על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ב מ״גOn the Special Laws, Book II 43
א׳
1[237] But the proof of filial piety may be given not only in the ways above mentioned, but also by courtesy shewn to persons who share the seniority of the parents. One who pays respect to an aged man or woman who is not of his kin may be regarded as having remembrance of his father and mother. He looks to them as prototypes and stands in awe of those who bear their image.
ב׳
2[238] And therefore in the Holy Scriptures the young are commanded not only to yield the chief seats to the aged but also to give place to them as they pass, in reverence for the grey hairs that mark the age to which they may hope to attain who judge it worthy of precedence.
ג׳
3[239] Admirable too, as it seems to me, is that other ordinance where he says, “Let each fear his father and mother.” Here he sets fear before affection, not as better in every way, but as more serviceable and profitable for the occasion which he has before him. For in the first place, persons subject to instruction and admonition are in fact wanting in sense, and want of sense is only cured by fear. Secondly, it would not be suitable to include in the enactments of a lawgiver an instruction on the duty of filial affection, for nature has implanted this as an imperative instinct from the very cradle in the souls of those who are thus united by kinship.
ד׳
4[240] And therefore he omitted any mention of love for parents because it is learned and taught by instinct and requires no injunction, but did enjoin fear for the sake of those who are in the habit of neglecting their duty. For when parents cherish their children with extreme tenderness, providing them with good gifts from every quarter and shunning no toil or danger because they are fast bound to them by the magnetic forces of affection, there are some who do not receive this exceeding tenderheartedness in a way that profits them. They pursue eagerly luxury and voluptuousness, they applaud the dissolute life, they run to waste both in body and soul, and suffer no part of either to be kept erect by its proper faculties which they lay prostrate and paralyzed without a blush because they have never feared the censors they possess in their fathers and mothers but give in to and indulge their own lusts.
ה׳
5[241] But these parents also must be exhorted to employ more active and severe admonitions to cure the wastage of their children, and the children also that they may stand in awe of those who begot them, fearing them both as rulers and masters. For only so, and that hardly, will they shrink from wrongdoing.