Question:
My husband’s parents have been very unkind since we got married. We are together over 20 years. We have 3 kids. they Do not know our children. They have chosen not to come to birthdays, bris, any event we invited them to. They excluded us for family weddings and want nothing to do with the wife and kids. For peace, husband sent a message asking to meet for lunch. The parents said they will only meet him alone without wife or kids. Husband doesn’t feel comfortable. Should he keep trying for the sake of peace or just stop as they’ve chosen to not acknowledge his family. Wife and kids are all 100 Frum and more religious than his parents .
Answer:
It is really very difficult to understand this reality, that parents disconnect from the rest of their flesh. And instead of experiencing comfort from the children and grandchildren, they choose to deny them.
But I will really tell you one sentence: “You can never disconnect from parents, and you can never disconnect from children”!!!
And the farther you wander, the more thoughts haunt you day and night in your stature.
And even though I don’t know the reason for this disengagement.
In any case, with all the difficulty involved, I advise you, for your future and the peace of your home, and also for your dear children. “That there is no vessel that holds a blessing more than peace,” look at what we read in last week’s parasha, Moses that G-d chose him, and wanted him and was the leader of Israel and challenged his actions, and for all this he sought to bring peace and asked to call the religion and their knight to him, and tried with all his might to quiet the fire of discord, and there is no doubt that this requires the work of virtue, but G-d loves it.
And this should be done by the husband who is the son and is attached to them secretly in his heart, and they are also related to him.
Give it a try, and then try, and another time, and finally you’ll see that they’ll like it. Sometimes there is a matter of “ego” and usually most of these quarrels arise from a single word “respect”. And what a dignified person who respects mankind, do not see the experience of peace as a diminishing of honor, but on the contrary, you will also receive the commandment to respect one’s parents, and G-d loves the persecuted.
Sources:
העתיק לכם לשונו הזהב של הרמב”ם באגרת תימן: “אל תשקצו את נפשותיכם, במחלוקת המכלה הגוף והנפש והממון, ומה נשאר עוד. ראיתי לבנים השחירו, ופחות נפחתו, ומשפחות נספחו, ושרים הורדו מגדולתם, ועירות גדולות נתערערו, וקיבוצים נפרדו, ויחידים נפסדו, ואנשי אמונה אבדו, ונכבדים נקלו ונתבזו, בסבת המחלקת.
נביאים נבאו, וחכמים חכמו, ופילוסופים חפשו, ויספו לספר רעת המחלקת, ולא הגיעו לתכליתה. לכן שנאו אותו, ונוסו מפניו, והתרחקו מכל אוהביו וגואליו ורעיו. וגם אל כל שאר בשרכם אוהב מדינים התנכרו, ורחקו קרבתם, פן תספו בכל חטאתם”. עכ”ל.
