“What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let
him go and return to his house…” (Devarim/Deuteronomy20:8)
This week’s Torah portion contains laws concerning warfare,
including the following exemptions from going out to battle: the newly betrothed, those who
have just built a house or planted a vineyard but not yet inaugurated or redeemed them, and the “fearful and fainthearted”.
Rosally Saltsman in Parenting by the Book
(p. 206) suggests that this refers to someone who fears for his life either
because he doesn’t have enough faith in Hashem, or he feels he is not worthy of
a miracle to survive battle.
Writes Mrs. Saltsman: “Fear is a very powerful thing.
Sometimes we underestimate the fears of our children. We brush off the cobwebs
of their nightmares and force them to do things they are genuinely afraid of
doing. Although we need to encourage them to have faith in themselves and prod
them a bit when they hesitate to try new things, we should never force our
children to do anything they are genuinely afraid of doing.”
There are things that children will eventually have to do:
swim, go to school, stay alone at home, marry. Mrs. Saltsman advises that
children can either be led gradually into these situations, or parents can wait
until the time feels right. “Throwing a child into deep water either
figuratively or literally will only traumatize the child,” she writes.
Mrs. Saltsman warns that forcing a child to do something for
which the child is not ready can leave emotional and psychological scars. Children should only be forced to face their fears
if it is a life-threatening situation. Otherwise, we should gently coax, but
never, ever coerce.
Concludes Mrs. Saltsman: “If G-d emphasized the danger of an
adult going to war against his will even under His promise of protection, then
surely we [parents] can relax our demands on our own children.”
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