Ki Teitzei is a loaded parasha, with all kinds of halachot and mitzvot and issurim. The Torah starts off with the mitzvah of “Ki Teitzei,” and Chazal tell us that the person who took the eshet yefat to’ar will eventually have a ben sorer umoreh. This is where we are getting to today: the ben sorer umoreh.
Such a child doesn’t listen to his parents, he doesn’t listen to his mentors. That’s how Rashi explains the words “ben sorer umoreh.” Sorer means סָר מִן הַדֶּרֶךְ: he turns away from the road, he goes off the road. What we say today, “he went off the derech,” probably comes from this Rashi: he turns away from the paved, straight road. And what does “moreh” mean? Rashi says מְסָרֵב בְּדִבְרֵי אָבִיו, like the lashon “mamrim” that Moshe Rabbeinu uses, “mamrim heyitem im Hashem.” Moreh is somebody who refuses; he doesn’t listen, he doesn’t do as his father directs him.
The pasuk says: כִּי־יִהְיֶה לְאִישׁ בֵּן סוֹרֵר וּמוֹרֶה אֵינֶנּוּ שֹׁמֵעַ בְּקוֹל אָבִיו וּבְקוֹל אִמּוֹ וְיִסְּרוּ אֹתוֹ וְלֹא יִשְׁמַע אֲלֵיהֶם (Devarim 21:18). It’s interesting that the Torah says here “b’kol aviv uv’kol imo.” Usually when the Torah speaks, it speaks about the father much more than the mother; the Torah always brings out the father. Here it seems like two people are involved. The Torah puts in the aspect of the mother, and we’ll see soon why.
This child is not listening to his parents. “V’yisru oto v’lo yishma aleihem”: whatever they do, they try all kinds of different things, but he still doesn’t listen to them. וְתָפְשׂוּ בוֹ אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ וְהוֹצִיאוּ אֹתוֹ אֶל־זִקְנֵי עִירוֹ וְאֶל־שַׁעַר מְקֹמוֹ (Devarim 21:19): they take him, they hold him, they bring him to the beit din that’s in the gateway. וְאָמְרוּ אֶל־זִקְנֵי עִירוֹ בְּנֵנוּ זֶה סוֹרֵר וּמֹרֶה אֵינֶנּוּ שֹׁמֵעַ בְּקֹלֵנוּ זוֹלֵל וְסֹבֵא (Devarim 21:20): they tell the zekanim, which means the rabbis in the beit din, “this child of ours is a sorer umoreh, he doesn’t listen to us, and he misbehaves.” And the punishment for such a child, says the Torah: וּרְגָמֻהוּ כׇּל־אַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ בָאֲבָנִים וָמֵת וּבִעַרְתָּ הָרָע מִקִּרְבֶּךָ וְכׇל־יִשְׂרָאֵל יִשְׁמְעוּ וְיִרָאוּ (Devarim 21:21).
Many questions on this. First of all, the punishment that we just read seems very severe for somebody who didn’t do such an evil thing. He didn’t listen to his parents, he ate some meat and drank some wine, and the Torah punishes him with stoning. This is a question that Chazal in Sanhedrin already ask: how is it possible that somebody who just ate some meat and drank some wine would get such a punishment? We need to explain and understand what the Torah’s message to us is in this parasha.
Equal in Voice, Appearance and Height
First we need to know a very, very interesting idea that we need to learn for ourselves, and take with us in how we educate our children. It’s what Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says, a beautiful thing.
Chazal tell us in the Gemara in Sanhedrin (71a) that the parents of the ben sorer umoreh have to be equal in everything: רבי יהודה אומר, אם לא היתה אמו שוה לאביו בקול ובמראה ובקומה, אינו נעשה בן סורר ומורה. B’mareh means they have to look the same way; b’kol, they have to sound the same, the same voice; and b’komah, the same height. If they don’t look exactly the same, exactly identical, he doesn’t become a ben sorer umoreh.
