When does the suggestion of a parent become a command that is included in כיבוד אב ואם {honor of one's father and mother}?

Is every suggestion to be included?

From Reb Naphtali Troup (חידושי הגרנ''ט) it certainly looks that when they give a command, that comes under the category of a מצוות עשה (positive command). But how far does this go?

One way of looking at this is by the בן סורר ומורה (the rebellious son) which is a subcategory of the general command of honor of one's parents.

Another way is to look at the events with Rav Masud Abuzeira and his eldest son Reb David. Rav David as a rule took honor of his parents very seriously but one day said a very slight word to his father lacking respect. He then went into exile for a month. But at any rate, from that event t is possible to learn that honor of one's parents is a very wide category to include not just things they say.

Even when parents are against things that are supposedly good things one ought to listen. They are against joining some group? Often groups present themselves as great things and parents might very well be right for being suspicious.

Exodus 23 has a few verses that look something like a mediator. That is to say some thing that does not look to be the way one usually understands Torah to be that one goes directly to G-d. There G-d says he will send an angel before Israel to guide them.And the verses go on beyond that to say one should not disobey the angel because G-d's name is in him.

Besides that I should mention there are many verses in Torah which are not exactly PC. Like the whole case of G-d wanting to kill Moses before he did circumcision on his son. The verses over there certainly do not look PC.

There are plenty of things in the Talmud also that are definitely not PC. Like the barber that gave the haircut to the king of Assyria that the Gemara says things about that do not seem very PC.

The way I generally deal with these kinds of issues is the idea of Kant-that reason  must not venture into the realm of the dinge an sich (things in themselves) as contradictions  inevitably follow.

[There were others who noticed this aspect of Kant and used it to defend faith. In particular you can see this in the Kant=Friesian school.]

To me it seems helpful that faith should be unconcerned with doctrines and more concerned with simply learning Torah and keeping it whether I understand it or not.
In any case, I should mention that non PC stuff comes up all the time in Torah and most of the time there seems to be no good explanation. 

decrees from the sages

There is a debate about decrees from the sages if once the reason for the decree has gone, if the decree itself is automatically null. This is an argument in the Gemara itself [Beiza page 5]. Tosphot takes it as a simple fact that the decree itself is null and so does the Raavad and most other rishonim.

The reason this is relevant is that for most decrees we know the reason for (as they are stated openly in the Gemara itself). In any case, the Rambam disagrees and hold the decree continues until another court of law can be convened to nullify the decree. However that is not the opinion of most Rishonim.

In fact, there is even a debate if there is any authority in the first place to make a decree which is not stated openly in the Torah, the  Law of Moses. This come up in the beginning of אבות דר' נתן which is a commentary on Tractate Avot by an Amora printed in the Vilna Shas at the end of Nezikim.

Besides that there is also the issue of ר' שמעון דורש טעמה דקרא {Shimon ben Yohai goes by the reason for the verse, not the letter of the law. This is actually how the Rambam decided in one place in Mishne Torah. In another place the Rambam decided like the sages that go by the letter of the law. The commentaries on the Rambam are at a loss how to deal with that, however the Avi Ezri answers the question quite well.] In any case I want to point out that Shimon ben Yohai is quite serious about going for the reason for  a verse as you can see in the case of a wealthy widow. He says a lender can take a pledge from her even though the verse openly says one can not do so. The reason is that he goes by the reason for the verse, not the letter of the law.

The Rambam does have an emphasis learning Physics and the Metaphysics. Learning דרך גירסא just saying the words and going on.

Even though the Rambam does have an emphasis learning Physics and the Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks, to me it seems better to learn these two subjects as they are understood today.
Even though the Rambam when he mentions this idea of learning these two things as understood by the ancient Greeks, and that learning these two things are included in what the sages said about מעשה מרכבה and מעשה בראשית [both brought down in the beginning of the book of the prophet יחזקאל Ezekiel], still the actual works of Aristotle on these two subjects look to be not as impressive as the Rambam must have thought they are.

The actual work on Physics of Aristotle seems to be a little antiquated. And besides that here I present a link to a criticism that resounds with sense.
Furthermore the actual Metaphysics of Aristotle also seems a bit antiquated. Not that the moderns have done much better. As for Metaphysics I have already mentioned my basic idea that Leonard Nelson got that basically right basing himself on Kant. [Outside of Nelson I think most of twentieth century Philosophy is unworthy to take up space in a trash can.] [Hegel has some very good points but does not seem all that logical or rigorous as some thought. Once you get past the jargon, it is hard to see much insight. In terms of political thought, I think the founding fathers of the USA were a lot more insightful--see the Federalist Papers.]

