Resistance to Change October 1, 2024 Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by HaRav Nissan…
Strike Two: Should Children Be Subjected to Corporal Punishment?
Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman
September 5, 2024
Our previous article surveyed the Torah sources that support corporal punishment of children. In this article, we explore the views of later authorities, many of whom are generally opposed to hitting children, at least under the circumstances that prevail in our time.
R’ Eliezer Papo (the Pelleh Yo’eitz)
Two centuries ago, one of the first gedolim to discourage the practice was R’ Eliezer Papo, in his popular work of mussar and advice, Pelleh Yo’eitz. He extends the Gemara’s injunction (cited in the previous article) against striking an adult son to refractory children of any age, and he goes so far as to instruct parents of such children to avoid even scolding them, becoming angry at them, or making demands of them:
Based on the rationale, we may infer that this is not limited to striking an adult son, for the rationale is that he causes his son to lash out at him and degrade his father,[1] and the father thus violates “velifnei iveir lo sitein michshol (and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind).”[2] Since this is the case, “gadol” does not specifically mean adult, but even a young child, as long as the father knows that he does not accept authority, as in our generations, when impudence has increased,[3] and a son lashes out at his father. Not only when he strikes him, but even if he scolds him angrily, he, too, will become angry at him and not accept the scolding. Sefer Mishlei says truly that “Chastisement frightens an understanding one more than smiting a fool a hundred times,”[4] but it says “an understanding one,” whereas one who does not understand will not accept scolding. And there is a son who does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, and such cases require discernment in the father: If they know and recognize that their sons are tough and there is no fear of Hashem before their faces, and they do not listen to the voices of their fathers and mothers, then they should not impose any commands upon them to serve them, and they should try not to become angry at them, not to distress them, and to speak to them only in a gentle tone…[5]
R’ Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
In the twentieth century, two great talmidei chachamim and ba’alei mussar expressed rather different perspectives on striking children: R’ Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler and R’ Shlomo Wolbe. In a letter written in 1949, Rav Dessler defends the practice; he repudiates the position of “modern scholars” that oppose hitting children on the grounds that children imitate their parents, so hitting them will teach them to hit those who flout their will. He explains that these scholars are making two errors:
- “They think that a person is created without any character traits at all, and he learns them only from his surroundings…[6] But this is not the case: ‘Sin rests at the door’[7] (i.e., at the exit of the womb, when a child is born)…Of course, the environment reinforces character traits and one also learns from others, but the fundamental character traits need not be learned from others, for one has them on his own.”
- “They think that it is necessary to develop independence in children, but this is quite a large error: It is not independence that needs to be developed, but submission. Even when humility and submission are developed in him, he will learn, on his own, arrogance and murder. But to teach him that ‘only I, and there is none but me’[8]—this is the teaching of Edom, the teaching of murder and theft.”
Rav Dessler proceeds to cite the instructions of the Gra to his wife to hit their children if they do not listen to her, as well as his cousin’s report that he saw in one of the sfarim hakdoshim that even if a child obeys his parents, it is appropriate to find an excuse to strike him at least minimally.[9]
R’ Shlomo Wolbe
Rav Wolbe, however, strongly disapproves of hitting children in general:
But isn’t it true that “He who withholds the rod hates his son,” and that one must hit his child?
In another pasuk we find: “I had tended the flock meant to be slain, for they were the meekest of the flock. I took for Myself two rods—one I called “Pleasantness,” and the other I called “Destroyers”—and I tended the flock” (Zchariah 11:7). Here we see that there is a rod with which we hit, and there is another rod that we also use to educate, but with pleasantness: the rod of pleasantness.
One must know that the rod of pleasantness is also a rod, but it doesn’t necessarily cause pain. If I give a child encouragement, that is also a rod. If the child does something good and I give him a piece of chocolate, that is also a rod, but it is a rod of pleasantness.
It is impossible to measure how much damage someone does to a child when he gives him a serious spanking. R’ Elya Lopian zt”l would always say to us: “With children, only in a pleasant way.“ He said that when he got older, he regretted every spanking he gave to his children when they were small. R’ Elya raised eleven children, and many of them became great roshei yeshivah…[10]
Rav Wolbe proceeds to add (echoing the Pelleh Yo’eitz) that “the reality today is that if we spank a three-year-old, we violate the prohibition of lifnei iveir.”
