{"id":63205,"date":"2019-09-19T14:17:53","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T11:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=63205"},"modified":"2023-04-14T14:24:15","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T11:24:15","slug":"letting-go-the-defining-challenge-of-parenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/letting-go-the-defining-challenge-of-parenting\/","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go: The Defining Challenge of Parenting"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Elijah\u2019s time came to die, his disciple Elisha would not let go. Exasperated, Elijah asks Elisha if he has any final requests. Elisha responds with a seemingly arrogant demand- <\/span>Let a double portion of your spirit pass on to me<\/span><\/em> (2:9). Elijah grants the potential of surpassing his own prophetic prowess, subject to the curious condition that Elisha witness his death- <\/span>if you see me as I am being taken from you, this will be granted to you; if not it will not<\/span><\/em> (2:10). The significance of predicating the realization of Elisha\u2019s request on his capacity to observe Elijah\u2019s departure lies in the lesson that, though continuity with the past is essential, only a sober acknowledgment of its passage enables progress. Elijah\u2019s successor\/son needed to come to terms with the end of an era to avoid the banality ensured by a life of simply parroting his spiritual father. Elisha, in what surely is the shortest eulogy in Jewish history, laments Elijah\u2019s passing in military and parental imagery- <\/span>Oh father, father! Israel\u2019s chariots and horsemen<\/span><\/em>.<\/em> Elijah the prophetic father released his prophetic child to shape his own destiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

Franz Kafka, one of the most innovative of modern writers exquisitely captured this tension in his <\/span>Letter to His Father<\/span><\/em>, pleading for release from the suffocating influence of a father who measured the son\u2019s accomplishments strictly in terms of himself. Franz excoriated his father\u2019s encouragement solely for actions that imitated him but, he laments, \u201cnothing of this had anything to do with my future.\u201d His denunciation continued, \u201cAnd it is characteristic that even today you really only encourage me in anything when you yourself are involved, when what is at stake is your own sense of self-importance.\u201d Franz\u2019s literary breakthrough could only materialize by overcoming the stifling parental presence he felt \u201c<\/span>would simply trample me underfoot so that nothing was left of me.\u201d<\/span> Elijah\u2019s staging of his death so that his \u2018son\u2019 could outdo his own prophetic reputation was the father\u2019s sacrifice for a \u2018son\u2019s\u2019 greatness Hermann Kafka could not replicate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elijah\u2019s death scene anticipates his messianic role which the prophet Malachi entrusted to him in God\u2019s name- <\/span>Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you\u2026He shall reconcile the hearts of fathers with their children, and the hearts of the children with their fathers<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(Mal. 3:23-24). It is not the cessation of war but the friction between parents and children that signals messianic times. The greatest source of conflict between generations is parents viewing their children as clones of themselves rather than independent human beings with their own aspirations. Like Elijah, parents must encourage children to let go. The messianic age can never materialize if growth is measured in terms of how closely one generation duplicates the previous one. Elijah\u2019s legacy reconciles successive generations teaching that their love for each other does not entail acting as mirrors of each other. Such is the defining challenge of parenting. 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