Conduct Disorder
July 23rd, 2009 | Tikkun Daily
The Torah is the very foundation of the world.
Liberals, of course, tend to rely more on science. I won’t say this is a mistake, but I will outline an interesting Torah passage below on conduct disorder, 3500 years before the American Psychiatric Association (APA) defined the criteria for it.
We are told in Qohelet – Ecclesiastes “there is noting new at all beneath the sun”.
I am interested in conduct disorder because I think anyone speaking with a prophetic voice needs to understand it. The APA usually applies the criteria pediatrically to anyone 18 and under, but makes allowance for an adult diagnosis in some instances.
Let us say, then, that conduct disorder is usually a type of adolescent personality disorder. The Torah certainly agrees with this premise, as we will see.
But need conduct disorder be restricted to individuals? I’d say not. I think that nations are quite capable of behaving according to the diagnostic criteria established by the APA, some of which are aggression and rule-breaking.
Deliberative Ethics provides a strong foundation in those Jewish traditional texts applicable to judging and judicial procedure. The course is a great deal more about justice than it is about law.
The Torah passage on conduct disorder is found in Dvarim – Deuteronomy 21, verses 15-21. I will paraphrase the verses:
If one has two wives, but loves one and not the other? If both bear him sons? If the firstborn is the son of his unloved wife, when he makes legacy gifts the firstborn rights belong to the son of the unloved wife, not to the son of the wife he loves.
If a rebellious and bitter son does not obey his father and mother, and ignores what discipline they impose? Both parents bring him to the elders and tell them “Our son is rebellious and bitter. He will not obey us. He is a gluttonous drunkard.”
On making this application to the elders the men of his town then assemble to stone their son to death.
This sounds primitive, violent and defective.
The first narrative establishes a legal principle that the first-born legacy is inherited by the eldest child irrespective of which wife births the child. It is easy to dismiss this Torah today, for we no longer keep more than a single wife. It’s a mistake to dismiss this narrative on that basis.
The second narrative deligitimises a son in very specific circumstances. Moderns are attuned to the wear and tear of life: we watch it on the news and even experience it personally.
We understand how favouritism in a family can lead to angst so severe that it becomes affliction at best and addiction at worst. How simple this declaration, that a son is rebbelious and bitter!
It is not so simple at all.
The text makes clear that both parents must be targeted by the son, certainly common enough in our time, and that both parents must bring him to the elders.
We now have a problem. We would expect a father with a non-beloved wife to disagree. In our context we can have the same expectation: two parents, who fundamentally disagree on everything.
But what of the relationship of two parents who mutually and unconditionally love each other? Is it likely they will agree that a legal declaration be issued by which the child is killed?
Torah wants to ensure we get the message.
Immediately after we are told that both parents must bring their son before the elders to declare him as [a] rebellious, [b] bitter, [c] gluttonous and [d] alcoholic we are told “Then all the men of his town are to stone him”.
The Torah wants to ensure that one or both of the parents understands this: a bloody, grusesome death will be the immediate outcome of their declaration before the elders.
Why? Deut. 21:21 states “You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.” This does not mean afraid of transgression. It does not say that.
The text clearly means that all Israel should be afraid of declaring a son rebellious and bitter.
The verse begins “purge the evil from among you”. Torah would say “purge the rebellious from among you” if it meant to connect this to the legal declaration.
The word “evil” רע has never been used in these two narratives prior to this sentence. The parents are being told that the mere consideration a son be declared rebellious and bitter is an evil to purge from themselves.
This is sound, spiritual advice — and I daresay it applies to nations no less than it does to individuals, most especially to nations with nuclear weapons.
