Rabbi's Corner

In this week’s parashah, Parashat Yitro, we read the following: “For I, HaShem your G-d, am an impassioned G-d, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject me but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Shemot 20:5-6) You may ask: “Is this fair?  Why do I have to pay for the “sins” of my father?”  Rashi explains that a son must pay for his father’s sins when he (the son) continues to transgress in the same manner that his father did.  Indeed, halachah (Jewish Law) specifically states that orphans are required to pay their parents’ debts (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, 107.a) If this is true of material debts, then al achat kammah ve-kammah (how much more so) is this true of spiritual debts?  And while you may think that there is no connection between the two, there is this striking similarity: with material/monetary debts, the creditor can be merciful and decide to forego the debt; with spiritual debts, t’shuvah (repentance and returning to HaShem) can bring about Hashem’s compassionate decision to release the debt.  In either case, the son’s decision to forego the ways of his father causes the release of the liability for his father’s misdeeds that is mentioned in the Torah.  Perhaps this Chasidic parable will promote clarification of this principle:

A group of loafers and local derelicts would spend their days in idleness and their nights drinking vodka and playing cards.  Frequently, they would break into the local Synagogue at the edge of town and desecrate the sacred house of study and prayer with their drinking and gambling.  Several times a week, the unfortunate beadle would open the Synagogue before Shacharit prayers and discover a veritable disaster before his eyes: garbage as well as peanut shells and empty liquor and beer bottles would be strewn all over the place.  The frustrated beadle would then have to clean up the whole mess before the first congregants would arrive.  After all, who would be blamed if the Synagogue was tidy and in order upon their arrival?  Of course, the beadle would be blamed!  What a terrible situation he found himself in!

The beadle decided he must put an end to the derelicts’ desecration of the Synagogue once and for all!  To do so, he planned to stay awake all night and lie in wait in the Ezras Nashim (the upstairs women’s gallery).  That very same night, a group of the derelicts’ sons decided that they had as much right as did their fathers to do exactly what their fathers were doing.  Like their fathers, they obtained a supply of beer, liquor, snacks, and a deck of cards, snuck into the Synagogue, and settled in drinking, eating, and carrying on until…The beadle, a robust man whose arms had chopped their share of firewood over the years, had waited until midnight to make his move.  When the clock struck midnight, he pounced upon the youths like a lion on his prey.  The six or so youths suffered a rain of blows from the beadle’s two vengeful fists, from a leather strap, and from the wooden soles of his Cossack boots.  Not a single one of them managed to escape the beadle’s wrath.  “For two whole years, you brats have made my life miserable!” he screamed.  “Even worse than that, you have been defiling the Holy House of Hashem!  Nobody has ever paid me for all the extra work you’ve caused me to do!  But now you will pay the price!  None of you will sit for a year!”  Crying, the boys protested and tried to explain that this was the first time they had done this, but to no avail.  They ended up suffering all the punishment that was really intended for their derelict fathers.

 The next evening the derelict fathers returned and, once again, they left the Synagogue in filth and disarray.  The beadle arrived in the morning before daybreak, as usual, and what did he see when he opened the door?  He found the Synagogue was impeccable, spotlessly clean and miraculously sweet-smelling.  Suddenly he heard some rustling under one of the tables.  “Who’s in here?” he bellowed.  A freckle-faced, red-headed boy all of fifteen years of age crawled out from under the table where he was hiding.  He had in his hand the rag with which he had been scrubbing the floor.  “It is I, Lipa the son of Kalman,” the boy replied.  “I am so ashamed.  I discovered that my father is part of the gang the defiles this Synagogue.”  Tears were running down the boy’s cheeks.  “I have tried my hardest to clean up the mess.  Please forgive me!”  The beadle leaned over and kissed the boy on his forehead.  Not only did this young tzaddik refuse to follow the ways of his father, he even did his best to try to make right his father’s wrong.  As a result, instead of being struck, kicked and whipped by the beadle as were the boy’s delinquent friends, he, Lipa the son of Kalman, got a kiss instead.

The lesson of this Chasidic parable is obvious: as Rashi explains, sons rightfully pay for the sins of their wayward fathers when they walk in their fathers’ footsteps.  But when sons discard their wayward fathers’ errant ways, when they do t’shuvah and return to Hashem, they are no longer liable for their father’s sins.  May we all return to Avinu Malkeinu, our Father, our King, soon in an effort to walk in H-s ways!