The Torah in general contains two commandments regarding one’s treatment of one’s parents: “Honor your father and mother” and “You shall each revere your mother and father.” This already demonstrates that honoring our parents is the complement to revering them. Since revering is a form of “awe” (yirah), honoring is a form of “love,” the inner experience of the sefirah of loving-kindness.
The sages ask why the order of “father and mother” is different in these two verses and they conclude that the Torah stresses that the commandments require us to overcome our natural tendency. People are naturally inclined to revere their father more than their mother. Therefore, the Torah switches their order, emphasizing that we should revere our mother, not just our father. Likewise, our natural tendency is to honor or love our mother more than our father; the Torah emphasizes that we should honor our father as well.
The entire Torah is known as a “Torah of loving-kindness” (Torat chesed). There are many explanations and examples regarding this principle. One of them is specifically related to this commandment. The sage Ulla teaches that when the nations of the world heard the first four commandments, they said God was giving the Torah for His own sake: I am Havayah your God, You shall not have other gods, Do not take My Name in vain, and remember the Sabbath—that I created the world. But when God said, “Honor your father and your mother” they conceded that God was interested in the benefit of others and that He was giving the Torah as an act of loving-kindness. Thus, it is this commandment that serves as the demonstration of God’s loving-kindness.
