Due to a blog post on another site, I did some research on what the Talmud said on the raising of children. Why did I do that? Because too many people today will quote Scriptures like, “spare the rod and spoil the child,” and will insist that this means that the godly thing to do it to administer strong spankings as necessary. After all smacking someone with a birch rod hurts!
I have no problem with quoting the Old Testament. Frankly, more of us could stand to know the Old Testament since it is the Scriptures that were used by the Early Church Fathers before the final collection of the New Testament. But, I think it is quite important to take a look at how the Old Testament believers actually interpreted their own Scriptures back at that time. Why do I say this?
Well, as with the Church Fathers who lived a lot closer to Jesus’ time than us, these were the people who actually lived in a culture supposedly governed by the Old Testament. They were the ones actually involved in the living out of the Old Testament in real life and who had centuries of experience in debating, discussing, and delimiting the Old Testament. Our tendency is to argue that they have nothing to teach us, since Jesus so often spoke out against them. But, be careful. Jesus jumped on the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, but he also said:
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you; do not however imitate their actions, because they don’t practice what they preach.
In other words, it was their hypocrisy that led to Jesus’ frequent condemnations. But, as he points out in the Scripture above, Jesus actually agreed with quite a bit of their teaching, not all of their teaching, but quite a bit of their teaching. So, what did the Pharisees have to say about child-raising? Below are a few quotes from the Talmud, the Jewish commentary on the Old Testament. I hope that this helps you take a new look at godly child-raising, as outlined in the Old Testament.
- Never threaten children. Either punish them or forgive them. (Semahot 2:6)
- Denying a child religious knowledge robs the child of an inheritance. (Talmud Sanhedrin 91b)
- Every parent is obligated to train his/her children in the observance ofmitzvot, for it is written: “Train a child according to his way.” (Proverbs 22:6)
- Mothers should introduce their children to the Torah. (Exodus Rabbah 28:2)
- Anyone who does not teach his son a skill or profession may be regarded as if he is teaching him to rob. (Talmud Kiddushin 29a)
- A father must provide his daughter with appropriate clothing and a dowry. (Code of Jewish Law, Even haEzer 71)
- A father should be careful to keep his son from lies, and he should always keep his word to his children. (Talmud Sukkah 46b)
- If a small child is capable of shaking the lulav correctly, his parents should buy him his own lulav. (Talmud Sukkah 28a)
- Anger in a home is like rottenness in fruit. (Talmud Sotah 3)
- Rabbah said that a parent should never show favoritism among his/ her children. (Talmud Shabbat 10b)
- If you strike a child, strike them only with a shoelace. (Talmud Baba Batra 21a)
- A parent should not promise to give a child something and then not give it, because in that way the child learns to lie. (Talmud Sukkah 46b)
- The parent who teaches his son, it is as if he had taught his son, his son’s son, and so on to the end of generations. (Talmud Kiddushin 36)
- The parent who instructs by personal example rather than mere words, his/her audience will take his/her counsel to heart. The parent who does not practice what he/she so eloquently preaches, his/her advice is rejected. (Commentary to Ethics of Our Fathers)
- A father once came to the Baal Shem Tov with a problem concerning his son. He complained that the son was forsaking Judaism and morality and asked the rabbi what he could do. The Baal Shem Tov answered: “Love him more.” (Hassidic Tale)
Thanks, Padre. This brings me back a few years to the classes I took with Prof. Marvin Wilson at Gordon College. Among his other OT courses, he taught Modern Jewish Culture, and in all of them he included extra-biblical teachings from the Talmud or other Jewish traditions–which have biblical origins after all.
I highly recommend anything by him, including his book Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith
Thank you for posting this!
Here’s what the Catholic Church Catechism teaches about the purpose of families. It ties in with what you’ve posted and also challenges the black and white interpretation of beating a child into submission in order to win them for heaven. That always greatly disturbed me as an evangelical. 🙁
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“In creating man and woman, God instituted the human family…Its members are persons equal in dignity…The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of ecclesial communion, and for this reason is, can, and should be called a domestic church. It is a community of faith, hope, and charity; it assumes singular importance in the Church, as is evident in the New Testament. (Eph 5:21-6:4; Col 3:18-21; 1 Pet 3:1-7)
“The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. In procreation and education of children it reflects the Father’s work of creation. It is called to partake of the prayer and sacrifice of Christ. Daily prayer and the reading of the Word of God strengthen it in charity.
“The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society.
(Here there are many paragraphs about the role of the family and the political community’s duties pertaining to support of the family, etc. There is also a big section about the duties of children as it pertains to the commandment.)
“Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.
“Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well-suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery~~the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones. Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:
“He who loves his son will not spare the rod….He who disciplines his son will profit by him. (Ecclesiasticus, 30:1)
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph 6:4)
“The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences that threaten human societies.
(There is more here about evangelization of children)
“Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents. Each and everyone should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect. Mutual affection suggests this. The charity of Christ demands it.” (Mat 18:21-22, Luke 17:4)
i am looking for a talmudic quote (or maybe from the Torah) that, in essence, explains that if you only have only to educate the parent OR the child, then you must educate the parent and have them teach the child.
can anyone help me find it?