Ashamed of one’s child

6 May 2019. As I write these lines, my third oldest son is in the air. He is flying to return to study Torah in Kiryat Gat, Israel, which is only twenty kilometres from Gaza. I was unsure about him getting on the plane yesterday. I am worried about him and all the people who live in that area, both the Israelis in Southern Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. But, the choice is his, because I do not “own” my son.

I wonder about the independence of children from their parents. I worry about parents feeling ashamed of their children’s failures or shortcomings based on the view that these failures reflect on the parents. It is hard on both parents and their children.

The following verse in the Torah reading this week jumped out at me and got me thinking about all this. “And, if a kohen's (a priest’s) daughter defiles herself through harlotry, it is her father that she desecrates; she shall be burned in fire” (1).

Let us put aside the terrible punishment which I have previously explored (2), except to make clear that these kinds of punishments have not been administered for over two thousand years. Let us also not address the worthwhile questions of why it is the father that we are concerned about but not the mother (3), and why we focus on the sins of the daughters but not those committed by the sons (4). Instead, let us focus on the question of the parent-child enmeshment.  

The verse begins with the word “and”, which implies a continuation of the content of the preceding verses. These verses are focused on priests being “holy”, which also includes a prohibition against the priest marrying a prostitute or a divorcee (an odd combination). One can infer from this that a man’s status is tied up with “his” women, as discussed last year (5).

The Talmud suggests that people will curse the father instead of honoring him (6). To put it another way: the daughter’s behaviour "causes her father to become belittled in the eyes of his friends, who 'know' that he failed miserably in the way he raised his daughter” (7).  This really makes me cringe. It is the equivalent of ‘what will the neighbors say?’. The focus here appears to be on the reputational risk to parents in positions of religious authority. As one man put it, “I wonder if any “clergy kids” have any trouble understanding the [painful] logic behind this verse? …they are raised in an environment of “don’t do anything to embarrass me” [the clergyman] or diminish my reputation” (8).

I feel confronted by the idea that a person would not be free to live their life as they see fit just because someone else needs them to preserve a certain image for someone else. Perhaps, it could be argued that this loss of respect for the dad by his community is improper (9), but it is an unfortunate aspect of human nature. However, according to one authority (10), the loss of respect from peers has even been formalized into law. According to this view, a Cohen-father, whose daughter has changed her faith to worship idols or committed adultery, would not be accorded the honors he would normally get as a Cohen (such as being the first to be called up for the Torah reading). Thankfully, this particular practice of implied shaming and blaming is certainly not practiced today (11).

There are authoritative interpretations that explain this matter as being about the daughter herself, rather than about her father. In these interpretations it is the daughter, not the father, who is desecrated by an act of adultery (12).  

As I reflect on these teachings, I am left with the following thoughts. On the one hand, as parents, we are the guardians of our children, entrusted with their wellbeing and education; we are not their owners. We need to support them in achieving success, but with our motivation being primarily to look after their best interests, and our pride being a secondary consideration. The principle of individual freedom is sacred to me. No one should be pressured to live their lives just to conform to another person’s vanity, opinions or dreams (13). On the other hand, however, as much as I don’t like it, parents' self-esteem is often tied up with their children’s achievements or failures. We dream for our children, we put our heart into facilitating their success, and it is hard to then be philosophical if they seem to be underachieving. It is appropriate for children to take into account the impact of their choices on their parents and other members of their families. We are all interconnected.  

Notes
1)     Leviticus, 21:9, translation based on Ibn Ezra and  https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.21?lang=bi&aliyot=0
2)     Cohen’s daughter… blog post
3)     The Chida, in Torat Hachida, Vol 3, p. 96, 16
4)     Abarbanel, on the Sidra, question 5
5)     http://torahforsociallyawarehasid.blogspot.com/2018/05/cohen-forbidden-to-marry-divorcee-emor.html
6)     Sanhedrin 52?, cited in Rashi
7)     Chizkuni
8)     Myron Chaitovsky, in a Facebook discussion. 7.05.2019
9)     Haamek Davar
10)  Mordechai, Chapter 6, Sanhedrin, cited in Torah Temima to this verse, also cited in Rema to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim, 128:41),  
11)  See commentaries to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim, 128:41, Taz, who cites 128:39 as proof, Magen Avraham, שיירי כנסת הגדולה and and Teshuvos Shvus Yaakov, cited in Be’er Haitev.
12)  Targum Unkelus, particularly as explained by Meshech Chochma, interprets this as her losing the holiness that she had previously received from her father that she desecrates within herself rather than desecrating her father, Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel, he interprets the reference to the father as a technical condition of the law, that it only applies in a case where she is married, or betrothed, but still living in her father’s house.
13)  Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk’s teachings on this resonate strongly for me. Including the following, cited in Dr. Twersky’s writing:  If I am I, simply because I am I, and you are you, simply because you are you; then I am I and you are you. But if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you, this particular version is cited in The Rift in Israel: Religious Authority and Secular Democracy (1971) by Samuel Clement Leslie, p. 145, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Menachem_Mendel_of_Kotzk

Disgraced Cohen's Daughter's Punishment - Emor

As I am finalising my thoughts on this blog, my heart is full of inspiration from yesterday’s Inter-school Program, watching Christian, Jewish and Muslim students come together yesterday culminating in spontaneously making music together. In stark contrast to that, I consider enduring contradictions and divisions that challenge me and others. Experiences, narratives and texts can all alienate us from communities, both similar and different to ourselves.  In this post I explore one of these.