Now, we can understand that the parents could be the same height. But the same voice? You listen to one and you listen to the other and it sounds identical? That’s almost not found; that’s something almost not shayach in the world. Not only that, Chazal tell us that if a woman has a very thick voice like a man, she can’t have children. So this seems like it can’t happen, because they have a child. And the opposite by the man is also something that doesn’t happen, that he would have a voice like a woman and have a child. Also mareh: a man and a woman who look identical is almost not found. Even two people who look identical are almost not found. We need to understand what Chazal come to tell us with those three things.
Some learn that this is the reason that a ben sorer umoreh “lo hayah v’lo atid lihyot,” there’s no such thing as a ben sorer umoreh in reality. The sefer Iyun Yaakov says that was the reason: if they have the same voice they can’t have a child, so if they had a child, that shows it’s a different voice, and it’s a contradiction. That’s how the Iyun Yaakov writes. But many poskim already show that it’s not so; the Ben Ish Chai in Ben Yehoyada shows that it could happen and they could have a child.
Whatever it is, we’re learning something very interesting here: it needs to be identical, b’kol uv’mareh uv’komah. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says a beautiful chiddush. When we come to educate our children, to do chinuch for the children, we need to know that the alef-bet is that the parents have to have the same exact goals. The father and mother have to talk the same way. They have to give the same message to the child, say the same thing, both want the same thing from the child. And not only from the child: in everything, they have to be on the same page.
If a father and mother are not on the same page, the father wants A and the mother wants B, the father gives a certain message to the kid and the mother gives a different message. The father is angry at one thing, and the mother is content and happy about the same thing, or the opposite. The father has a certain level of Yiddishkeit and the mother has a different one, and it doesn’t have to be Yiddishkeit, it can be anything. Then you need to know that you can’t blame the kid anymore for being what he is. If the kid becomes a ben sorer umoreh because of the parents’ fault, the Torah says you can’t punish him. The only time you can punish a kid for being a ben sorer umoreh is if the father and the mother are completely equal, b’kol, mareh v’komah: they give exactly the same message, everything is exactly the same, no other messages, no confusion for the kid, nothing that brings the kid to see that this is not a stable house.
And therefore I wanted to add that this is why Chachamim tell us that a ben sorer umoreh “lo hayah v’lo atid lihyot.” What does that mean? Of course you have children who don’t listen to their parents. Of course you have children who go off the derech, who do the wrong things. But that is the fault of the parents. Chazal tell us that if the kid had parents who were equal in the message they give the kids, b’kol, mareh v’komah, everything the same, and they give him the right education, the right chinuch, in every aspect, they don’t make mistakes in chinuch, it’s impossible to have a ben sorer umoreh. If a kid is brought up in a house that’s equal, “imo shavah l’aviv b’kol uv’mareh uv’komah,” it’s impossible that you’ll have a ben sorer umoreh; that’s a contradiction, it can’t happen. And if you do, then you know that something’s wrong with the household.
This is what we need to first understand. The parasha of ben sorer umoreh, although “lo hayah v’lo atid lihyot,” is a measure, something you take to know: am I educating my kid in the correct way, the right way? Am I doing everything correctly or not?
“V’hayu L’Basar Echad”
Now, how could the father and mother have the same voice and the same looks, exactly the same mareh? If something is impossible, the Torah wouldn’t write it down. When Chazal say about things “lo hayah v’lo atid lihyot,” they don’t mean that it’s impossible in reality. It means it could happen, but it just never happens, because the conditions are too hard to match. If all the conditions come about, it could happen. But here we’re saying it can’t happen: how could they be exactly the same? That’s very far to say such a thing.
It could be that this Chazal means what the pasuk tells us about the creation of Adam and Chava: עַל־כֵּן יַעֲזׇב־אִישׁ אֶת־אָבִיו וְאֶת־אִמּוֹ וְדָבַק בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ וְהָיוּ לְבָשָׂר אֶחָד (Bereshit 2:24). When a person marries his wife, there’s an obligation of “v’davak b’ishto,” they need to become one, “v’hayu l’basar echad.” The Mefarshei HaMikra learned that “v’hayu l’basar echad” means they have a child, and the child is the basar echad. But the pashtut of the pasuk, when you learn it without adding to it, is “v’davak b’ishto”: they become one. If they become one, there aren’t two entities. When you have two entities, you can say you need to compare them: the voice of the mother should be the voice of the father, the looks of the mother should be like the father. But if this is one unit, there aren’t two people here. When a mother and father walk together, they walk as a unit; everything is unified.
