A Short Tribute

The principal aspect of honoring parents must be within the heart. One should consider one's parents as the land's notables, so as to ensure avoiding any contempt but, on the contrary, to honor them in one's speech as much as in one's actions. We have already indicated the reason for honoring one's parents, they being the source of our very existence in this world, and also for their pains and the efforts they make on our behalf when we are children, so that it is appropriate not to be unappreciative; one is obliged to honor them. In this way, one is also drawn to recognize the goodness of the Blessed One and to fulfill His commandments and to not be ungrateful. For otherwise, if an individual does not honor his or her father and mother, heaven forbid, is ungrateful and does not acknowledge their goodness towards them, that person may be led to being ungrateful to the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, and not fulfill His commandments.