If Bar Petoro's Parents Were Dying in a Desert, and He Had Enough Water to Save One of Them

moderntorahleadership

February 1

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

How should halakhic persons deal with equal but competing obligations?

Financial halakhah provides a variety of models for addressing halakhic equilibria. Mishnah Bava Metzia rules that the parties split a disputed garment (achelike), but that is not a viable solution for a disputed baby. Other options include holding the disputed object in escrow (y'hei munach ad sheyavo Eliyahu), having the law withdraw and allowing the parties to physically fight for it (kol d'alim g'var), and having the judge make an arbitrary or subjective choice (shuda d'dayni according to some understandings).

Do the same options exist with regard to competing interpersonal obligations? We'll discuss this with regard to honoring parents and saving lives.

The Fifth Statement commands us to Honor (kabed) your father and your mother. In a beraita on Kiddushin 30b, Rabbi (Yehudah HaNasi) notes that the order is reversed in Vayikra 19:3: A man – his mother and his father you must fear/revere (tiyrau). He concludes that in each case the Torah is emphasizing that halakhic obligations are the same toward each parent. Children naturally give kavod to mothers and mora to fathers Therefore, the Torah puts fathers first when speaking of kavod, and mothers first when speaking of mora.

Rabbi Shim'on in Tosefta Keritot 4:15 reaches the same conclusion by different means. He provides a roster of sets whose members the Torah usually orders one way, but varies once. For example, the Torah usually mentions Avraham before the other Forefathers, but Vayikra 26:42 lists him last. This teaches that the patriarchs were equal to one another. Similarly, the Torah generally mentions fathers before mothers. The exception of Vayikra 19:3 teaches that fathers and mothers generate identical obligations for their children.

Mishnah Keritot 6:9 makes the same argument using a more halakhically oriented roster of sets. However, it then throws a spanner into the works:

But the Sages said:

The father takes precedence over the mother

bekhol makom

because he (the son) and his mother are obligated in the kavod of his father.

Doesn't what the Sages say contradict the lesson of Vayikra 19:3? A beraita on Kiddushin 31a offers a casuistic solution.

A widow's son asked Rabbi Eliezer:

"If my father says "Bring me water to drink", and my mother says "Bring me water to drink",

which of them has priority?"

He said to him:

"Leave aside your mother's kavod, and do your father's kavod,

because you and your mother are obligated in your father's kavod."

He came before Rabbi Yehoshua, who told him the same thing.

He said to him:

"If they divorced, what is the law?"

He said to him:

"From between your eyelashes it is evident that you are the son of a widow!

Pour water into a trough and call them like chickens."

Following Rabbi Yehoshua, we can say that the kavod-obligations toward mothers and fathers are intrinsically equal, but this equality is expressed in practice only toward parents not married to each other. I imagine that some readers will find this solution intellectually satisfying, and others very much not so.

Regardless, this mishnah and beraita seem in tension with an anonymous beraita on Yebamot 62b:

One who lives his wife as he loves himself,

and who gives her more kavod than he gives himself,

and who directs his sons and daughters in a straight path,

and who marries them off soon after they reach maturity –

regarding him Scripture says: and you will know that your tent is at peace.

Why doesn't the husband's obligation of kavod toward the wife offset the wife's obligation of kavod toward the husband, and leave the children with equal obligation toward both?

Iyyun Yaakov suggests that the husband's obligation toward the wife is "mere hilkhot derekh eretz (manners)", unlike the wife's, which is "chiyyuv (obligation)". He is correct that Yebamot 62b isn't formulated as law. But in a sense he begs the question by not providing any legal framework for the wife's obligation.

Mishnah Keritot's formulation resembles a beraita on Bava Metzia 32a (cf. Yebamot 5b):

From where in Scripture do we know that if his father said to him:

"Become tamei (despite being a kohen)!"

or "Don't return (that lost object to its owner)",

that he must not obey him?

Scripture says:

A man – his mother and his father tiyrau, and My Shabbats you must observe, I am Hashem –

all of you are obligated to give Me kavod.

This suggests that kavod entails obedience, and thus enables a hierarchy among otherwise equal obligations. We can buttress this explanation by citing another beraita from Kiddushin 30b:

Scripture says: Honor your father and mother, and Scripture says: Honor Hashem out of your wealth –

This equates the kavod of father and mother to the kavod of the Omnipresent;

Scripture says: A man – his father and mother tiyrau, and Scripture says: And Hashem your G-d tiyra etc.

This equates the mora of father and mother to the mora of the Omnipresent...