As for Physics, the best thing is to get up to String Theory which to me looks about as good as it gets.[That needs a little background in Quantum Field Theory--which in turn needs a drop of background about the harmonic oscillator.]

I ought to add that there is no reason to think the Gra disagreed with the Rambam in this.  His statement about the seven wisdoms shows this."To the degree that one lacks knowledge in the seven wisdom, he will lack knowledge in Torah a hundred fold."

My basic idea of how to do Physics is to say the words in order and no review until you have finished the entire book and then go back over the same book lots of times. This kind of learning is called "Girsa" and to me it makes a lot more sense than getting stuck on every detail and then getting frustrated and then dropping the whole thing. [See the Musar book אררחות צדיקים that goes into this in detail.]

The three  major points of the Gra were to learn Torah, to have trust in God (without effort), and the fact that he put his signature on the letter of excommunication.[note 1]
The founding of institutions to learn Torah was definitely not his "thing." And the time for that seems to have passed. [I am not the first person to notice this.] [note 2]

But the first three things seem to me to be vastly important.

[note 1] I think the Ran from Breslov is not to be considered in the category of the excommunication from the reading of the actual documents and letter that the Gra signed.
[note 2] There is a question if the Gra ever agreed with Reb Haim of Voloshin about this issue. And even though at that time it was "the need of the hour", nowadays the situation is different. It is hard to put my finger on the exact nature of the problem. My learning partner however put this issue succinctly: "They are private country clubs."   [That is to say the whole thing is usually "purchase by mistake." One is not getting what he paid for. In a מקח טעות buying something that turns out to be not what you expected it is not needed that the seller openly makes claims about his product as you can see in Bava Batra 92. It is enough that the buyer is known what he is buying for, If what he gets is different, then the deal is off, an he gets his money back. Some say also the money that is equal to the time and effort he spent. That is later on in the Gemara on around page 94.]


[In any case, to me the whole thing seems to be a subset of the general kind of thinking that was going on in Western Europe at the time. That more or less started with the Revolution in France and then extended  out to intellectual revolutions. The idea was to make movements and institutions all based on some new fashionable idea.    The overthrow of old systems got to be the "in thing."]

To obey one's parents is not considered a worthy thing to do.However that seems to be a mistake. There is one section in חידושי הגרנ''ט the book of Reb Naphtali Troup which goes into this and shows that to obey one's parents is a מצוות עשה positive commandment.

To obey one's parents is not considered a worthy thing to do. However that seems to be a mistake. There is one section in חידושי הגרנ''ט the book of Reb Naphtali Troup which goes into this and shows that to obey one's parents is a מצוות עשה positive commandment. The reason this is not obvious nowadays is that often one's parents are not very worthy. Still the issue seems to be ignored more than I would think to be proper. You can see this in Jeremiah 35 where the grandchildren of יונדב בו רכב Yonadav obeyed his order not to drink wine and were rewarded for that by an exceptional blessing.

The whole issue is gone into in the Tur {son of the Rosh, Rabbainu Asher}. 

The Rambam definitely has a consequentialist view

The Rambam definitely has a consequentialist view of the commandments. He even gives a few times the consequences they are supposed to bring to. This goes along well with the consequentialist theory of political authority. See this paper by Danny Frederick.  The reason that a state has authority does not need to be supported by philosophical arguments, (arguments that are often convoluted) . The reason is much more simple than that. The issue is not just human flourishing. The point is that no human good would be possible without a state.  We all would be subject to the most sadistic  kinds of criminals. Nothing we have, nor our very lives would be safe.

[The consequentialist view of the commandments is from the Gemara itself. There is an argument between  R. Shimon Ben Yohai and the Sages if we go by the reasons for the commandments or by the letter of the law. R. Shimon Ben Yohai holds we go by the reason. But no one argues if we know the reasons or not. The Gemara assumes point blank that we know the reasons an the reasons are obvious but the question is if we use that reason in applying the law or if we go by the letter of the law. 

The argument for the state goes even for states that one does not agree with its laws.
All the more so states that are founded on objective principles of justice like the USA and Israel.


The argument against socialist states is stronger than most people imagine. The issue is not how to justify socialism but rather what are the logical results. Once it can be shown the results are not good then all other arguments for justifying  do not matter.
This argument holds for any system that claims superiority over the USA Constitution or the State of Israel. The question that matters is what are the logical results of any system?