Kibbud Av V’Eim vs……

A Levaya vs. A Mother’s Need

One Demonstrative Case of the Complexities of Kibbud Av V’Eim

Dear Rabbi Taub,

 I don’t know if you answer emails…I learn in eretz Yisroel as part of a halacha Kollel that works toward semicha. I’ve been reading you since before I was bar mitzvah! I wonder if you can take the reader inside the journey from shailah to psak.

Thanks!

    Yoeli

           While there are wonderful sefarim and talmidie chachachim who can break down the method of psak, I think this request is an interesting one for all readers, even those not studying toward semicha.

     Perhaps we can return to this subject from time-to-time, as the reader will be surprised to learn that rarely is any shailah run-in-the-mill. Often, there is something unique involved.

       To give the reader a sense of what I mean, here is a shailah I received this week. I will share the exact wording of the text (permission was granted):

   “Rabbi, I have a question. My mother goes to a program Friday morning, and, when I can, I drive her there…X’s levaya is the same time tomorrow. If I don’t take my mother, then there will be someone else who will. Which mitzvah trumps the other? I can’t do both…”. (See Rema to orach chaim 38:8 regarding the ‘I can’t do both’)

    The first thing to point out is that as a rav you learn a lot about people and their priorities by the shailos they ask. It is not so much that he was wise enough to ask this shailah, but in answering him I learnt he visits his mother every single day after work. He is a grandfather himself, and his mother is close to 100 years old! Even after fifty-plus years of kibbud, its significance has not waned, and more, he wishes to do everything al pi haTorah. What a lesson in and of itself!

     Rav Chaim Kinievsky shared how he was once visiting his grandmother when she softly commented, “I was surprised Rav Yeshaya’la didn’t visit today”. She was referring to her son – and Rav Chaim’s uncle – the Chazon Ish. Rav Chaim later mentioned this comment to his uncle. The Chazon Ish was feeling ill that today, but upon hearing this, he quickly grabbed his hat and jacket and ran to visit. It turned out that he would visit his mother every day! He once shared that the only segula to become a gadol is the mitzvah of kibbud av v’eim! (See Rav Chaim on Bereishis, Artscroll). V’havta l’reyacha is a hard enough mitzvah, and the addition of kibbud and yira for parents is an addition even on top of that!

       My father and his wonderful wife Malka live in eretz yisroel, and with the time difference I often forgive myself if I get busy on an erev Shabbos, or, more often due to teaching, and miss calling before his Shabbos. But that is a horrible error, unconscionable, and a true sin. We all must vastly improve in this domain. They are not our rayim, they are our parents! In addition, aside for simple seichel and normalcy, halacha demands that step parents also have the extra obligation of kibbud (Shulchan Aruch, yoreh deah, 240:21).  

  Before I explain the psak, l’aniyas daati, I wish to share one more matter about this mitzvah. There is a famous question: Why do parents love their children more so than the children seem to love their parents?  After all, it is the child who receives life and comfort from them! The classic, and well-known, answer to this question is that the word for love is ahavah, which comes from the Aramaic term meaning ‘I will give”. Meaning, it’s not the receiver who ends up loving the giver more, rather the giver who does!

     But several years ago, I saw another approach to this phenomenon. Many of our kochos comes from the avos (see Ruach Chaim to avos), and many of our middos received their initial charge through Adam. Adam had everything we have, save for one thing: Adam and Chava never had parents! So that, from the dawn on man we have constantly struggled with this mitzvah.

     Now, back to her shailah. The Shulchan Aruch rules as follows: “If one’s father says ‘Bring me some water’ but one also has a passing mitzvah in front of them (a mitzvah that could not be done at a later time) like burial or a levaya, if no one else can do those passing mitzvos, then one should do them, and push kibbud to the side” (240:12).

     Let’s leave aside for now if this is a case where others at funeral would be enough to demand he maintains kibbud eim in this case. Let us assume that his being at the funeral would be important. A rav never simply applies even an explicit Shulchan Aruch to a case without further thought. For, when the Shulchan Aruch uses the term ‘levaya’, to what does he refer? To going to hespeidim? No! Rather, to the mitzvah of escorting a body on its way to burial. The rav would have to ask if he was planning to stay for that, otherwise, he must discover some other passing mitzva involved in this case. According to some poskim (Netziv), even if one walks the body, yet doesn’t see it, then there is no mitzvah of levaya. While this view is not what we follow, when measuring mitzvah against another mitzvah, this must be taken into consideration by the rav. The reader should note that Chofetz Chaim (Ahavas Chesed, 3) already bemoaned those who go to a ‘levaya’ and then leave without doing the real mitzvah of levaya.

     But there is still another mitzvah here. Hespeidim. The question is, however, is attending a hesped a mitzvah. The Rambam rules that although a dereabanan, hespeidim are a fulfillment of v’ahavta l’rayacha komocha (hil. Avel ch. 14).

     But, do the attendees, as well, fulfil a mitzvah by being there? Chazal debate (Sanhedrin 46b) if the purose of hespeidim is for the living or the dead. We rule like the latter. It would seem, then, that attendees show kavod  by being there. I would marshal proof to this from another chazal that teaches that one city should not hold hespeidim for two different people at the same time (semachos 11). The implication being that we wish to maximize attendance. See also the gemara (berachos 19a) and the Shulchan Aruch (orach chaim 72:3) regarding other mitzvos that will be prevented due to a hesped alone.

       For a number of reasons that we do not have the space to go into, he went to his mother instead.

    What we see from this one case is that no two shailos are identical…and, that people should be asking for kibbud av v’eim questions!