Equality here does not preclude a hierarchy that gives G-d's commands precedence over those of parents. So too the equality of children's obligations toward parents may not preclude giving a father's commands precedence over a mother's.

However, many halakhists deny that obligations of kavod or mora entail a per se obligation of obedience. Shu"T Maharik 166 rules that kavod relates only to providing matters directly relevant to parents' parnasah (physical wellbeing). Be'er Sheva accordingly contends that a wife's obligation of kavod is similarly limited, and therefore that the father's kavod takes precedence only in those areas.

This still begs the question of the obligation's source. Tif'eret Yisrael therefore argues that the obligation compensates for the husband's obligation to be mefarnes his wife. It follows that if the wife declares herself self-supporting, there is no hierarchy, and probably that if the wife is primary breadwinner, her children must prioritize her kavod.

What should a child do when the obligations conflict and there is no hierarchy?

R. Yehoshua's solution of "calling them like chickens" fulfills both obligations simultaneously. Meiri takes this as law: "He should try to the extent possible to fulfill their commands simultaneously"; Rabbeinu Yerucham says essentially the same. That does not tell us what to do when no such solution is available.

Rashi comments that R. Yehoshua was joking. He may think that calling parents (especially like chickens) rather than serving them actually diminishes their kavod. According to Rashi, we cannot know even that one must fulfill the obligations simultaneously whenever possible.

Beit Yosef (YD 240) cites Rabbeinu Yerucham but notes that RIF omits Rabbi Yehoshua's solution, and Rambam's codification (Mamrim 6:14) makes no mention of it. Beit Yosef therefore rejects Rabbeinu Yerucham and rules that the child may give the water "l'ayzeh mayhem sheyirtzeh (= to whichever of them he wants)".

Maharshal (Yam Shel Shlomoh Kiddushin 1:62) disagrees. He argues that Rashi's "joke" relates to the details of presentation, not the underlying law. YSS does not address RIF and Rambam explicitly, but Lev Mayvin (Mamrim 6:14) argues that they omitted Rav Yehoshua because the need for simultaneity follows obviously from the equality of obligation.

However, Maharshal does not explain what to do when simultaneity is impossible. For example, what if your father asks for two softboiled eggs, and your mother for two eggs scrambled, with only two eggs available? Should you scramble one and softboil the other? Flip a coin? Give it to whichever parent you prefer?

In "Every Soldier's Death Diminishes Me" (Parshat Bo), I offered the following analysis:

If X orders A to murder B on pain of death for disobedience, A may not kill B, because "what says that your blood is redder?!" On that basis, Bar Petora taught (Bava Metzia 62a):

Two people on a wilderness walk, one of them holding a canteen of water;

either can drink it all and survive, but neither will survive on less than all –

both must drink, so that neither sees the death of his fellow.

However, Rabbi Akiva taught an exception:

And your brother will live with you –

your life takes precedence over your brother's life.

Since Rabbi Akiva's exception does not apply to third parties, they must either revert to Bar Petora (split the water), or else flip a coin. Choosing either party would violate "what says that your blood is redder?"

SBM alum R. David Fried emailed that Chazon Ish (Yoreh Deah 69) allows a third party to give the water "l'ayzeh mayhem sheyirtzeh", to whichever traveler they prefer. Rabbi Fried is correct. Chazon Ish apparently assumes that given two equal and ineluctably competing halakhic obligations, the shuda d'dayni model applies, rather than yachaloku, y'hei munach, or kol d'alim.

Chazon Ish thus follows the pattern of Beit Yosef over Maharshal with regard to parental kavod. However, my position is not based on Maharshal, who might agree with Chazon Ish when simultaneous fulfillment is impossible.

Chazon Ish also rules that a third party must give the water to a Kohen over a Levi, a Levi over a Yisroel, and so on down the line of precedence in Mishnah Horayot 3:8. He concedes that a Kohen may not murder a Yisroel to save his own life. But he apparently does not see "what says that your blood is redder" as relevant to our case. That's why he allows the third party to baldly choose one person's blood over another when there is no other basis for choosing.

Contemporary poskim ignore Mishnah Horayot's hierarchy in practice. The explanation I prefer is that we rule against that Mishnah (or decide that it cannot apply to genuine life-and-death situations) because it contradicts "what says that your blood is redder", which I see as the fundamental ethical principle of halakhah. The Mishnah may also conflict with Rabbi Akiva's ruling in the desert case. I further contend that if Chazon Ish were correct, even Ben Petora would allow a Cohen to drink the water over a Levi, etc.