True. However, the author of your article paints a picture of parents as being beyond reproach and that calling them out for their misbehaviors is inappropriate from a Torah perspective. This is simply not true as the article in the previous comment demonstrates.

Just as in other areas of halacha, a person cannot just decide on his own that his parents are halachically considered “abusive.” Not every person who upsets you is “abusive.”

This is the classic workaround where people find some exception to the halacha and then claim that every case is the exception. You need to consult a knowledgeable and Torah-minded rov who can decide.

Apologized to the Frierdiker Rebbe about what?

The core message is powerful: parents occupy a unique, non-reciprocal role–they’re the divine channel through which we entered existence. Honoring them isn’t about rating their performance; it’s about recognizing the role itself. This framework genuinely helps contextualize hurt: “what they didn’t give was because they didn’t have it to give.”

His strongest example proves this. The 15-year-old with the mentally ill mother sees reality clearly–the manic depression, the instability–yet maintains complete respect. He’s not in denial, but he’s also not positioning himself as her judge. That’s the balanced model.

But by conflating harmful practices (encouraging estrangement) with legitimate therapeutic work (understanding how upbringing shapes you), the author actually makes it harder to distinguish between them. When you lump together practices that genuinely damage families with work that helps people grow, you weaken your own message.

To be helpful–and to avoid just preaching to the choir or making defiant statements against those you feel threatened by–simply keep the message pure and focused on the values you’re promoting. That allows each person to evaluate and apply these values according to the nuances of their own situation.

The wisdom is real. The delivery undermines it.

Thank you very much for writing this article. Bezras Hashem all children should be zoche to read it and internalize it deeply to obtain a true Torah perspective on respecting parents properly!

As I read and reread your article, I can’t keep myself back from reciting the blessing, ”Blessed are You Hashem our G-D King of the universe who has apportioned of His knowledge to those who fear him.”
After being in Chinuch for many decades, and struggling personally with children that turned against their parents, and listening to many lectures, and reading many articles on this issue, trying to find clarity, I finally found it in your article. I hope you don’t mind if I reprint it, and pass it on to anyone who is interested in Daas- Torah on this subject. I wouldn’t add a word or remove a word, except the preface, which reads ‘opinion’. I would replace it with the words DAAS-TORAH.
In the story from the Gemara, the paragraph which begins ‘In the second case’, might have a typo, and probably should read as follows; ‘In the second case, of a son who tied himself to a millstone to provide for his family. When the king sent soldiers to find men to serve as slaves, and they picked his father, he said ”Father, tie yourself to the millstone in my place, and I will go instead of you.”

Maybe those who respect their parents end up being better parents themselves compared to those who do not..
For those of us who are lucky enough to be parents BH, this may resonate

It’s interesting how your so obsessed with the “Tzadik” that’s abusive… Yet it doesn’t bother you the more common issue of parents that stick out their feet like pigs making as if so kind and caring for their kids but when no one’s looking they abuse their kids besides for never giving them the time of day.

I find it much more common that modern parents are much less connected to their children and sometimes even abusive towards them, than the chasidishe ones. That of course is unless you believe having Jewish and Halachik standards are abusive in which case the article is talking to you.

Don’t follow someone just because they speak in the name of science. Find out their track record. Start with their personal life: How is their marriage? How well did they raise their child(ren)? If they can’t manage their own life, why would you want to get advice that they heard or read somewhere?

We have BH a Torah and living community. Find the people with real credentials and listen to them.

The fact that people with credentials gave bad advice doesn’t mean therapists are not good with what they’re doing.
And this couldn’t be further from the truth to take your emotional issues to a well caring person who’s not trained in this area.
So much of our youth end up the way they do precisely for the lack of having dealt with their issues professionally.
And there’s nothing wrong with getting paid for doing your job. You wouldn’t expect a mechanic or any other professional to work for free, and therapists are no different.

Evolution has primed humans to identify and lynch the wicked. By explaining how our hurtful experiences are attributed to “bad name” (*itler, S*talin, M*mdani), we feel a sense of relief. Then, by communal punishment to the “rasha”, we convince ourselves that we are “fixing” the problem. This is why pitchforks and stoning were features of nearly all ancient civilizations.

