Which would upset you more- child off derech or ser. illness

healthymama

Thu, May 10 2007, 8:43 am

Everyone is talking about a wide range of halachic situations and the answer for each one is different.

I think it is completely out of line to say that parents should decide that their children should die rather than try to hide them with a nonjewish neighbor. We do not believe that death will bring some sort of salvation as other religions do. The whole point of everything is to stay alive. Yes, in some situations a person is supposed to sacrifice his life rather than worship idols, etc. But those situations bear little or no resemblance to the circumstances that Jewish people found themselves in during the Holocaust.

Also, I would certainly like to see a source that allows one Jew ( who is not a rav) to decide for another whether he will live or die. Why would a parent be allowed to make this decision for a child?

And I absolutely think a child with a serious illness is much worse than a child who is off the derech.

amother

Thu, May 10 2007, 8:57 am

ladies.....the OP wasn't saying, which is worse, your child being ill or bowing down to idols. she was saying which is worse, your child being ill or going off the derech! just because you go off the derech, doesn't necesarily mean that you're a xtian or worshipping idols. it could just mean that you're not as frum, or taking a break from frumkeit for a while. going off the derech does not imply that you're an idol worshipper!

Mrs.Norris

Thu, May 10 2007, 8:50 pm

I don't see how anyone could feel better about their child having a terminal illness than being 'off the derech'.
Yes a child who stops keeping mitzvot is doing wrong but there is always a chance they will repent whereas if your child has a terminal illness you have to watch your child physically suffer, knowing there is no chance of return.

GAMZu

Fri, May 11 2007, 12:44 am

TzenaRena, I wanted to add that to my post, but I couldn't word it properly. It just comes to prove what I am saying. Nobody is forcing a child who is off the derech to violate a specific mitzva, in which case he should rather die than transgress it. So it totally does not apply what you said- that it's better to die than transgress.
Shalhevet: I know that many simple Jews have given their lives to avoid doing aveiros. But I am talking about forcing a child of yours to die rather than transgress. Who would do it? Who would say to the child to go to his death?

It's like the horrific, gut wrenching story which is a prelude to a certain book. The author writes that when he was a little boy in the holocaust, the nazis, yemach shemom, placed his father on a stool with a noose around his neck. They told the son to kick the stool out from under his father, or else they both die. The father was screaming at his son to do it- that he is commanding him to kick the stool and he must obey.
I don't remember how it turned out.