By Rabbi Eric L. Abbott

This week’s Torah portion is Ki Teitzei: Deuteronomy 21:10 — 25:19

As a father to young children, I often contemplate the way they see me interact with others. How do I speak to the waiter at a restaurant? Am I friendly with the clerk at the supermarket? How do I react when another driver cuts me off on the highway? Surely, they learn from my behaviors and reactions.

What’s true for me and my children tends to be true for everyone, as we learn from our Torah portion this week, Ki Teitzei. This parashah has a famous set of laws about a rebellious child: “If a householder has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother … they shall bring him out to the elders of his town … and the town’s council shall stone him to death … ” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).

What a gut-wrenching text! If a child misbehaves, they are to be killed? It makes my skin crawl! Fortunately, the rabbis probably felt this same emotional response, since they essentially legislated away the ability to perform this capital punishment, and one view even proclaims that the only reason the text was included in the Torah was to study it.

What, then, might the wayward and rebellious son teach us? A Hasidic view explains that the story of the defiant child “reminds us that it is the way of the wicked to teach their habits to others” (Itturei Torah, Vol. VI, p. 133). The wayward son spreads his misbehaviors to his peers, and so we are taught to nip it in the bud.

What we say, what we do — it matters. If we are consistently on our phones in front of our kids, they will take that as a sign that it is okay for constant screen time. When we engage in road rage, it spreads from car to car. If we do not initiate intimacy with our partner, they might stop their initiative, too. If we slack off in front of our employees, they get the green light to spend too much work time on Facebook.

Thankfully, the opposite is true, too. When we promote strong, positive values — Jewish, democratic, familial — this positivity can spread, too. Attend synagogue services more often? Our children see that prayer and community matter. Wear an “I voted” sticker? Others remember to visit the election booth. Initiate a kiss with your spouse? They will feel loved and initiate back.

These behaviors can influence ourselves, too. As mental health expert Dr. Dan Bates, Ph.D. explains, the content of our “self-talk,” or “what you say to yourself, in your head,” influences our life, our outlook and our behaviors. When we speak negatively about ourselves, it reinforces adverse opinions on ourselves. And the opposite is true — when we think positively, when we say confident and forward-looking messages about ourselves, then we feel better, think more lovingly and retain that affirmative lens.

This is the view I take at my synagogue, Bethesda Jewish Congregation. We understand that forming community can have positive effects on ourselves and our neighbors. We demonstrate to our children and students that having a positive view of Judaism and of ourselves is the most important thing we can develop.

The wayward son teaches us that when we sin, when we misbehave and when we bring negative speech into the world, then it can harm others and ourselves. Yet the opposite is true, too. As we approach the High Holidays, let us reflect on our deeds and our speech and the ways we influence others — and vow to make changes for the better.

Rabbi Eric L. Abbott is the spiritual leader of Bethesda Jewish Congregation where he builds a community in which people are seen and affirmed and where they, together, make the world better.