When the Gemara reflects on the value of honoring parents, it presents it not as a narrow religious demand but as a foundational moral duty. Kibbud av va’em cultivates gratitude, disciplines the ego, and lays the groundwork for a value-driven society.
To underscore its universal reach, the Gemara turns to a non-Jew who distinguished himself in honoring his parents. By stepping beyond the Jewish world for its example, our sages signal that this mitzvah speaks a moral language shared by all people, a responsibility that sustains human relationships and social trust.
The name of this particular non-Jew was Dama, and he lived in Ashkelon. He owned rare and precious gemstones needed for the priestly garments in the Temple. At one point, Temple officials went to Dama to purchase these stones. The gems were locked in a chest, and the key lay beneath Dama’s sleeping father. Out of respect for his father’s rest, Dama refused to wake him to retrieve the key, even though doing so meant forfeiting a large profit. This episode captures the depth of Dama’s commitment to honoring his father.
The story continues. The following year, a red heifer was born into Dama’s herd – an animal that could command an even greater price than the gemstones from the year before. When the Temple officials returned, Dama said: “I know that I could demand an enormous sum for this red heifer. Instead, I ask only to be paid the money I lost last year when I honored my father and did not wake him.”
The Gemara does not address the obvious question: Why was Dama unwilling to profit from the red heifer, yet willing to be compensated for the loss he absorbed the previous year when he honored his father?
My teacher, Rav Yehuda Amital, explained that Dama’s response reflects a broader moral logic. Dama was a religious and moral person, but he did not feel comfortable asking money for the red heifer. The ceremony of the red heifer made no rational sense to him, and his moral integrity did not allow him to profit from a ritual he could not honestly justify.
Honoring parents, by contrast, is entirely logical. No society can endure without strong families, and kibbud av va’em nurtures core moral traits – gratitude, restraint, and the ability to look beyond oneself.
As a man of integrity, Dama felt comfortable asking to be repaid for money he had forfeited while honoring his father. He was not comfortable demanding a higher sum for a ceremony he did not understand.
Judaism, on the other hand, is a blend of commandments – some that we understand, and others whose logic remains beyond us. For this reason, before our arrival at Sinai God oriented us to both dimensions of religious life at Marah. He gave three formative mitzvot to prepare us for a life of command. Two were intelligible: Shabbat and the establishment of a judicial system to enforce law and order. Alongside them, He introduced the ceremony of the red heifer. The Tabernacle had not yet been assembled, and the mitzvah itself could not yet be performed. Even so, the study of its laws impressed on us that some divine commands are not meant to cohere with human logic.
Living with the illogical
These twin modes are essential to a robust and healthy religious life. Commandments must speak to the human mind and register as coherent, constructive, and aligned with human welfare and growth. We believe that God wills our good. Recognizing the wisdom embedded in many mitzvot allows religious observance to be experienced not as a burden but as a force that elevates and sustains human life.
Religion, however, is also transcendent – a leap into a higher realm and an encounter with the Divine Other. It does not operate solely within the frequency of human logic or comprehension. It asks for submission to a higher being and a higher wisdom. The mitzvot we cannot understand remind us that religion cannot be reduced to human reasoning or human experience. When we attempt to do so, we rob religion of its transcendence and flatten what is meant to be an encounter with something greater than ourselves.
This second dimension of religion is especially vital in the modern context, shaped by the rise of individualism and a deep suspicion of authority. The modern world has positioned the individual mind as the seat of conscience and truth, insisting that what cannot be fully understood or proven cannot be true – and certainly cannot be binding. That assumption threatens religious belief at its core.
Faith is a leap into a realm of divine wisdom that lies beyond human reach. Performing mitzvot that do not make sense to us reminds us that there is truth our minds cannot decipher. There is reason we may never discover, but divine choice is not random. If God commanded it, it must be beneficial; if He forbade it, it must be detrimental.
Why Judaism endured
Learning to balance the logical and the illogical was also central to Judaism’s survival through the tortured history of the past two thousand years.
Much of Jewish life made sense from within. Our religious lifestyle ensured family orientation, personal discipline, restraint, and strong communal structures – conditions necessary for human flourishing. Judaism functioned as a framework for welfare, community, and values, sustaining ethical individuals and stable societies. Within the inner world of both the individual and the community, God’s will felt intelligible and constructive.
The broader historical picture, however, rarely made sense. Loyalty to a covenant that brought suffering rather than security could not be justified by experience or outcomes. History more often tested that loyalty than rewarded it. Rational calculation alone would not have sustained exile; logic by itself would have pointed toward assimilation and relief. Yet Jewish life trained us to remain bound to the covenant even when it no longer appeared rational or advantageous.
That balance – holding fast to reason while living beyond it – allowed us to preserve meaning and continuity amid historical forces that were often hostile.
Faith in this war
The past two and a half years have also demanded that we blend rational understanding with the ability to persist even when events do not make sense.
Much of this war is intelligible to us. God has helped us defeat and significantly set back our enemies on multiple fronts, and the strength of our people has grown. These gains are visible and understandable, and we are grateful to God for enabling them.
However, our vicious enemies remain bent on our destruction, and this just war has ignited rabid, often inexplicable antisemitism across many sectors. Hatred has surfaced that defies evidence and moral clarity. We confront forces that cannot be reasoned with or morally decoded, and faith can no longer rely on understanding alone.
Still, there is much about our current struggle that we do understand.
Judaism has prepared us for precisely this condition: to act with clarity where events make sense, and to remain faithful where they do not – to follow divine commands that speak to human reason, and to remain loyal even when they exceed it.
That balance has shaped our religious life, sustained us through exile, and now continues to steady us as we move through history.■
The writer, a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion, was ordained by Yeshiva University and has an MA in English literature. His books include To Be Holy but Human: Reflections Upon My Rebbe, HaRav Yehuda Amital. mtaraginbooks.com.