Cursing parents: Never means never

This week’s parsha contains a mitzvah that addresses the punishment to be placed upon those who curse their parents. This reference (Chapter 20 verse 9) seems to be a repeat from Shmot 21:17.

Various midrashic comments on the verse in Shmot note that our verse in Kedoshim serves to clarify some of the nuances of the law, such as that a person is in violation of the law not only on the occasion of cursing both parents (which seems to be the implication in Shmot), but even if one curses one or the other. Another clarification from our parsha is in the death penalty that is included in the verse: stoning. (An understanding of Biblical death sentences is beyond the scope of this discussion.)

The midrash and some commentaries — in both verses — note that the prohibition is only on cursing one’s parents, but not on cursing one’s grandparents. One might suggest that the reason the prohibition doesn’t extend that far is because a person would never have the need to curse one’s grandparents. Of course, a person should never have the need to curse one’s parents, but we are all familiar with circumstances that have unfortunately ruined a relationship between parent and child.

In my school years, I was acquainted with some kids whose parents had been through a very difficult divorce, and one case in which the father still hadn’t given the mother a get after many years of separation. These young men I knew had zero respect for their father, and were probably in violation of this mitzvah, although for understandable reasons.

Hopefully people can be given the strength to never bring their relationship with their children to this point – because the parent is then in violation of a different mitzvah from our parsha (19:14): “Do not put a stumbling block before the blind.”

How far does the prohibition extend?

Rashi on the verse notes that one may not curse one’s parents even after their deaths. The Torah Temimah explains that a curse causes damage to the soul. Your own age does not matter, notes Targum Yonatan, as you may never curse your parents, even when you are old.