“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey the voice of his father and the voice of his mother and does not listen to them when they discipline him, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the Elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the Elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He does not obey our voice. He is a profligate and a drunkard.'
“Then, all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.”
As usual in Biblical study, a discrepancy in the text intimates deeper meanings. This text, too, contains such a discrepancy.
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey the voice of his father and the voice of his mother” is how the case is introduced in the Bible. His parents are described as having two distinct voices: “the voice of his father and the voice of his mother.” Yet later on, when the parents bring their son to court to mete out the penalty, we encounter a slight, but meaningful, variance: “They shall say to the Elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He does not obey our voice.” No more “the voice of his father and the voice of his mother.” Now, it has become “our voice.” Their distinct voices merged into one.
What is the meaning behind this subtle textual change?
The message, it has been suggested, is critical in education. The phrase “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey the voice of his father and the voice of his mother” hints to one possible reason for this son becoming stubborn and rebellious. In his home, there was not one voice, but two distinct and dichotomized voices. The voice of the father was not the voice of the mother. Each of them went his or her own way. The parents never managed to merge their distinct “voices” to create a unified and integrated vision for themselves and their children. Each of the parents was pulling the home in a different direction, and the poor children were left stuck in the middle, torn by the discord of people they love so dearly.
And if this were indeed the case, this child is not rebellious and stubborn at all. He is a victim of his parents’ stubborn refusal to work on their emotions and discover peace in their fragmented home. The child need not suffer the consequences for his parents’ unwillingness to confront their egos and their demons and build an ambiance of mutual respect and harmony. They may or may not have good reasons for their strife, but the child ought not to be blamed for responding to their wars with stubbornness and rebelliousness. What else do you expect of him?
In the continuation of the incident, the Torah states, “They shall say to the Elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He does not obey our voice.’” To determine that this child has embarked on an irrevocable path to disaster (which is, according to the Sages, the reason the Torah imposes such a horrific punishment on him), we must ensure that the parents spoke in one voice, that the home was filled with serenity and human dignity. If not, if two voices resided in the home filled with divisiveness and resentment, the blame ought to be placed on the parents, not on the child. Since, in this case, the boy’s distortion is due to his parents' discord, the path of healing is open to him.
RABBI YY JACOBSON
