Why Some Feed Their Parents Well and Still Go to Gehinnom

Midrash Aggadah Gaster, Exempla no. 192; cf. Kiddushin 31a-b

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 5, 2025

Rabbi Hananyah taught a puzzle that his students were expected to unravel. "Some children feed their parents badly," he said, "and still go to Paradise. Others feed their parents well and still go to Gehinnom."

The students would have been puzzled. Honoring father and mother is the fifth commandment (Exodus 20:12), and its reward, Scripture tells us, is length of days. How could the one who feeds a parent well end up in the worse place?

The explanation, the Exempla promises, follows in the next chapter. The logic is not hard to guess once you pause on it. A child who can only offer his parent plain bread, and offers it with kindness and respect and a soft word, has honored his parent. The meal is small, but the honor is full. Another child can set a lavish table every night and throw down the plates with a scowl, complain about the burden, mutter about the parent's infirmity. The meal is generous. The honor is empty.

The Talmud preserves variations of this teaching in tractate Kiddushin (31a–b), where the rabbis gathered stories of children whose care for their parents was measured not by the menu but by the countenance. The fifth commandment does not ask what you served. It asks how you served it. A stale crust given gently, the sages suggest, may outweigh a banquet served with contempt.

Themes

Parenting Ethics Afterlife Rabbis Humility

Biblical References

Exodus 20:12

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