I have been thinking of one passage in the Torah that challenges me not to feel alienated from my own tradition. “The daughter of a Cohen/ priest who will profane herself through whoredom, her father she is desecrating, in fire, she should be burned” (1). After thinking about it for a week, it seemed clear to me that there was nothing I could say that would reconcile this verse with contemporary mores. Over Shabbat (Friday night and Sunday) I was delighted to find a possible, at least partial, way through.

At the start of this discussion I make the following points: A) We need to look at how a religious text is applied today in the lived experience of the adherents of that faith rather than what the words are in the text. This is as true for non-Muslims looking at verses from the Koran as it is for those trying to make sense of Judaism.  B) It is useful to consider how traditions have been interpreted over time.

A Sydney Rabbi who told me that his sermon on the passage of the Cohen’s daughter, interpreted it along mystical lines. He said that it is by God’s design that this law does not apply today (as capital cases are no longer prosecuted since the destruction of the second temple two thousand years ago). Instead, he suggested that burning in fire represents passionate devotion to God to correct the sins of passion (2). Another contemporary approach to this matter took the form of a personal reflection on the responsibility of dads in  positions of religious leadership to be attentive to their children. The writer regrets that some of his religious study years earlier was at the expense of his family. Failure to properly guide children shames the father (3).   

Earlier traditions relating to this law make clear that we are dealing with adultery and a married woman (4). Furthermore, there are very strict laws applying to all cases of capital punishment. The perpetrator must have been warned by two witnesses immediately prior to the act which is then witnessed. This is a highly unlikely scenario. Traditions vary about how rare an event any capital punishment was when it was practiced at all, with one opinion that a Court that killed once every 70 years was a “murderous court”, and another view putting it as once every 7 years (5).

Despite the restrictions on actually putting a woman to death for this crime, the phrase itself raises concern for me. There are two aspects that bother me. One is the idea that a woman’s status is considered through the perspective of its impact on the honour of her male family members. The second is on the discrepancy between a misbehaving son and daughter (6).

Early traditional commentary is in line with a simple reading of the text: “If he [her father] had been treated as holy (before), he will now be treated as mundane, (if he had been treated with) honor, now he will be treated with disgrace, as they will say cursed be the one who gave birth to this one, who raised this one” (7).

Fortunately this approach is not the only one. I take comfort from the approach of both of the early authoritative translations into Aramaic, neither of which mentions the father’s shame (8). One (9) subtly re frames it as “from the holiness of her father she becomes desecrated”. The meaning of the translation is that she is desecrating herself, and profaning “the holiness that she has as a heritage from her father”. As the daughter of a Cohen/priest she inherited social- spiritual capital that has now been lost (10). It is not about her father but about her.

The discrepancy between a daughter and a son can be considered from a historical and contextual perspective that suggests that the verse is a response to the practice of the “sacred prostitute”. It is argued that the daughters of idol worshipers’ priests would act as prostitutes at their places of worship (11). Evidence is found in a  phrase in the book of Hosea: “they sacrifice with the prostitutes” (12). If we accept this argument then it is reasonable that the warning is directed to females based on the historical-actual problem the passage is seeking to address. While this explanation is attractive to me, I have not yet found any earlier authoritative commentary linking this ancient practice and this verse.

I am conflicted about how to approach these types of texts. I can join my colleagues who try to make it ok. As demonstrated above, there are some plausible approaches to do that, at least partially. I can also simply put them out there for further reflection and study. When my own daughter was born we  chose a biblical name, Shifra, that was not identified as being the wife, daughter or mother of any important man because we want our daughter to know she matters for who she is and who she will become, including but certainly not limited to her roles as a mother, wife or daughter. I take comfort in this view being consistent with some of my traditions about this difficult verse. The discrepancy between the treatment of males and females, however is acknowledged as a matter of concern.

Notes and Sources

1. Leviticus 21:9
2. Conversation at Lag B’Omer event at Bondi with Rabbi Y. 14.05.2017 based on Chasidic sources
3. Buchwald, Rabbi E, Lessons from a Cohen’s Wanton Daughter, https://njop.org/emor-5772-2012/. He wrote….As one who completed the study of an entire cycle of the Talmud about twenty-five years ago, I know how enriching the experience can be… but looking back, it was inevitable that devoting so much time to the study of Torah came, at least in part, at the expense of the family, especially during the children’s critical nurturing years..
4. Talmud Sanhedrin 50b
5. Mishnah, Makkot 1:10
6. Abarbanel, commentary on Emor question 5, p.225
7. Talmud Sanhedrin 52a
8. Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel, sees the reference to the father as a clarification of a matter of law, that she had gotten married through Erusin, but lived in her father’s house
9. Unkelus/Onkelus, who lived around c. 35–120 CE, although the Talmud Megillah 3a suggests that this translation is was based on the teachings of the great Tanaaim Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, or even earlier but forgotten by the masses, and rerecorded by Unkelus,
10. Meshech Chochma, Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, 1843-1926
11. Daat Mikra on Leviticus 21:9, Mosad Harav Kook,
12. Hosea 4:14