That is why we seek to blame and name a parent for their sins. “If not for them”, we say, “life would have been good”.

The truth however is that these parents were not “evil”. The reason they did or didn’t do was simply because they were socially conditioned to be sick. They come from a simpler generation and many of them are survivors of war, poverty, or even Yeshiva.

Nursing students who lack a medical aptitude display their ineptitude early after having been exposed to victims in a psych ward. “Oh my Gosh” “Did you see what bed number 9 said to me” “that patient needs an injection!” “that is NOT forgivable”

But those students who show understanding are ultimately selected. The ones who display compassion toward a patient who hurls at them their slurs or socks or whatever turn out to by the best and the brightest physicians.

When an abused child is brought into your office, and you teach her or him to trash his parents / siblings, you are transferring your own personal primitive wrath, as evolution has done to you, for whatever issues you have. You are not a physician. You are a caveman.

A physician who makes the effort to treat the whole family as a unit, a broken unit in which the parents are simply sick, very sick, and treats the unit with respect, and builds dignity – even for the “bad” parent – is a noble human worthy of representing medicine of the future.

A physician

It may be out of context for you but it’s real for many people. Abuse inside and ‘tzadik’ appearances outside does happen. What to do then with the abuse and kibud Av or em

Did the Frierdiker Rebbe demand an apology?…

That’s what happens when you conflate responsibilities with rights. Parents have their job, but children’s job is to honor their parents. That’s the problem with modern thinking – someone else’s responsibility becomes your “right” causing a breakdown in relationships.

We have seen the value of “credentials” in helping people who are struggling. Many lives have been ruined by bad advice in therapy. Many therapists who can’t take care of their own personal life are dispensing advice to others. It’s a business like any other and as long as they get paid, they’re fine, no matter the long term fallout.

On the other hand, there are many capable and caring individuals – without the alphabet soup after their name – who are helping people in the community without fanfare. They care about you and your longterm success, not about a payment.

We need to stop this blind faith in therapists as the magic healers of emotional issues. Challenges are real, and you need to find someone with a good family life (shalom bayis, happy chassidishe children – the real credentials) who cares about you and your growth.

Additionally, I don’t know what makes this author a “therapist“ and the author is free to share his religious views wherever and however, he pleases. But to present it as a Medical model for healing in the name of whatever credential he is carrying is dishonest, disingenuous, and misrepresenting himself and his field.

When there are parents who piggy-back ride on the general rule, hide behind it, and use it to be able to continue their abusive exception, then yes it is not only important, but the responsible thing (particularly coming from a therapist), to bring it up.

When writing an article about dealing with a cough or fever it would be quite odd to comment “but what about chemo for cancer”

When Torah talks about walking to shul shulchan aruch doesn’t add “unless the person doesn’t have feet”

Articles, books, and Torah are generally written in the form of the general rule obviously there are exceptions but your comment takes the exception and tries to incorporate it into the rule.

You need to break that self image in order to get out that. To do that you need to fully accept that that way of treating you is completely wrong and unjustified.

I tried to deny it to protect them and it was only when I realized how wrong and unjustified their treatment of a child was could I start looking at myself in a healthy way.

I’m not saying Chas vesholom to disrespect parents. But parents are people with flaws. Honoring them doesn’t mean denying that they hurt you. It’s respecting them regardless for giving you life. They are imperfect people like anyone else and did what they could based on what made sense at the time.

But that doesn’t mean we need to self flaggelate to protect them.

I’ve seen adults who are still currently in unhealthy family dynamics and are stifling their potential in the name of kibud av.

I know the balance swung to far to the opposite but there is a reason therapy sometimes tries to protect a person at the expense of his relationship with their parents. I don’t know if its right but I don’t think denying the issue of abuse is either.

If you know a way to get back your dignity and self esteem while still holding internally the reverence for your parents (that was used as leverage to abuse you). Please tell.

Maybe one day there will be an article about how to honor your spouse (things that each engaged couple used to hear about, idk if they pay enough these days to be able to hear that), but this one is about honoring parents.
See ibid.

Surely the author doesn’t need a lawyer, yet I’d like to point out on his behalf that the above article is about the child’s approach to their parents, not about the other way around.
Maybe iyh one will be written the other way round as well, to give you better understanding and ultimately answer your question.