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Following the lead of his psychiatrist friend Dr. Steven Marmer, Dennis Prager opposes corporal punishment. The Australian editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Jewish Times, Joe Bobker, writes in the 5/22/98 edition of his newspaper: Despite being upopular today, corporal punishment in schools and in the home was acceptable in the ancient Jewish world. In fact, the idea of child-beating was considered an essential part of the educational process. Proverbs 13:24: "He that spaeth his rod, hateth his son; but he that loveth him chastiseth him betimes." One may deduce from the Torah (Deut. 8:5) that fathers beat their sons out of love - from the verse, "And thou shalt consider in thy hear, that as a man chastiseth his son, so the Lord thy God chastiseth thee." The famous Babylonian teacher Rav declared that when in school, children could only be beaten with a small strap - like a shoelace (Bava Batra 21a). Did the Rambam agree with hitting a child? Absolutely. Maimonidies (Yad, Talmud Torah 2:2) writes, "Children are to be brought into the school at the age of 6 or 7, depending on the child's physical fitness... The teacher should beat them to exercise control but he must not beat them cruelly as if he were their enemy." |
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