So that is mamash “shaveh.” It could be that this is what Chazal come to hint to us in this Gemara: “im lo hayta imo shavah l’aviv b’kol uv’mareh uv’komah,” which means you can see there’s a difference. Find the differences: the mother wants this, the father wants that, the mother tries to get her way here and the father there. There’s a problem in shalom bayit, there’s a problem with chinuch habanim, there are a lot of problems going on. Then you can’t come to the child and blame him: how are you not listening? Why are you not doing the right things? Of course he’s not doing the right things, because he gets mixed messages, because he sees that the house is not stable. And in today’s generation especially, kids fall down very, very easily in our society, because the street has so much to offer them, that if you don’t give them stability right away, they fall through the cracks.
“Einenu Shomea B’Kolenu”: The Power of Listening
So the Torah says they have to be exactly the same, b’kol uv’mareh uv’komah, and when they are the same, they can come and bring the child. What do they say when they hold the child and bring him to the ziknei ha’ir? “B’neinu zeh sorer umoreh.” What is his crime? What did he do so terrible, so evil? “Einenu shomea b’kolenu.” That’s the first thing they say, and the most troublesome thing: he doesn’t listen. You ask him for things, he doesn’t listen; he’s a rebellious kid, he doesn’t want to listen to us. That is his crime. And the Torah says that this is something that deserves the punishment of ben sorer umoreh.
It’s an interesting thing. The Torah adds: “u’regamuhu kol anshei iro ba’avanim vamet, u’viarta hara mikirbecha,” and what should happen right afterwards? “V’chol Yisrael yishme’u v’yira’u”: everybody should listen. We see the word “listen” comes a second time. The first time, we’re saying that he doesn’t listen. But now we’re saying that after people see what has happened to him, they need to start listening.
We see the same idea in last week’s parasha, Parashat Shoftim. The Torah speaks almost identically to this parasha, but not about the parents; rather about listening to the rabbis. What does it say there? כִּי יִפָּלֵא מִמְּךָ דָבָר לַמִּשְׁפָּט בֵּין־דָּם לְדָם בֵּין־דִּין לְדִין וּבֵין נֶגַע לָנֶגַע דִּבְרֵי רִיבֹת בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ וְקַמְתָּ וְעָלִיתָ אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בּוֹ (Devarim 17:8). Whenever you have a question, something that you’re unsure of, that you don’t know: וּבָאתָ אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם וְאֶל־הַשֹּׁפֵט אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וְדָרַשְׁתָּ וְהִגִּידוּ לְךָ אֵת דְּבַר הַמִּשְׁפָּט (Devarim 17:9). When you’re doubtful about something, go to the rabbis, the kohanim, the Levi’im and the shofet, which were the rabbis in that time, and you have to listen to them. וְעָשִׂיתָ עַל־פִּי הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר יַגִּידוּ לְךָ מִן־הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְהֹוָה וְשָׁמַרְתָּ לַעֲשׂוֹת כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר יוֹרוּךָ עַל־פִּי הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר יוֹרוּךָ וְעַל־הַמִּשְׁפָּט אֲשֶׁר־יֹאמְרוּ לְךָ תַּעֲשֶׂה לֹא תָסוּר מִן־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר־יַגִּידוּ לְךָ יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאל (Devarim 17:10–11). The Torah repeats it over and over again: you have to listen to them, you have to do as they say, “lo tasur.” You must listen.