We see that the child rebels against his father. You can see that a child who receives a slap wants to slap back. He lifts his hand, but he can’t reach his father’s face. There is only movement, but the movement is clear: The child rebels. This rebellion must be taken into account. In previous generations, the situation was different. Children had more tolerance, and therefore they could tolerate spankings. Children also had stronger character. It didn’t damage them to receive a few blows. But today the whole environment is one of rebellion, especially here in Eretz Yisrael. If someone tries to crush a child by spanking him, he can hurt the child and his relationship with the child, and when the child grows up, he might close himself off from his parents. Then it will be impossible to build a trusting relationship, an open relationship.[11]
Rav Wolbe does concede that hitting a child in unusual, emergency circumstances may be acceptable:
Indeed it is true that there are unusual situations of urgency. For example, in a home where there are a number of children, all of whom need to go to sleep and are screaming, if the mother is exhausted from the day, she might slap the children to achieve quiet. I am not speaking of a rare event like this. This is an unplanned response to an emergency—first aid—and won’t happen every week or even every month. I am warning against intentionally incorporating slapping and spanking into one’s approach; this is destructive.[12]
It should also be noted that Rav Wolbe proceeds to declare that “screaming at a child is as bad as, or perhaps worse than, spanking a child.“[13]
Dr. Chaim Neuhoff writes:
The Lakewood Mashgiach (HaRav Salomon) told me that hitting cannot be out of anger, resentment, or vengeance; furthermore, the child must be able to absorb the message behind it. Otherwise, it is both prohibited and abusive (see also the chapter on hitting in the Mashgiach’s With Hearts Full of Love).[14]
Other recent gedolim
R’ Chaim Kanievsky is quoted as having accepted the necessity of occasionally hitting children:
It is sometimes necessary to hit, and one who spares his rod hates his child. When the child does a great wrongdoing (avlah gedolah), it is certainly necessary to hit him. But it is incumbent upon the father to conduct himself with reason and knowledge, to hit him once in a long span of time. For if he hits him every day, all the value of the matter will be lost.[15]
R’ Moishe Dovid Lebovits has compiled the positions on this issue of numerous gedolei Torah of the past several decades, including that Rav Shach did not advocate hitting children today; that Rav Pam was quoted as saying that due to the enhanced sense of personal freedom and individual rights today, hitting children is unwise and counterproductive; that R’ Ovadia Yosef discouraged hitting by a parent or rebbi, but said that a father’s light hitting is allowed (e.g., if a child is disturbing in shul, one may hit him lightly on the wrist); that R’ Yisroel Belsky said that one may hit once in a great while; that R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach said that since today a rebbi may end up in jail for hitting a child,[16] he should not do so; and that R’ Ovadia Yosef would slap everyone who came to see him, but out of love, and not for disciplinary reasons.[17]
[1]See Dvarim 27:16.
[5]Pelleh Yo’eitz cheilek 1 os hei: Haka’ah.
[6]This is the notion of the tabula rasa.
[8]Yeshayah 47:8, Tzfaniah 2:15.
[9]Michtav MeiEliyahu cheilek 3 p. 360.
[10]R’ Shlomo Wolbe, Planting and Building: Raising a Jewish Child (revised edition [2000]: translated from the original Hebrew by R’ Leib Kelemen, edited by a talmid), pp. 34-35.
[11]Ibid. p. 36. Cf. R’ Mordechai Willig, V’Higadta L’Vincha, TorahWeb.org.
[12]Ibid. pp. 36-37.
[13]Ibid. p. 37.
[14]Chaim Neuhoff, Ph.D., Spanking children? The Psychologist’s Couch, Dec. 24, 2017 (originally published in Yated Ne’eman).
[15]Derech Sichah, cited here and by R’ Moishe Dovid Lebovits in Hitting A Child, Halachically Speaking Volume 14 Issue 5 p. 8 n. 45.
[16]The United States is a holdout from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says that all corporal punishment of children should be forbidden, and many states in the US do allow corporal punishment in schools.
[17]Halachically Speaking ibid. pp. 9-10.
Cf. Halachically Speaking ibid.; R’ Neriah Gutel, Choseich Shivto Sonei Veno? Haka’as Yeladim: Bein Halacha Lehalachah lema’aseh Ledarkah shel Mediniyus Chinuchis-Halachasis, Bisdei Cheme”d, Gilyon 2-3, 2000; R’ Yaron Ben-Dovid, Ha’im Mutar Lemoreh Lehakos Talmid? Be’eiros Yitzchak Makos 16b; Haka’as Banim Vetalmidim, Olamot; R’ Shlomo Brody, Ask the Rabbi: May a teacher strike a student? The Jerusalem Post; R’ Ariel Maman, Hachinuch Bemishnas Chazal–Masoress Vechidush, Machanecha 2 5768; Dr. Benzion Sorotzkin, Anishah Gufanis: Ha’im Hishtanu Hazmanim?
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