Question #1: Same Voice
Can a man have a voice no deeper than his wife’s?
Question #2: Same Vice
Is an adolescent alcoholic automatically a ben soreir umoreh?
Introduction:
One of the most unusual parts of the Torah, both written and oral, is the passage concerning the ben soreir umoreh, the stubborn and rebellious son. The Torah teaches that this spoiled brat is beaten, which means that he receive malkus, up to 39 lashes, and if he still continues in his nefarious ways, he is executed via sekilah, stoning. Although many of us have considered even crueler ways to remove the presence of an unruly neighbor’s progeny, we probably did not entertain the idea seriously, even if the kid endowed the concept “teenager” or “adolescent” with a new level of meaning.
Let us understand how our Sages analyze the verses of this mitzvah (Devarim 22:18-21): When a man will have a wayward and rebellious son, who does not listen either to the voice of his father or to the voice of his mother. Subsequently, he was chastised and he still refuses to hearken to their admonishment. His father and his mother seize him and bring him to the elders of his city, whose local beis din is near the city gates. The parents declare to the judges of the beis din, “this son of ours is wayward and rebellious and does not listen to us. He eats an abundance of quality meat and drinks wine to excess.” All the people of the city shall stone him until he dies; you shall destroy the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and be awestruck!
As Chazal and Rashi question: For what reason do we execute him? Because we see where his life is heading. Now, he finds it easy to steal from his parents, to find a good price on quality meat and wine and an undisturbed place to enjoy his ill-gained lifestyle. As he grows older, he will find it more difficult to maintain this, and once he is experienced at taking other people’s property to sustain his bad habits, he will hold people up for their valuables. Then, it is only a question of time until he murders. The Torah ruled: Let him die while he is still relatively innocent, rather than die a completely guilty scoundrel (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 71b). We will see much more on this repeated theme shortly.
Wayward daughters
What about a rebellious girl? Note that the Torah states that the mitzvah applies only to a wayward and rebellious son, but not to a daughter. As a menace to proper societal standards, Chazal recognize that a rebellious young lass is a much greater concern (Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin). Yet the Torah exempts all females from the status of ben soreir umoreh. As the Talmud Yerushalmi questions: “Who is more likely to become a communal liability of which we need to be concerned, a wayward son or a wayward daughter? A daughter! Yet the Torah exempts a daughter and obliges the son!”
Meat and wine
Let us review the basics of the case. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 70a) mentions a dispute between tana’im. According to the Tanna Kamma, the youth is not obligated unless he consumes a tartimar of meat and half a log of Italian wine at one sitting. Rabbi Yosi says a maneh of meat and a full log of wine. (Please be aware that there are three different tanna’im named Rabbi Yosi whose opinions are mentioned in the relevant passage of Gemara Sanhedrin and in the course of this article. This one is Rabbi Yosi the son of Rabbi Chalafta.)
The Gemara mentions that he drank Italian wine, which was apparently a boutique product. (However, the Rambam omits mention of this, and the Ramah understands the passage of Gemara differently.) The Mishnah mentions a peculiar rule: If he ate non-kosher meat of any type, he is not ruled to be a ben soreir umoreh, notwithstanding that he consumed the quantities and in the manner that we will soon describe.
The opposite is also true: He is not punished as a ben soreir umoreh when his eating was at a seudas mitzvah, even though all the other requirements of ben soreir umoreh are met.
If he eats meat that was salted to preserve it, he is exempt. How much time must the meat have been salted to exempt our lad from gruesome results? If the meat remained salted for at least a day and a half, it is no longer considered quality meat whose consumption leads to conviction of the ben soreir umoreh. This means that if a lad performs all the misdeeds of a ben soreir umoreh, but prefers huge amounts of pickled tongue, corned beef, pastrami, hot dogs, bologna or aufschnit to rare barbecue, he is exempted from the law of ben soreir umoreh, since his habit is to consume preserved meats.
Rav Huna adds that he must buy the meat inexpensively.
Where in the posuk does Rav Huna see that the ben soreir umoreh purchased meat at a good price? Although we learned this halacha via an oral tradition from Moshe Rabbeinu, the posuk contains a hint: The word זולל, which means glutton, also implies זול, inexpensive.
The Talmud Yerushalmi asks: “Who is more likely to become a communal problem, he who buys at a discount, or he who is a big spender? The big spender! Yet, the Torah exempted the big spender and obliged the lad who purchased his meat at a discount!” The Bavli explains that acquiring top quality meat at a reduced price will more likely trap the ben soreir umoreh into bad habits. He will figure out how to fund these vices by purchasing the meat inexpensively and stealing the small amounts that he needs from his father. Initially, he will be able to sustain his habits this way. However, ultimately, he will exhaust his parents’ resources and need to find other means with which to fund his vices. This will lead him to a life of serious crime.