And the Torah adds: וְהָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂה בְזָדוֹן לְבִלְתִּי שְׁמֹעַ אֶל־הַכֹּהֵן הָעֹמֵד לְשָׁרֶת שָׁם אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אוֹ אֶל־הַשֹּׁפֵט וּמֵת הָאִישׁ הַהוּא וּבִעַרְתָּ הָרָע מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל (Devarim 17:12), again the word listen: a person who doesn’t listen. Chazal explain to us that this doesn’t mean regular people; it’s about the rabbanim who sit in the Sanhedrin. But at least the same idea is a message to us: a person must listen. What does the Torah add there? Exactly like by ben sorer umoreh: וְכׇל־הָעָם יִשְׁמְעוּ וְיִרָאוּ וְלֹא יְזִידוּן עוֹד (Devarim 17:13). Again, everybody should listen.
Why does the Torah say the word “yishme’u”? When they kill such a person they kill him publicly, so everybody can see. So what is this “yishme’u,” again the same as by ben sorer umoreh, who was also killed publicly? Rather, “yishme’u” is what we’re explaining right now. People have to be able to accept and listen to the mentors, to the rabbis, to the parents. Somebody has to direct them. A person comes to this world, he doesn’t know everything. He needs to be directed, he needs to be put on the right path. Somebody needs to come and explain to him: this is the right way and this is not. If you leave a person undirected, without guidance, such a person goes off. Ben sorer: he goes off, he goes off the derech, he can’t hold onto the derech.
So in our parasha, what was the crime of the ben sorer umoreh? “Einenu shomea b’kolenu.” And what does the Torah say you should do? Make sure that “kol ha’am yishme’u,” people will start listening. In last week’s parasha we had the same exact idea, but towards the rabbis: “v’ha’ish asher ya’aseh v’zadon l’vilti shmoa,” a person who doesn’t listen to the rabbis gets the same punishment, and the Torah says on him “v’chol ha’am yishme’u.” Because the most powerful mentors that a person has are his parents and his rabbis or teachers, the guidance that gives him the right direction to go, the right path.
We find in last week’s parasha again, when we’re talking about listening, that sometimes a person could listen to the wrong places: כִּי הַגּוֹיִם הָאֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה יוֹרֵשׁ אוֹתָם אֶל־מְעֹנְנִים וְאֶל־קֹסְמִים יִשְׁמָעוּ וְאַתָּה לֹא כֵן נָתַן לְךָ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ (Devarim 18:14). They listen to the me’onenim and the kosmim, which means they listen to the wrong messages. In our generation we have so many wrong messages, so many places that kids can get their information from that are the me’onenim and kosmim. They listen to the wrong people. And it’s so easy to make that change, from listening to the right people to listening to the wrong people; people could change overnight. We need to be extra careful to make sure that those kids stick with the right message, with the right mentors, the right rabbis, the right teachers, the right parents. And that is done, as I explained before, only with that very powerful message: the parents have to be together, united, and give a straight message to the kids in the right way, in the most profound way, in a loving way. Not something that makes the kid feel on the defensive; when a kid feels on the defensive, or he’s offended by the parents, that’s another reason a kid would not listen.
The Talmid Chacham Whose Children Went Off the Derech
Another very interesting thing, with the same idea that the kid doesn’t listen, is a story that happened with Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. It comes to teach us how a parent should educate his children, what messages he should give his children. Somebody came to Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and this person was a tremendous talmid chacham. He told him: “Look, I’m learning, I’ve been learning all my life, I know so much, and I don’t know why my kids went off the derech. Look at what happened to me, it’s a disaster.”
Rav Shlomo Zalman saw that he was devastated. And he added salt to the wound. He told him: “My neighbor is a regular person, a regular baal habayit, nothing special. He doesn’t sit and learn, maybe a half an hour a day, that’s all he has time for; he works all day. And his children, each one is better than the other. I don’t understand why he was zocheh and mine are completely off. What’s going on?”
