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Matthew 19:14
"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." Moses declares to Israel, "I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in (Deuteronomy 31:2). This could be interpreted to mean that because of his age he was decrepit and no longer ambulatory but how could it be when it is also said that, Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated (Deuteronomy 34:7)? Moses simply realized that time had come for him to pass on the baton to Joshua. Wisdom was going from him. He was not able to 'go out and come in' with Words of Torah. He knew that he needed to get out of the way and surrender the leadership of Israel to his faithful and devoted disciple Joshua. Moses had given his life for the cause. He saw all the works of God with Israel. He was the instrument, the 'pedagogue' of God's parenting. As he now readied to meet his Maker, Moses knew what was to befall the people he so faithfully led. He knew of their future disobedience and apostasy; he saw their defeat at the hand of their enemies; he saw multiple exiles, but he also knew that in the end, Hashem fulfills His covenant with them. This can be compared to our own parenting. We tenderly care and nurture our children for let's say twenty years then we send them to their own destinies. We see their first steps towards independence and how badly we want to keep them from falling as we did when they first started walking or riding a bike? We look with apprehension at their future and as we see the gloom and doom of their irresponsible decisions; we instinctively want to grab the steering-wheel of their lives back in our own secure hands. But we have to let go. We have to let God take over the leadership of our children's lives. In fact, the quicker we let go, the better it will be. What do we see when we let go? We see the same things Moses saw will happen to the Children of Israel. We see that our children will disobey the 'torah' we have taught them and will have to learn obedience through the things that they will suffer … just like we did. We might even wonder at times if God is really at the controls … but He most certainly is! God probably went through the same thing when He created mankind. He knew that as He turned them loose in the world, they would make the wrong decision. That is why he prepared atonement for us from even before the creation of the foundations of the world (Revelations 13:8). This atonement was available for the Children of Israel of old, and it is available for our children of Israel of today; so you are, sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Yeshua HaMashiach (Philippians 1:6). As Moses did, may we with confidence turn over the leadership of our children to the Almighty God, knowing that He cares for them more than we even do. He even gave His own only begotten Son to secure them a place in the World to Come!
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2 Timothy 3:1-2
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, In Leviticus 19 the first commandment referring to holiness is to ‘fear’ one’s parents. This is not the same commandment as the one in Exodus which says to ‘honor’ one’s parents. Even the Hebrew text reflects this difference. One does not contradict the other but like with God, it represents two aspects of parental relationship. The Talmud teaches that it is because we should honor our mothers and fear our fathers. The mention in Exodus also is different from the one in Leviticus as it is the first commandment with a promise attached to it; it says, ‘"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12). In its semantic context this commandment is about caring and providing for parents especially in their old age. Paul also used that word to ‘honor’ referring to the support of those who labor to teach Torah in the congregation (1 Timothy 5:17). In Leviticus, the word ‘fear’ is like the one used when referring to the ‘fear of the Lord’, which mainly means to have a wrong disposition towards disobedience. If holiness is to be ‘set-apart’, then, in our western society at least, reverence towards parents certainly sets us aside from mainstream which has adopted very ungodly attitudes towards parents. We often talk about teenagers being unloving and disrespectful towards us parents, but what kind of relationship do they hear us having towards our aged parents, their grand-parents? Do we speak of them with respect and reverence or do we mock them? Do we willingly and gratefully endorse the duty of caring for them or do we complain about it as if it were an unfair burden and throw them in a senior center where they mostly end their days feeling rejected and unwanted? When we speak bad of our aged parents, in front of our children, we must remember that we model in front of the generation that is charge of caring for us. Of course there is the issue of religion: what if my parents are ungodly? I do not see in this commandment an absolution because of parent’s lack of godliness. What if God stopped caring for us because we were sometimes ungodly, which we are most of the time? Sometimes religion and faith differences separate parents and children. When this happens, it shows how little of God people have in spite of their claims of faith. People often disrespect each other because of faith differences but theological differences do not have to keep us from being civil. The sad thing is that sometimes parents in this world are just not worthy of the title ‘parents’. There are those who are mean violent and abusive. Of course, these are different cases, but maybe they are themselves emulating the sample they received from their parents and whereas we are not require to like or be near or in contact with them, we are required compassion and to pray for them. We can also break the vicious cycle by modeling a godly attitude of parenthood to our children. |
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