Other rules
The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 71a) teaches that if he stole from his father and ate in his father’s domain, or stole from others and ate in other people’s domain, he is exempt from the ruling of ben soreir umoreh. Only if he stole from his father and ate in other people’s domain is he categorized as a ben soreir umoreh.
Why are these conditions necessary for the wayward youth to be ruled a ben soreir umoreh? What difference does it make from whom he stole or where he ate and drank? To quote the Talmud Yerushalmi: “Logically, who should be more guilty? He who steals from others or he who steals from his parents? I would say, he who steals from others. Yet the Torah exempts from ben soreir umoreh he who steals from others and punishes only he who steals from his parents.”
The Talmud Bavli explains that a child who steals only from others does not qualify as a ben soreir umoreh because it will not prove easy for a youth to steal to support his vices. And, if he eats his repast in his father’s domain, there remains a possibility that he might still be disciplined, since his father may catch him and successfully bring him under control. Once he has developed the habit of stealing from his father and eating on other people’s premises, the Torah considers him incorrigible.
The Mishnah continues that he is not punished as a ben soreir umoreh when his eating was at a seudas mitzvah, even if he used money that he stole from his father to pay for his food. Something about the atmosphere of a seudas mitzvah might influence him in a positive way.
Returning to our Mishnah, Rabbi Yosi the son of Rabbi Yehudah ruled that there is yet one more condition for him to fulfill before he qualifies legally as a ben soreir umoreh – he must steal from both his father and his mother. This leads the Gemara (Sanhedrin 71a) to a discussion as to how is it possible for him to steal from his mother? After all, if she is still married to his father, the earnings of a married woman are the property of her husband, since he is responsible to support her. The Gemara provides two approaches how this could happen, but explaining them is beyond the scope of our article.
If he develops other expensive tastes — drinks strong alcoholic beverages, uses psychodelic drugs, gambles or engages in other addictive or destructive behavior — he does not qualify as a ben soreir umoreh. Only for eating meat and drinking wine does he qualify as a ben soreir umoreh. All these laws are already taught in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 70a).
Thirteen and a quarter
There is another condition to the law of ben soreir umoreh that I have not yet discussed. The ben soreir umoreh must be at least thirteen years old, the age of maturity and responsibility for all mitzvos, at the time that he steals from his father and purchases the meat and wine. The entire saga, including condemning him to execution, must occur before he turns the age of thirteen years and three months (Mishnah Sanhedrin 68b, 71b). In other words, everything we have described above must occur in three months or less. In today’s court system in which it takes years for a criminal case to come to trial, ben soreir umoreh could never happen.
The Talmud Yerushalmi asks: Who is more dangerous to society, a young child aged barely thirteen who commits these acts, or someone older? Unquestionably, someone older is more of a menace! Yet the Torah exempted anyone older than thirteen years and three months. The Yerushalmi explains that this mitzvah is a gezeiras hamelech, a decree of G-d, and we will have difficulty explaining the rationales of its details.
Diabled parents
Here is another unusual condition: The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 71a) rules that both parents must be without any disabilities. To quote the Mishnah, “If either parent is missing part of a hand, or is lame, mute, blind or deaf, (the son) does not become a ben soreir umoreh.”
What difference does it make whether his parents have disabilities? Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch wrote extensively on the subject of ben soreir umoreh in his commentary on the Chumash and in essays that are published in his Collected Writings, Volume VII. Throughout this article there are hashkafic questions that I have left unanswered in order to encourage our readers to invest the time to read Rav Hirsch’s extensive and beautiful explanation.
Same voice
According to Rabbi Yehuda (Sanhedrin 71a), there are yet other conditions that must be met to rule that he is a ben soreir umoreh. His two parents must be similar to each other in voice, appearance and height. The Bach understands the Gemara very literally, that it means that either his father has an extremely high-pitched voice, or his mother has an unusual low-pitched voice. Rav Hirsch explains this to mean that “they are in the same place” educationally – they have been giving their son the exact same educational message, which he has been ignoring. However, if one parent is more lenient than the other (as is often the case), he cannot be ruled a ben soreir umoreh.
