Those who give you life: A dvar on parshat yitro

This is a written version of a dvar torah I gave during Kabbalat Shabbat services on the 20th of Shevat, 5783 (February 10th, 2023).

Quick content warning: This dvar will allude to family abuse. There’s no details of anyone’s particular abuse, but it’s a central topic. So do please pause, take breaths, and take care of yourself.

This week, we read Parshat Yitro. This parsha, most famously, has the first appearance of the ten commandments: You shall have no other gods besides me, You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, and so forth, and among those ten commandments: "Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that your G—d is assigning to you."

My Hebrew name is Shifrah bat Mosheh b’Tzipporah. My father’s name was not Mosheh, nor my mother’s name Tzipporah. When I changed my Hebrew name from Yishai to Shifrah, I took the opportunity to change the second half as well. Like Moses and Tzipporah, I escaped from a narrow place. Moses, like me, was a runaway, who fled the dysfunctional family who raised him and found a new family as an adult among the Midianites. Later, he meets Miriam and Aaron, but although they are biologically related, Moses did not grow up with them, his relationship with them is formed as an adult and he chooses them as his family instead of the Egyptian royal family who raised him.

I have long struggled with the mitzvah to honor your father and mother. How does someone who comes from a dysfunctional or abusive household fulfill the mitzvah to honor them? In times like these, I turn to talmud.

In Kiddushin 31b, Rabbi Asi is trying to escape his mother who makes constant demands that are impossible to fulfill, forcing him to violate the commandment to honor her. He asks Rabbi Yochanan if it would be permissible to leave, and Rabbi Yochanan tells him he cannot. Rabbi Asi tries to come up with halakhic edge-cases and loopholes which would allow him to leave, and Rabbi Yochanan, who never knew his own parents, does not know how to answer these questions, but he says "It is evident that you are determined to leave, so may the omnipresent one bless you and return you to us safely someday." In this moment, Rabbi Yochanan empathizes with Rabbi Asi, even though he cannot personally relate. He decides to put the well-being of his colleague above traditional expectations, and blesses his leaving.

Later in the talmud, in Kiddushin 32a, we hear the story of Rabba bar Rav Huna, who came up with an elaborate test to see if his son would dishonor him. The Gemara asks: but what would happen if the son fails the test and thereby violates the mitzvah to honor his father? The Gemara answers: Rabba bar Rav Huna is actually, in this story, violating the mitzvah “[do not] put a stumbling block before the blind.” He is making it difficult for his son to follow the mitzvah to honor him, and in doing so, Rav Huna had forgone his own honor from the beginning. His son would not violate the mitzvah to honor his father if he failed a pointless test by a dishonorable father. And so from this, Rav Ḥisda then says: "with regard to a father who forgoes his honor, his honor is forgone, and his son does not transgress if he does not treat him in the proper manner."

What the talmud teaches us is that if our parents dishonor themselves by mistreating their children, then we are no longer obligated to honor them. Nachmanides says that the primary way to honor our parents is to not deny that they are our parents. Combining this with what we learn in Kiddushin 32a, it goes to reason that if they have dishonored themselves through abusing their children, by making it difficult for those children to honor them, then those children are no longer obliged to even acknowledge them as their parents.

In other words: it’s okay to estrange abusive parents who hurt you.

So then, how are survivors of abusive households to follow the mitzvah to honor their father and mother if they have no available honorable parents? How do we long endure in this world we live in? Nachmanides provides us with a hint. In Niddah 31a, we learn that the reason we honor our parents is because they had participated in our creation alongside HaShem as equal partners. That is why this commandment is among the first five, which all pertain to honoring our creator. We do not deny that they are our parents in the same way we do not deny that HaShem is our G—d. But, I believe, if our biological families are dangerous to us, destroy us, and drive us away from life, then I think they are no longer taking part in HaShem's sacred act of giving life.

Next week, I will be getting gender confirmation surgery, The Surgery, the big one for trans women who want it. In times like these, we say the Shehecheyanu, the blessing over firsts and momentous occasions. “Baruch atah [HaShem] [elokeinu] melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v’kiy’manu, v’higianu, lazman hazeh.” Blessed are you, HaShem, source of life, creator of the universe, who has granted us life, and sustained us, and allowed us to reach this moment. My parents may have granted me life, but who in my life has participated in the act of sustaining me, and allowing me to reach this moment?

This moment, having survived all the hardships that came my way, from housing insecurity to being an essential worker during the worst of the pandemic. This moment, having found enough stability and communal support that I can get a surgery that’ll put me out of work for two months and requires me to be completely dependent on the care of my loved ones for weeks.

It is my chosen family who have worked alongside HaShem in sustaining me, and allowing me to reach this moment. It is chosen family who take part in and collaborate with HaShem in renewing our life, who bring us healing and support, and enable us to continue living despite the narrow places we come from. Every day, my chosen family takes part in the sacred act of giving life in a mutual reciprocal way, grounded in healthy boundaries and respect.

So then, returning to Nachmanides, we must honor our chosen family by not denying that they are our family. We must value our chosen families and not treat chosen family as a lesser form of family. We must respect the horizontal networks of mutual support we are all a part of. Even if you have parents worth honoring in your life, whoever it is that sustains you in life, they too are deserving of honor, whether of blood relation or not.

My sister-by-choice, Jess, recently invited me to be in her wedding party alongside her biological sister; and she asked me to be in her family photos at the wedding alongside her biological family. I had said I would do it "if her biological family is comfortable with it." She very immediately, and firmly, cut me off, and asserted that "that is not anybody else's decision to make." It does not matter if they want me or not. We are chosen family, and that makes us just as real family as they are, and she wants me in the photos, so it doesn't matter what her biological family thinks, it only matters if I'm comfortable. It meant everything to me. I was moved to tears. Chosen family is real family, no matter what anybody else thinks about it.

So I'll leave you with this:

There is a very compelling moment near the beginning of Parshat Yitro, in Shemot 18:10, where Moses recounts to Jethro, his father in law, his experiences in Egypt, the oppression of the Pharaoh, and the harrowing escape he and his chosen people endured. Jethro then recites a bracha: “Baruch atah [HaShem] asher hitziyl et-chem miyad mitzrayim umiyad paroh asher hitziyl et-ha'am mitachat yad-mitzrayim.”

“Blessed be HaShem,” Jethro said, “who delivered you from Mitzrayim and from Pharaoh, and who delivered the people from under the hand of Mitzrayim."

To me, this is reminiscent of when a survivor of an abusive family first shares their story with someone in their new life, and that new person says: “I am so glad that you are here now, safe, and no longer there, in that narrow place.” So to all of you who have also escaped a narrow place, I offer you this blessing:

Blessed is [HaShem], who delivered you from the narrow place, and may you find chosen family, and a support network, and may you keep each other safe and sustain each other’s lives, and may you honor each other, so you may endure long on this earth.