THE ART OF PARENTING THE REBELLIOUS CHILD
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THE ART OF PARENTING THE REBELLIOUS CHILD
When one has a rebellious child at home, when the child starts coming back home way past curfew, when a child begins to break every rule no matter the consequence, the main goal of parenting shifts. The parent needs to give up on the goal of being mekarev the child, disciplining or reshaping the child, because if it is not working, it is not working. You can’t win this power struggle over the rebellious child’s life choices, because the child has more power over his life choice’s than his parents do. Rule no. 1 of the 48 secrets of power: Never try to overpower, the one who has the power. The only goal of the parent is, that the parent should make the home, a home, that the child wants to be in. Why? Because nothing can cure a rebellious child from his rebellion, more than home sweet home. We want the rebellious child to know: no matter how far you’ve fallen, we want you with us, our home is your home, just the way you are. That’s the only goal.
Growing up, I saw it happen a few times. A kid caught stealing in high school or camp, that was it. He was done. Today, some stores even put signs outside: “This person is a thief”, with the person’s picture. Public shaming. Permanent labeling. This is not the way of the Torah. If a Jew stole, he needs to return what he stole. That is it! If he stole, and has no means to repay what he took, he needs to be sold as a slave to a Jew to pay back what he stole.
At first glance, this law seems strange to us. Why not simply punish him? Why not isolate him? Why bring such a person into another Jew’s home? Isn’t that dangerous? Wouldn’t prison be safer and more logical?
It is so interesting. There is almost no such thing in the Torah as punishing someone by putting them in jail, other than if we are holding a person until the law is clarified. Or, if a person spoke lashon hara, where the person undergoes a quarantine to check his leprosy. Otherwise, the Torah does not use jail as punishment. Because in jail, a thief enters as a small criminal and exits as a professional criminal. He spends his days surrounded by worse offenders than himself, listens to their stories, learns their methods, and forms even worse relationships than he had before. When he is released, he is far more dangerous than when he entered.
The Torah refuses to use prison as punishment. Instead, it places the thief into a home. A normal Jewish home. The master must ensure that the servant does not feel inferior. Whatever the master eats, the servant eats. The bed the master sleeps on cannot be more comfortable than the bed of the servant. “For it is good for him with you.” If there is only one pillow in the house, the servant gets it.
Rabbi Diskin asks, although the Torah commands us to “love your fellow as yourself” , but if you only have one bottle of the water in the desert, that it is not enough for two, you come before your fellow! וחי אחיך עמך So why here are you to give your one and only pillow to your Jewish slave?
Rabbi Diskin answers, if you see your neighbor sick, suffering from terrible illness and he does not have a pillow and he can’t sleep, would you hesitate to give your pillow to him, even if it means you won’t have a pillow? Of course not. This is basic human decency toward someone who is unwell. The Jewish servant, who was sold into slavery for not being able to pay back what he stole, is also sick. Not physically, but spiritually and emotionally. His soul is damaged. His moral compass is broken. And the master holds the medicine: A home sweet home, a place where we give, and don’t take.
The Torah’s way to cure a broken soul is not cruelty, isolation, punishment, degradation, shame or jail. The Torah’s way is compassion. After six years of living with dignity, structure, and example, the servant transforms. The desire to steal and take fades. Through this rehabilitation of a healthy environment , the thief metamorphosis, and becomes a giver himself.
The Torah knows the rehabilitation powers of a Jewish home. The thief slave does not need to be lectured. He needs to live in an environment where he can watch how a Jew conducts himself. He experiences respect, care, and human worth, and slowly, something inside him heals. Most negative behaviors are the result of negative environments. If we put negative people in positive environments, we will eventually get positive people.
Rabbi Reuven Karlinsky asks, why does Parashat Mishpatim, which is a great collection of many mitzvoth, open specifically with the case of the Hebrew servant, the thief who has nothing with which to repay and is sold as a slave? There are so many laws in the Parasha that are far more common and routine: loans, kindness to widows and orphans, meat and milk, etc… Why does the Torah prioritize this seemingly uncommon case of a thief who can’t pay back what he stole?
The answer is mindboggling! Imagine a father with two sons. One is a refined, G-d-fearing Jew. The other, tragically, has gone astray and become a thief. Where does the father’s heart dwell? Not with the righteous son who needs no special attention, but with the wayward one. Day and night the father thinks: How can I help him? How can I lift him from the mud? How can I save him from his downward spiral? Hashem is our Father. When a Jew becomes a thief, His first concern is, What will become of My son? How can he be saved from sinking further into self-destruction? That is why, the first mitzvah of Mishpatim, is the rehabilitation of the thief!
A thief who can’t pay back what he stole, don’t put him in jail. Don’t shame him. Place him into a Jewish home as a servant for six years. Because people do not grow through rejection. People grow through belonging.
Keep your rebellious child home. Give the child your only pillow. That is how broken people actually heal. By treating them with utmost dignity. By influence, not control or manipulation. If the Torah does not give up on the thief, neither should we. If the Torah believes in the power of a sweet, loving, Jewish home, so should we.