The Gemara notes that Rabbi Yehudah contends that there never was an actual case of ben soreir umoreh. The Bach explains that since a healthy man’s voice will always be deeper than his wife’s, Rabbi Yehudah’s statement that his two parents must be similar to each other in voice makes the incidence of ben soreir umoreh impossible. Thus, in his opinion, we have a negative answer to our opening question: Can a man have a voice no deeper than his wife’s?
The Gemara teaches that another tanna, Rabbi Shimon, also holds that the mitzvah of ben soreir umoreh never happened and never will happen, yet the Torah presents this mitzvah so that we should study the case and receive reward for understanding what the Torah teaches. However, Rabbi Yonasan retorted, “I saw a ben soreir umoreh, and I sat on his grave.”
Similarly, Rabbi Yosi Hagalili (this is a third tanna named Yosi, who was earlier than the others mentioned) asks: “Because he ate a tartimar of meat and drank half a log of Italian wine, the Torah states that he should be stoned to death? Rather, the Torah understands what will be the later decisions of the ben soreir umoreh. Eventually, he will exhaust his father’s property, and supporting his expensive habits without resources will become difficult. At that point, he will become a bandit who murders people in order to take their possessions. The Torah said let him die while he is still relatively innocent (Sanhedrin 72a).
There is an interesting explanation of the Chasam Sofer in which he understands that there is no dispute among the tanna’im whether a ben soreir umoreh situation was ever ruled on. He contends that even Rabbi Yonasan agrees that no ben soreir umoreh ruling was ever issued. What Rabbi Yonasan means is that there once was a youth who qualified as a ben soreir umoreh and should have been executed when he was young, but his parents had mercy on him. As a result, they caused great calamities to themselves and to the Jewish People, and the wayward son ultimately suffered a violent death. It was on this child’s grave that Rabbi Yonasan sat, explains the Chasam Sofer.
Procedure
Shortly after reaching his thirteenth birthday (Mishnah Sanhedrin 68b), this lad, whose parents note that he never obeys them, steals money from his father. He used the stolen money or property to purchase kosher, quality meat and wine, which he is able to buy at a good price. He eats a large quantity of this meat cooked very rare, and at the same sitting drinks large quantity of the wine, while not on his parents’ premises. Both parents warn him that his actions are completely unacceptable, and this has no obvious effect. In addition, two kosher witnesses see him, admonish him and warn him that beis din will punish him for his actions (Sifrei).
Who presses charges?
Who raises and presses the charges against the ben soreir umoreh? The Mishnah teaches that it is his own parents! Furthermore, he is ruled a ben soreir umoreh only if both of his parents “press charges” against him. To quote the Mishnah, “If his father wants, but his mother does not; if his mother wants, but his father does not, he is not ruled a ben soreir umoreh (Sanhedrin 71a).
According to the Sifrei, he must violate not only what his parents teach him, but also what the Torah, the prophets and the judges warn him.
Both parents must present to the beis din that their son is wayward, a thief, and eats the quantities and type of meat and wine that we have described in the style mentioned. Beis din then gives him malkus, 39 lashes with a strap made of calf leather — a stern blow to the muscles on his back and shoulders to motivate some change in his behavior patterns. If, after receiving the malkus, he continues to steal from his parents and enjoy himself in the way we have described, it is the parents’ responsibility to bring him back to beis din for his final judgment. Small wonder that some tanna’im rule that the situation never happened.
After being lashed for his intolerant behavior and ignoring all warnings to correct his lifestyle, we make sure that he can never continue his activities. Rather than break or amputate just his arms and his legs, he is executed by the beis din.
Conclusion
We see that there are many perplexing specific criteria that categorize a ben soreir umoreh. We mentioned above that the purpose of the Torah’s parsha of ben soreir umoreh is to teach many of the rules of education. In this context, I encourage our readers to read Rav Hirsch’s comments on the parsha and his essays on education in Volume VII of the Collected Writings. There, he analyzes many of the halachos of ben soreir umoreh, and, in his typical style, develops brilliant insights into proper Torah education.
The mitzvah of ben soreir umoreh teaches a very deep lesson in education: “These words hold the key to the secret of proper child-raising. A father and a mother united as one in their love for their child and in complete agreement on the principles by which he should be raised – herein lies the strength and the hope of all education…But such unity can be achieved only if the child’s father and mother are united also in their own subordination to the Will of G-d; if they view the sacred function of child-rearing as their most sacred task, to be performed for Hashem and in keeping with His holy Will; and if His judgments will, as a matter of course, serve to resolve any disagreements in their views and attitudes” (Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Volume VII, Page 348).
