Hidden Treasures

טַפְּכֶם נְשֵׁיכֶם וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בְּקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶיךָ

tapekhem n’sheikhem v’geir’khem asher b’kerev machaneikhem
your little ones, your women, and your convert who is within your camp (D’varim 29:10)

Far vos sheht “tapekhem” far “n’sheikem”? Veyzn fun danen ois, az kotsh oif’n foter iz mutl tsu lernen zein zun Torah, ober madrich tsu zein di kinder zolen gayn b’derech-hayashr un oifvaksen yiden iz ingantsen chul oif der muter. Vayl, der foter iz tsulib parnasa nit shtendig in shtub tsu hoben di hasgacha oif di kinders hadrecha vos iz zeyer vichtig far zeir dertsiung zeinen deriber “tapekhem mutl al n’sheikhem” — oib di kinder zeinen oisgevaksen shlecht un fardorben iz dos merstens di muter’s shuld.

 Why is “your little ones” stated before “your women”? This shows that even though it is the father’s obligation to teach his son Torah, it is entirely the mother’s obligation to oversee the child’s proper Jewish upbringing. Because the father, due to making a livelihood, isn’t always at home to supervise the children’s essential training, it is therefore [stated] “your little ones (are incumbent upon) your women” — if the children are badly raised and spoiled, it is mostly the mother’s fault. (R’ Moshe Leib Sassover)

Well now . . . this is hardly modern thinking, and I am the last one to side with proponents of rigid gender roles and chauvinistic attitudes. BUT, there’s an important lesson here. Namely that in a two-parent household, both parents are responsible for part of the children’s education. The assumption there was that the father was out working most of the time and it made sense for the parent who was with the children to be responsible for teaching them how to behave, how to live Jewishly in a daily context. So the mother teaches the kids to say their blessings before they eat, not to drink milk with a meat lunch, to kiss the mezuzah on the way in and out of the house, to plan ahead for shabbos, etc. etc. When the father comes home he can sit down and do a little book learning with the kids.

In today’s world, both parents are usually working and neither of them is usually raising the kids. Of course, this is less than ideal, but that’s life in the modern world. But notice the teaching doesn’t exactly say that the parents have to do all the child rearing themselves. It says they are responsible for supervising the training and education. So if you have to pay someone else to mind your kids while you’re at work, that doesn’t get you off the hook for making sure they know what they need to know. You are responsible for your children and for their behavior, and for their Jewish education (both practical and academic) whether you spend all day with them or not.

My personal opinion is that parents (and I mean all parents, not just Jewish parents) do not take enough responsibility for their children these days. (In general, of course.) And the result is not merely that young people are ignorant of many important notions, facts, history and algorithms of life, but that they are spiritually, morally and culturally impoverished. And this only gets worse with each generation. Maybe most Jews do a little bit better job at it than say your average adherent of “American Civil Religion” but it is because of teachings like these that keep reminding us over and over again about what is really important in life. Even people who don’t have kids play parental roles in some context or other, and I think the world would be a better place if we all took our parenting responsibilities a little more seriously.