכילין זה לזה מעשר עני, and you could give each other maaser ani. If a person is poor, who gets maaser ani? A poor man. But you shouldn't take the maaser ani for yourself. What happens if a person is poor himself? You don't take the maaser ani, you got to give it to a different ani. What happens if your father is poor? You could give him the maaser ani. Even though you would think maybe it's like yourself, and to yourself you can't take? Okay. So the Gemara's kushya is, אי אמרת משל בן, if you're going to say, according to the opinion that the son has to spend money, has to give his money to be מקיים כיבוד אב, it has to be on his expense, נמצא זה פורע חובו משל עניים. So he had an obligation to feed his father anyway, he owes it. Now

Using Maaser Ani for Father – Gemara’s Dilemma

we're saying he could give his father maaser ani, so he's paying a debt that he owes with maaser ani! You can't pay a debt with maaser ani! If you owe it, how could you pay maaser ani? So the Gemara says, לא צריכא להעדפה. Oh, it's still possible. Extra. Two separate mitzvot in a sense, no? That combine, כיבוד אב and מעשר עני? What's the mitzvah of מעשר עני, it's It's not a mitzvah? Of what? מעשר עני? It's not a mitzvah? Of giving it to the עני? Yeah. No. So? And then I'm asking: can you combine the two mitzvot? That's what the Gemara's asking. But here it's not because combining two mitzvot. The she'eilah is, how could he give מעשר עני, which means he has מעשר עני which he took which he has to give it to an עני. To an עני, yeah. But this, to the father, he owes money. He owes the food costs a hundred dollars, he owes him a hundred dollars. Now you're going to take מעשר עני and give it to him, so you're paying your debt with He doesn't have clear Why does he owe the father a hundred dollars? No, because if משל בן, if the halachah is that you have to feed your father from your money, that means any food that you have to give him, you have to spend the money. So על פי Torah, you You owe him. He's got an asset then. That's not because I'm an עני, you're paying a חוב to somebody who He is an עני. Until you give him the food, he's an עני, he became an עני, your father. But you're paying your and you have a debt to pay him. You have to give him the food today. You have to give him breakfast. You'll take the מעשר עני and you'll give him the the מעשר עני on that חשבון. So the Gemara says it could be להעדפה. He has to give him average. You have to give him, you know, normal food. What happens if your father wants eppes a, best besere shtikl food, or more, so then you're not מחויב. Even if you hold that משל בן, you're not מחויב. But if you, then you could give him מעשר עני. So take azoy, according to this opinion you can't give him from מעשר עני the regular amount that you have to give him. Ver zogt men ken gebn extra fun מעשר עני א עני? All the עניים are esn di zelbe, you can't give extra stuff for an עני. The braita says you can. If you give a מעשר עני to an עני, he can't eat extra? You don't go sit in his table. If you give a מעשר עני, a guy you have a hundred dollars worth of food you give it to him, and he eats and he likes to eat extra, so he eats a little bit more, he's not allowed to eat from his מעשר עני? Sure he is. Who says you're allowed to give you're allowed to give it's not considered that you're גזל'ינג from the other עניים when you give extra to one עני? So I'm saying, why shouldn't a person who takes מעשר עני, if he eats extra, he should be גזל'ינג from other עניים? What kind of right do you have to eat No, העדפה means העדפה doesn't mean how much he wants to eat. העדפה means more expensive, more better. More than average, whether it's more in כמות or more in איכות. More, pashut more, he likes to eat a lot, or better food. But the bottom line is, if an עני who takes מעשר עני, he could do that. There was always a she'eilah, some people would see people who take food stamps, and they go to the store and they buy chocolate with it and they buy candies with it. Yeah, it's a chillul Hashem. That's what the people say, but l'poel the law is you could. There's nothing against the law with it. I don't know about that. What's against the law? Food stamps are supposed to be for milk, to feed eggs, to feed the I know. Right, but no, but I think Certainly, you can't buy Soon as they see people doing that they say, \"They don't need it,\" and then they report them. But I don't think it's illegal. They report them and they and they're and they're מבקר, they מבקר the פנקס. That's something else. They'll check in this case to see maybe he doesn't need it. But he didn't steal, he didn't steal from the government when he went to the store and bought chocolate. It's just that people will start saying, he's probably lying, he probably doesn't deserve it. It's something else. Okay, let's go vayter. So the Gemara asks, if you're saying now that we're talking when could he give him מעשר עני only if it's extra, אי הכי, if so, הא ני דתניא? אלא, look what it says. It says on this beraisa, it says that אמר רבי יהודה: תבוא מאירה למי שמאכיל את אביו מעשר עני. A curse should come upon the person who feeds his father מעשר עני. ואי להעדפה, מאי נפקא מינה? Giving him extra, why Giving him only extra, why should be a curse? Mila if you used your whole, because So if it's He didn't want to pay

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