An interesting fact: when it comes to family relationships, the Torah proposes to us only one commandment: the fifth. No, of course it doesn’t mean at all that the other nine are not connected with the relationships between members of the family. All of them, of course apply to everyone, and we can completely rely...
An interesting fact: when it comes to family relationships, the Torah proposes to us only one commandment: the fifth. No, of course it doesn’t mean at all that the other nine are not connected with the relationships between members of the family. All of them, of course apply to everyone, and we can completely rely on them, building relationship between people living under the same roof. But specifically, it is necessary to consider all the same family particularly the fifth commandment, which concerns the relationships between children and parents.
Maybe, it happened like this because it is particularly here that the qualities proper to the fallen human nature manifest themselves very clearly. And this is not surprising: because when it comes to relations between the spouses or relationship of parents to children, practically always manifest themselves here those natural ties, which need no explication, no justification to be acceptable. It is already another thing the relationship of the big children to parents: the natural ties in this case, generally, do not work any more, and such relationship can only rely on a spiritual basis.
But the spiritual basis, unlike the natural, does not appear by itself, it is necessary to take care of its appearance beforehand. And the apostle reminds about that to his readers: for, in the Christian family, that is in the family composed of persons, living in the Kingdom, such a care is obvious. And a respectful relationship of the parents to the children turns out here the basis of everything. It is not of course that the fifth command stops being valid, or that its action changes direction.
It is about the inadmissibility of the abuse of the parental power under the guise of the fifth commandment, what is unfortunately met in the fallen world very often. And the problem here is not only that such abuses provoke the violation of the fifth commandment or the calls to its violation, sometimes under the most specious pretexts, for example, under the pretext of "protecting the rights of children". The problem, above all, is that without a right relationship of the parents to the children, their mutual relationships can turn out incompatible with the standards of life in the Kingdom. And no formal observation of the commandment will fix that.
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6:4 And, ye fathers - Mothers are included; but fathers are named, as being more apt to be stern and severe. Provoke not your children to wrath - Do not needlessly fret or exasperate them.But bring them up - With all tenderness and mildness. In the instruction and discipline of the Lord - Both in Christian knowledge and practice.