כַּבֵּ֥ד אֶת־אָבִ֖יךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּ֑ךָ
Traditionally translated as honour your father and mother, the fifth commandment begins with the word respect. This word has been playing on my mind this week, particularly after a conversation at the school gates on Wednesday. A mother was complaining about how the teachers at our children’s secondary school don’t respect the students. The teachers don’t show the children respect and therefore the children don’t behave. The teachers, she argued, needed to earn her sons respect. I found this pretty confusing. My teachers didn’t need to earn my respect. They could occasionally lose it, but my starting point for them, and indeed for everyone, my students included, is now and was when I was at school, one of respect.
Initially the idea that each person we meet needs to earn our respect sounds sensible. But if we think it through, it doesn’t make for a very nice world to live in. If you assume everyone you meet is undeserving of your respect, until they prove otherwise, you begin with an attitude that will exude meanness, potentially aggression, and from the outset, disrespect. But if we start with the assumption that everyone is deserving of our respect, regardless of their role or relationship to us, we will project an atmosphere where one feels safe, able to work or learn, and perhaps even honoured.
When the Jewish journal selected Kavod as their ‘word of the week’[1] they wrote:
“The term meaning honor and respect is very important in any society, but even more so in Middle Eastern societies. The English word “respect” means “look back (again), regard”; honor means “regard with great respect, dignity.” The Hebrew kavod is related to kaved, meaning “heavy.”* Indeed, until not long ago, the heavier a person was, the more respectable he or she was”
I’m liking this already! Automatic respect based on one of the things today most people are likely to judge you for!
Interestingly the word Kavod is also etymologically connected to kaved, the Hebrew word for the liver. The heart, was not, according to the ancients, the seat of emotion, but the seat of intellect. So we have intellect in our hearts and respect in our livers. Perhaps we need to connect the two up with a meaningful system of veins and synapses, helping us to link our brains, and the way we think our world should be, to the respect needed for all to make that happen.
Kavod can also be translated as glory, and indeed most commonly is when found in Torah. I quite like the idea of glorifying our parents rather than just respecting them (or maybe I want to be glorified by my children rather than seen as chopped liver!) God revealed His kavod – Divine Glory – to Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness; in the cloud, in the pillar of fire, and in this week’s portion, on Mount Sinai. Were these divine ways of trying to earn respect? There were certainly struggles to get the Israelites to behave – perhaps the God of the Torah could relate quite well to the struggles faced by many of our school teachers today. Rather than being able to get on with the task in hand, they are endlessly having to prove themselves and earn their students attention never mind respect. We know that you might well have a class of 29 engaged and respectful students, but it only takes one to prevent everyone from learning.
Moses himself doesn’t do too well as an authority figure trying to maintain respect among the Israelites. He seems to endlessly be losing his temper. And I’m not sure I blame him. The tablets of stone we just heard inscribed are smashed in anger at the Israelites building of the Golden calf. In Numbers 20, when the Israelites are thirsty, their moaning drives him to distraction, and while God instructs him to speak to a rock in order to solve their problems, once again Moses can’t quite contain his pent up frustration, and it bubbles out of him with a thwack to the rock from his staff, rather than the words God had commanded. The water still comes, but Moses doesn’t get away scott free. Having lost respect for the Israelites and lost his temper, he is forbidden from entering the Land of Israel, despite dedicating his life to journeying towards it. Respect is, of course, a two way street, and it can be lost very easily.
The ten commandments also tell us that for those who do find their way to kavod and love, in this case of God, rewards will be handed out for 1000 generations, while those who turn away and show a lack of respect will be punished to the third and fourth generation. Now I’m not that comfortable with the idea of punishments for the sins of the parents being visited upon the children, but perhaps there is a deeper truth about the importance of what so easily passes from generation to generation. The examples we set and the approaches we take to the world can serve as models, though I know as a parent we are not creating clones, and the challenges are many – parenting frustratingly, doesn’t come with a failsafe manual! And Jewish law allows for children to disobey their parents if what they ask of them is morally or religiously repugnant.
There are no easy answers for my friends who are teachers, a vocation many are now fleeing. And there are no easy answers for parents, hoping to raise wise, independent, likable children. And there are no easy answers for us as a community, hoping to be both warm and welcoming, and a place where instinctively everyone knows how to show a heartfelt level of respect to the service, particularly challenging when the custom is different from synagogue to synagogue.
Perhaps all we can do is start with the respect asked of us in the 10 commandments. We start with respecting what for the majority is the first important relationship in our lives. And then we expand, remembering that respect is due to all, created in God’s image just as we are. We begin with respect, we don’t wait for it to be earned. And sometimes we have to hold onto it, even though we might be losing it.
May we all be blessed to both give and receive the respect all are due, and to build a community and society built on foundations of Kavod, kindness and compassion.
Shabbat Shalom
