* Translation by Joshua Siskin
“We talk a lot about respecting our parents, but from whom do we really need to receive respect?” asked my mother-in-law, marriage and family guidance counselor Ziva Meir, at the start of our shared presentation in the city of Lod.
The Lod municipality announced that the theme of this school year will be respect. Respect for parents, for teachers, for friends, for the environment, for our heritage. Yesterday hundreds of parents gathered to speak about respect for parents and my mother-in-law asked: “Above all, from whom do we need to receive respect?”.
The answer is profound. Not from our children, not from the community, not from social media, not even from our spouses — but from ourselves. “We must respect ourselves. I myself am the first person who must behave towards me with respect. Parents need to respect themselves.,to understand that they have a unique and holy function. A mother needs to demonstrate a sense of joyful purpose in motherhood. A father must feel that his task in educating his children is of enormous value. The conviction of parents that the direction they have taken is the right one is the best way to experience true respect from their children.
We cannot be ‘beggars’ asking for charity in the form of respect. It is common to search for where we are not receiving sufficient respect. We live in an era when people require “likes” for validation of their existence. They need others to appreciate them for them to develop a sense of self-worth.
But if we search only for respect or esteem from others, it will never be enough. At the moment we understand that we are created in God’s image, that we have a unique role to play in this world, that we have absolute value in and of ourselves — this is the true meaning of respect.”
May we all be privileged to enjoy this respect.
