By: Nathan Kotler

The question
In our issue, we encounter a surprising fact: Rabbi Eliezer teaches the halakhic boundary for honoring parents specifically from the act of Dama ben Netina, who gave up a great deal of wealth on the condition that he not grieve his father and awaken him from his slumber. Rashi concludes from this that if a worshiper of idols has reached a high level of honoring parents, all the more so since Israel commands it. But if so, we must ask why we learn the halakhic boundary for honoring parents specifically from a worshiper of idols?

To answer the question, we must clarify what the validity of human moral conventions is? And is it possible that the halakhic obligation will be easier than the human moral obligation?

The validity of human morality in Halacha
Rabbi Nissim Gaon teaches us a great rule: "For all the commandments that depend on reason [=intellectual reason] and on understanding of the heart [=understanding of the heart], all are already binding on them from the day that God created man on the earth, upon him and upon his seed after him for generations to come" (Introduction to Tractate Berakhot). Rabbi Hanoch the Henik of Sasov writes that Rabbi Nissim Gaon's source is the words of Chazal in all the Shas, "Why did he call me reason?" (Responsa 1d Hanoch 32). That is, anything that the mind requires to be kept has full validity and obligation from the Torah, and therefore there is no need for a verse to teach us the law (Peni Yehoshua Berakhot 33:1).

Tractate of Idolatry