Rav Shlomo Zalman, after speaking to him for a while (he also knew him from the past), told him: “I’ll explain to you where the problem is. Since your kids were young, they came home from yeshiva on Shabbat with a paper from the Rebbe, where the Rebbe wrote a chiddush on the parasha. The child comes home all happy and tells you the chiddush that the Rebbe said, and while you’re reading it you tell the kid: look, it doesn’t make any sense. The question and the answer don’t match; the answer doesn’t answer the question. Something’s wrong with this dvar Torah that the Rebbe wrote. Maybe on the surface it looks like it answers, but it’s completely off. The child hears that, and the next Shabbat the father proves again that the dvar Torah is wrong. Slowly, slowly, the child understands: Rebbeim don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s the message he gets from the father.”
“One time the menahel came and said a shiur in the yeshiva. The child comes all happy to the father and tells him the chiddush the menahel said. The father says: what kind of thing is this? The young menahel doesn’t know there’s an explicit Gemara, not like that. Look, read this Gemara. The menahel said beautiful things, but it’s just incorrect. So the child gets the message again: the menahel also doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Then the Rosh Yeshiva came and gave a shiur, unbelievable, this pilpul and that pilpul, beautiful things. The child comes to the father and tells him, look what the Rosh Yeshiva said. The father, who as we said was a tremendous talmid chacham, sees that the dvar Torah of the Rosh Yeshiva doesn’t even start, and he tells the child: my dear child, how could the Rosh Yeshiva say such a thing? It doesn’t even start, there’s nothing to it, it’s completely wrong.”
“So the child understands: the Rebbeim don’t know what they’re talking about, the menahel doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and the Rosh Yeshiva, whom people come to from all over the world to speak to in learning and whom everybody seems to respect, was also proven wrong. The message such a child gets is that all his Rebbeim, all the people who teach him, all the people who are supposed to lead him and tell him the right way, don’t know what they’re talking about. Such a child can’t have a normal feeling towards Torah, towards his Rebbeim, towards those who educate him.”
“That is the mistake that you made,” said Rav Shlomo Zalman to this talmid chacham. “You educated your child to be disrespectful to the rabbis.” And therefore he took away the power of shomea, as we spoke about before, the power of the ear, of opening your ear to what the mentors have to say, to what the Rebbe has to say, to what the teacher has to say, to what the Torah has to say. You blocked it. You told him that nobody knows what they’re talking about, and therefore he lost this ko’ach of listening.
And that was different by your neighbor, a pashut baal habayit. He goes on the street and sees an avrech, a simple young avrech going to learn Torah, and he tells his children: wow, did you see this Rabbi walking, going to learn Torah? It’s unbelievable what he’s doing, look at him! And the kid looks and sees the avrech. The next day the father sees another avrech: look, look! Slowly, slowly the child gets the message: this is something special, this is something I want to be like, this is the special thing that Hashem created, an avrech who learns Torah. Not even a Rabbi, an avrech, the bachur who goes to learn Torah, such a special thing. When a child gets that over and over again, he grows to be somebody with an open ear: what do those avrechim have to tell me, what do the rabbis have to tell me, what do the Roshei Yeshivot have to tell me? The ear starts opening up slowly, slowly, and together with that, the heart opens up.
This is the answer he gave him. This baal habayit, since he wasn’t as great as you in learning, respected those talmidei chachamim. You could have done the same exact thing. Although you know the Rabbi is wrong, you don’t have to point it out to the child. Although you know the Rosh Yeshiva was wrong, you don’t have to point it out to the child. Even if they’re wrong, to the child you say: it’s unbelievable, it’s sweet, it’s “matok midvash” what the Rabbi said; you’re giving me Olam HaBa in this world.
“D’Karu L’Inshei Chamrei”
And this is actually an explicit Gemara. The Gemara says in Nedarim (81a): ומפני מה אין מצויין תלמידי חכמים לצאת תלמידי חכמים מבניהן, why is it so hard to see talmidei chachamim having children like them? And the Gemara gives an unbelievable answer, the answer of Rav Ashi: משום דקרו לאינשי חמרי, because they call people donkeys. What does that mean? Rashi says: שאין נוהגין להן כבוד ומבזין אותן מפני תורה שבהם. Since the talmid chacham feels himself so elevated, he ridicules anybody who’s not on his level, including rabbis, including teachers, including whoever: this gadol doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s completely wrong, look, he wrote like this, it’s a complete mistake. And I don’t think it really means that they call them donkeys; rather, this is the message the children get: the father is elevated, and everybody else is a donkey compared to the father. The father knows, and everybody else is completely ignorant. And therefore the child’s ears are closed, he doesn’t listen. Such a child has lost the power of listening that we’re talking about by ben sorer umoreh.
