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Rabbi Chaim Walkin

Sefer Da’at Chaim

34th Ma’amar

unrestrained rebellious son” \ “‫בן סורר ומורה‬.” Please carefully study
this topic as it appears in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 72a) quoted as follows
“The Baraytah quotes Rebbe Yossi HaGelili as saying – …and simply
because this son ate a side of meat and drank half a quart of vintage
wine the Torah commands us to take him to be judged by the Beit Din
and stoned to death! Rather, the Torah delved into the very deepest
part of the mindset of this wanton son who in the end will deplete all
of his father’s wealth, and will demand yet more of what he wants and
will not get it, and in the end he will enter into the public’s realm and
rob and plunder. Knowing that inevitability the Torah says – Let this
son die innocent before committing these crimes and not die guilty
for having committed those crimes.” Rashi explains “He demands
more of what he has become accustomed to, to eat “meat” and drink
“wine.” In the first approach to examining this topic the explanation
is as follows: The vile / disgusting lifestyle of this rebellious son who
does not listen to his father and mother and steals money from them to
use for his personal reprehensible “wants” will only lead in the future
to more horrific things, therefore the Torah which peers into what this
son will ultimately do said he should die now and we should not wait
until he grows up and commits crimes that are even more heinous.

Given this introduction, when we delve into the words of Rashi and
analyze them we will discover a very great basic truth explaining the
topic of the “unrestrained rebellious son.” A boy whose nature is to
steal money from his father and mother in order to satisfy his wants
is “addicted” to those “wants” to the point where as he progresses
through the days of his life and he cannot satisfy his disgusting habits
in any other way he will not hesitate to use any means that he can to
satisfy those habits even to the point of committing murder and other
abominable things. That is the inevitable outcome of “…he got into
the habit of eating meat and drinking wine.” In chasing after the lusts
that he is now addicted to, that passion to satisfy his addictions drives
the sins of this unrestrained rebellious son.

This is the explanation explicit in the words of Ramchal in his sefer
“Mesilat Yesharim” in the section entitled “Gateway to Separation”
(in the 13th chapter) quoted as follows: “Now having already explained
that the challenges of the world each in their own way test a person, as

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