Third Reading: Protecting Our Children
What Affects Character?
Though many of the verses in our parashah seem to stand independently of one another, the Or HaChaim explains that the final three (even four, as we will see) verses of the third reading form a coherent unit:
You must not defile your daughter by making her a harlot lest the land “engage in prostitution” and the land be filled with immorality. You must observe My Sabbaths and you shall revere My Sanctuary. Do not turn to diviners and clairvoyants, do not seek to defile yourselves through them, I am Havayah your God. You must rise before an elderly person and you must respect the old, you shall fear your God, I am Havayah.
The Or HaChaim explains that,
Despite the Torah’s commandment that a father not to desecrate his daughter by instructing her to practice harlotry, the fact remains that some girls engage in this act without being urged by their fathers to do so.... Still, the Torah warns the parents to protect their daughter from straying to harlotry because the offspring’s character depends on the parents and there are three separate causes that cause a delinquent nature in offspring: 1) If at the time of conception the father was bent on the physical pleasure of the union with his wife instead of being motivated purely by the desire to preserve mankind.... As a result, the child born from such a union may have an increased sexual urge. 2) If the mother’s behavior is improper, “the lamb tends to become like the sheep.”
And, 3) If both father and mother had involuntary negative thoughts... even if both are pillars of piety....
The remedy for all three causes is to be found in our verses,
To remedy the first cause, the Torah writes, “You must observe My Sabbaths...” connecting to the Zohar’s statement that the righteous people have marital relations with their wives only on Friday nights.... If someone wants to make sure that the children he sires are of a holy level, he must first learn how to control his libido and put it exclusively into the service of God’s commandment to be fruitful....
To remedy the second reason, the Torah instructs us to “revere My Sanctuary,” alluding to the mother who is warned not to find herself suspected of infidelity, which would bring her to the Temple to be given the bitter waters.
To remedy the third reason, the Torah warns us not to turn to diviners and clairvoyants... because having knowledge of the impure coerces a person to involuntarily connect with it.
From the Or HaChaim’s commentary we learn that the purpose of these three commandments—to observe the Sabbath, to revere the Sanctuary, and to honor one’s parents, which is alluded to in the prohibition against seeking out diviners and clairvoyants (and in the next verse that the Or HaChaim did not connect, the commandment to honor one’s elders, referring to the wise men of the generation, but which the sages connect with honoring one’s parents)—is to beget children that possess rectified character and have elevated souls, children that will not fall into defiling the earth. Thus, the Torah places the responsibility for the next generation on their parents, particularly regarding the sanctity of the parents’ marital union.
Three Remedies Correspond to the Intellectual Sefirot
Contemplating the Or HaChaim’s comment, we realize that observing the Sabbath, which remedies the father’s possible iniquities, corresponds to the Mind of Father Principle (אּבּין דחֹמו) and the sefirah of wisdom. The inner experience of wisdom is the power of self-nullification in the psyche, which begins with the power to nullify the improper cravings of one’s evil inclination. This is also known as the “mind controls the heart,” thanks to the power of will that is invested within wisdom.
The sanctity of the Temple, the Sanctuary, is related to the mother, as is well known that the value of “the Temple” (861 ,שּדְקִּמַית הֵּב) is the triangle of (the sum of integers from 1 to) 41, the value of “mother” (םֵא). It is in the Temple that the supernal Atika, the supernal part of the sefirah of crown, is revealed, as alluded to in the phrase, “Where is the location of His honor” (ֹדוֹבוְם כֹּקוְה מֵּיַא) and the verse, “Where is the location of understanding” (הָינִּם בֹקוְה מֶי זֵאְו).
Finally, the prohibition from seeking out diviners and clairvoyants that remedies involuntary negative thoughts corresponds with the sefirah of knowledge, since these soothsayers are all bent on blemishing this faculty of the intellect.