The Gemara says in Shabbat (23b): דרחים רבנן, הוו ליה בנין רבנן. דמוקיר רבנן, הוו ליה חתנוותא רבנן. דדחיל מרבנן, הוא גופיה הוי צורבא מרבנן. ואי לאו בר הכי הוא, משתמען מיליה כצורבא מרבנן. A person who loves rabbis, his children will love rabbis, and not only love rabbis, they’ll be rabbis themselves. A person who respects rabbis, his chatanim, the ones his daughters marry, will be talmidei chachamim. And a person who is afraid of rabbis: some people see a Rabbi and it’s like their friend, “hey, how are you,” nothing special. But when you see a Rabbi and you understand that something special is standing in front of you, and you feel the fear of the Chachamim, that’s yirat hakavod, not yirat ha’onesh, although Chachamim tell us how severe it is if the Rabbis are makpid on a person, as they say in Pirkei Avot and in many places, brought down in halacha in Shulchan Aruch. A person who fears rabbanan, he himself becomes a talmid chacham.
Why is that? Because the most powerful feeling children need from their parents, from their father, is the feeling of love. A child must feel loved by his parents. He needs many other feelings, he needs to be given many other messages, but this is the most powerful feeling a child needs from his father. So if the child sees that the tool of love goes also to rabbis, that talks to him more than anything else. He himself wants to become a rabbi, because this is the tool that’s talking to him best, the most powerful tool in his ears.
A person who is mokir rabbanan, who respects rabbis, will have chatanim who are rabbis. Why? Because respect is what you yourself feel towards others, and you’re going to look for your daughters for the things you respect the most. You could love all kinds of things, you love even people who are no good, people who are nebachs, but that’s not what you’re looking for for your daughter. For your daughter you’re looking for somebody you respect at the peak. The person who respects lawyers will try to find his daughter a lawyer. The person who respects doctors, that’s what he’ll look for: find me a doctor, that’s my first priority. Comes the Gemara and says: if a person respects talmidei chachamim to the peak, he’s going to look for his daughter for a rabbi, a talmid chacham, somebody who’s going to become a ben Torah or is a ben Torah.
And the third thing: the person who is afraid, who feels the fear of rabbanan and Chachamim, himself becomes a talmid chacham. Why? We said that the most powerful feeling for a child is love, and the most powerful feeling towards others that I would like to be like, or have as part of my family, is respect. But towards the person himself, what moves a person more than anything else is the feeling of fear. If you need to convince somebody and he’s not convinced, you talk to him, you try all different ways, but the most powerful way to move anybody is to cause him to be fearful. So if a person feels the fear of rabbanan, that’s going to have the most effect on him, and it will open his own ears in the most powerful way, and he himself will become like those rabbanan. And if he’s not talented enough, the Gemara says, “mishtam’an milei k’tzurva merabbanan”: people will listen to his words as if he were a talmid chacham, because he has that fear, he feels that feeling.
So we learned today from the ben sorer umoreh that the most important thing we need to know in chinuch habanim is that you have to come as one unit. Me and my wife are one unit, and when we come to the kids, it’s “shavim b’kol uv’mareh uv’komah”: same message, same things. If there’s a mistake there, you can’t blame the kid for doing the wrong things. And if you gave him everything necessary in the right way, you need to know that the ben sorer umoreh “lo hayah v’lo atid lihyot,” it would never come about. Because his ears are open, he listens: he listens to people he loves, he listens to people who give the same message, he listens to people who give him stability and what he needs.
Based on Rabbi Shay Tahan’s class “JRoot Radio – Sep 16, 2016 – Parashat Ki Titze” (Parashat Ki Teitzei): listen to the class.
