Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
"Honor your father and your mother, in order that your days may be lengthened." In this week's Torah portion we stand at the foot of Mount Sinai and receive the Ten Commandments. Among them is the command to honor our parents. The Torah even promises a reward for doing so: lengthening of our days or long life.
Rav Moshe Chaim Lau was an important rabbi in Poland and was murdered in the Holocaust at the age of 50. He offered original commentary on this verse, according to which our days would be lengthened not only going forwards but backwards towards our roots. "If you will honor and esteem the values of your parents, you will merit long life since you will then create a bridge between the past and the future so they will unite without interruption."
If you honor the past, you lengthen your life, because you do not begin here and now. You are part of greater and more ancient story. If you are 20 years old and honor your 50-year-old father, and he honors his 85-year-old father, you are actually 155, and even more. Your story goes far, far into the past, from generation to generation, all the way back to standing at Mount Sinai.
