Beha’alosecha 5786: Abuse, Abandonment, and Autonomy

GOOD MORNING! As a senior staff member of a college and rabbinical school, students often come to me for advice on choosing a life path and career. In the last six months, I had two students who decided to end their status as full-time students and – based on their personalities (and for completely different reasons) – I recommended that each of them consider a career in plumbing.

Both took my advice and found themselves plumbing apprenticeships. One lasted exactly half a day; his team was called out to a Taco Bell to clear out a sewage blockage (one can only imagine what that must have been like). After a couple of hours this former student was 100% convinced that plumbing was not for him.

By contrast, the second student found his apprenticeship both fulfilling and rewarding. I asked him if he minded some of the more unpleasant aspects and he said to me, “Rabbi, I am low man on the totem pole and there are some days that I come home in clothes that stink to high heaven, but I just LOVE my job. I work extremely hard and come home exhausted and often smelly, but I would not have it any other way.”

Upon reflecting on their sharply differing attitudes, I realized that the main difference between them was that the first student was just looking for a way to earn money and make a life for himself. He quickly concluded that plumbing was not for him and that there must be a better way to earn money. The second student, however, immediately saw himself as a plumber and thus he quickly found the job itself fulfilling – despite its less pleasant moments. In fact, even coming home smelly just concretized in his mind that he was a plumber.

This week’s Torah portion has a relevant message about self-definition. In fact, it has a rather astonishing statement from Moses regarding the issues of leadership and how he characterizes motherhood.

After yet another litany of complaints from the Israelites about the lack of food variety and their continual pining for the “good ol’ days” of living in Egypt, Moses gets pretty fed up with them and his responsibilities as their leader and he says to God:

Why are you treating your servant so badly? Don’t you like me anymore? Why do you place such a burden on me? Am I their mother who was pregnant with them and carried them in my belly? Did I give birth to them? Why have You told me that I must carry them in my bosom and act as a nursemaid would treat an infant until they get to the land You swore to give to their ancestors? Now they are whining to me to give them meat. Where can I get enough meat to give all these people?
I cannot be responsible for this entire nation! It is too hard for me! If You are going to do this to me, just do me a favor and kill me! Don’t let me stay in this terrible predicament! (Numbers 11:10-15)

The great medieval Biblical commentator known as Rashi explains (ibid 11:12) that when the Almighty told Moses and Aaron to lead the Jewish people and carry them in their “bosom” that He meant they must lead even if/when the Israelites hurl curses, insults, or even stones at them.

This reveals a fundamental truth about parenting: it inherently involves some abuse by one’s children. What is going on here? What kind of definition is this about the responsibilities of parenthood? We must examine the source for the potential antipathy a child might have toward his parents.

Every child experiences trauma at birth – being expelled from the perfect temperature-controlled security of having every need met in the mother’s womb into a cold, demanding world of (albeit, minimal) independence. As parents go on to wean, toilet train, and gradually withdraw support, children naturally feel betrayed and angry. They rage against parents who are pushing them into independence, perhaps even without guaranteeing that they have the tools to succeed. This contentious beginning is one of the sources of the universal parent-child tension that fills psychology offices worldwide.

The modern solution of extended financial dependence only serves to exacerbate this problem. It creates entitled adults who, not having to face life on their own, fail to develop proper coping skills. This lack of personal development and resilience upon failure leads to a much more debilitating issue; the absence of confidence to succeed on their own. As their personal obligations increase, they become ever more reluctant to release their financial dependence on others because they don’t have any proof that they can thrive alone.

Thus, today we have another cultural phenomenon: whole swaths of modern society – yes, mainly wealthy families – support their married children’s lifestyles and life choices, never requiring their children to take responsibility for their own families or financial obligations. Sadly, this has begun to create a welfare mentality even among the affluent.

The true goal of parenting, like leadership, is not to provide perpetual care but to develop independence. Every step in parenting leads to this; birth and forcing a child to breathe on his own, weaning and forcing the child to feed himself, potty-training and forcing the child to take care of his bodily functions and personal cleanliness, etc. Our goal is to push our children – whether they like it or not – to their own personal success as independent beings, one step at a time.

When children curse their parents for forcing independence, the proper response is silence – not retaliation. This counterintuitive approach, and acceptance of abuse from one’s two-year-old, proves to the child that the parent’s actions are truly for the child’s benefit, not the parent’s ego. Taking abuse without responding demonstrates genuine love because there’s no personal benefit to the parent in accepting such treatment.

We find this concept elsewhere in the Torah. In Hebrew the word azov paradoxically means both ‘abandon’ and ‘help.’ True help enables eventual abandonment. Meaning, the only way you know that you have truly helped someone is when they reach the point when they don’t need you anymore. This is like teaching a child to ride a bicycle; in the beginning you hold on to him and the bike, but eventually you have to make a conscious decision to let go. If you continue holding on then he won’t learn to ride a bike. The goal is always to reach the point where support can be withdrawn (i.e. “abandonment”) so that independence can be achieved.

But the only way parents can properly do this is if they define themselves as parents, first and foremost. We have to constantly remember that parenting is hard and yes, it can be a lifelong commitment to helping your children become independent. It certainly comes with challenges, and we must adapt and make adjustments as our children grow.

Parenting can be innately contradicting, like when we spend the first three years of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk, and the next fifteen years telling them to sit down and be quiet. It can also feel like running a customer service department for customers who have no interest in following directions or using the product properly. We continuously get performance reviews from customers who can’t find their shoes, insist they put them on themselves, and then get angry when they hurt after putting them on the wrong feet. But we weather it all.

That is, unless we do not define ourselves as parents and resent the responsibilities of parenting. This is when we plug our children into devices so that they won’t bother us and insulate ourselves from taking care of them by hiring nannies and drivers to take them to soccer practice and play dates. We actively ignore every opportunity to spend alone time with them – particularly when their lives are hard and demanding. We prioritize our careers and delude ourselves into believing that providing financial security is more important than being present to support our children.

However, endless financial support does not teach independence. Defining ourselves as their parents and building our children’s self-esteem through unconditional love allows our children to grow confident enough to make own choices. Parental support is not about guaranteeing that our children make the choices we would make; it’s about creating an environment in which children know they are safe to make their own life choices and we will be there regardless of success or failure. We must provide the tools to give them the confidence to make their own choices regarding career, spouse, religiosity, etc.

Most importantly, we must be prepared to let go and – at every juncture – accept the resistance that comes with pushing our children toward independence. This the only way to develop our children into genuine responsible adults rather than perpetual dependents. It is also the only way to be a true leader; like Moses and Aaron.

Beha’alosecha, Numbers 8:1 - 12:16

Aaron is commanded in the lighting of the Menorah, the Levites purify themselves for service in the Tabernacle (they trained from age 25-30 and served from age 30-50). The first Passover is celebrated since leaving Egypt. The Almighty instructs the Jewish people to journey into the desert whenever the ever-present cloud lifts from above the Tabernacle and to camp where it rests. Moses is instructed to make two silver trumpets to be sounded before battle or to proclaim a yom tov (holiday).

The people journey to the wilderness of Paran, during which time they rebelled twice against the Almighty’s leadership. The second time they complain about the boring taste of the maneh and the lack of meat in the desert. The Almighty sends a massive quantity of quail and those who rebelled died.

Moses asks his father-in-law, Yitro (Jethro) to travel with them in the desert, but Yitro returns to Midian.

Miriam, Moses’ sister, speaks lashon hora (defaming words) about Moses. She is struck with tzora’as (the mystical skin disease, which indicated that a person spoke improperly about another person) and is exiled from the camp for one week.