Honoring a father who is a rasha

Rav Elchonon Wasserman asks a question:

If a person’s father is a Rasha, is the child still מחוייב in the mitzvah of Kibbud Av Va’eim?

The Rambam says yes, he is obligated. But Rav Elchonon is bothered because there’s a Gemara in Bava Metzia 62a that sounds like Kibbud Av only applies if the father is frum?

So what’s the difference?

Rav Elchonon explains with a big Yesod about Teshuva. There are two kinds of Teshuva:

• תשובה מיראה from fear – the aveiros are like a shoigeg.
• תשובה מאהבה from love – not only are the aveiros erased, but they actually turn into mitzvos!

That means if a person did an aveira and later did Teshuva from love, that aveira becomes a mitzvah retroactively.

Now, let’s go back to our case.

The Gemara in Bava Metzia is talking about a father who already passed away, and during his lifetime he collected ribbis. Once he dies, the son does not have to give back the money, and there is no mitzvah of Kibbud Av in that case.

But the Rambam is talking about a father who is still alive. In that case, you can’t say he’s a Rasha and refuse to give him honor. Why? Because maybe one day he will do Teshuva and if he does, all of his aveiros will be erased retroactively. That means even right now, it’s possible he is not really a Rasha!

So the Rambam holds as long as the father is alive, the son must honor him, because there’s always the chance that the father will do Teshuva and his past will be erased.

This is a very powerful idea: a person can be a Rasha today, but by doing Teshuva, he can erase his past so completely that it turns out he was really a Tzaddik all along.