The story of Dama ben Netina's respect for his parents did not end with the famous incident of the precious stone. The Talmud preserves additional details that deepened his reputation as the ultimate exemplar of filial devotion.
Dama's mother was a difficult woman. She was, by some accounts, mentally unstable — given to outbursts of irrational anger that she directed at her son in the most humiliating ways possible.
One day, Dama was sitting among the nobles of his city, dressed in his finest garments, conducting important business. His mother burst in and slapped him across the face in front of everyone. The blow was hard enough to knock a golden slipper from her foot.
Dama said nothing. He did not strike back. He did not raise his voice. He did not even show anger on his face. He bent down, picked up the slipper, and handed it back to his mother so she would not have to walk barefoot.
The nobles were astonished. Here was a wealthy, powerful man — a leader of his community — publicly humiliated by his own mother, and his only response was to pick up her shoe. No one in the room would have blamed him for a sharp word, a raised hand, even a stern look. He gave none of these. He gave her back her slipper.
After his father died, Dama never sat in his father's chair. Not once. For as long as the chair existed, it remained empty — a throne for a man who no longer occupied it, preserved by a son who would not take his father's place even when his father was no longer alive to claim it.
The sages declared: if a gentile who was never commanded could show such honor, what excuse does any child of Israel have for treating a parent with anything less than absolute reverence?