SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA
since the son takes his father’s place, he also therefore must honor his father’s father.
All of this indicates that just as a son has duties towards his father, so we may say a grandson has duties to his grandfather. But the real question is: Is this dutifulness reciprocal? In other words, does the grandfather have duties to the grandson as the father has to his son? The general tendency of the law is to answer this question in the affirmative. Joel Sirkes (the Bach ) to the Tur (same reference) takes the point of view of Isserles , that the duties are reciprocal. His argument is as follows: In Jacob's dream, God Himself says,“I am the God of your father Abraham”?(but Abraham was Jacob’s grandfather) and Jacob himself, in his last days in Egypt , speaks of God “of my fathers Abraham and Isaac”(Genesis 28: 13 and 48:15). So God Himself and Jacob, too, refer to a grandfather(Abraham) as“father.” Then Sirkes says that since the Talmud says that a grandfather must teach his grandson Torah (if the father dies or neglects his duty) it is inconceivable that the duty should not be reciprocal, and that the son is in duty bound to honor the grandfather. What the Bach refers to is the discussion in Kiddushin 30a on the verse in Deuteronomy 4:9:“Thou shalt teach them to thy sons and thy grandsons.” There the Talmud discusses the grandfather teaching the grandson(in the case of a certain scholar named Zebulon, son of Dan). A further reference with the same tendency is in Shevut Yaacov(Jacob Reischer of Metz, 18th century) II,#94.
We may sum up as follows: that as to the relationship between grandson and grandfather, the law is not as sharply defined as in the case of the mutual duties between father and son. But the