For 99.9% of human history, it was the parents who were revered, who knew things, and the children who were mocked, who were ignorant of all that was important. That all changed in Germany's Sturm und Drang movement in the 1770s and ts Romantic movement. These epochs cleverly depicted the youth generation as the visionaries and the parents as hapless folks who just didn't "get it."

Our culture readily latches on to narratives of cruel and clueless fathers with misunderstood and victimized sons. Yet, who are the sources of these narratives? The sons (i.e. Franz Kafka and Sigmund Freud). A bit of a biased account, no?

In this week's parsha, the Torah is at once revolutionary and conservative. Millennia before Sturm und Drang, the Torah would exalt the youth at the expense of the parents. And yet, the Torah also shows how generations can ...