A couple brought a question to Hagaon Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein, noted posek and rov of Ramat Elchonon. The couple explained that they got married a few years ago and saved up a substantial amount of money every month. They were contemplating using this money to write and donate a Sefer Torah to one of the shul in their neighborhood.
However, upon further consideration, they thought that perhaps it would be appropriate to use this money to pay off the mortgage that the wife’s parents took out to purchase their apartment.
Rav Zilberstein wrote to them, “Perhaps you want to buy a Sefer Torah, but I am sure that the Sefer Torah does not want you, because the Torah abhors such a shailah. Not only does it contradict the Torah, but it also contradicts the basic principles of human decency.”
Rav Zilberstein continued to elaborate that the couple believes that they did a favor for their parents by agreeing to get married, and thus the parents owe them gratitude. However, “this is a cruel and inhumane approach, because the parents do not owe anything to their children. While there is an obligation to marry off one’s daughters, as explained in the Gemara, it does not mean that they should spend more than a fifth of their assets doing so, and certainly not to take loans from lenders to fulfill this obligation.”
Rav Zilberstein further pointed out that “some parents are constantly running from one lender to another to fund what they have given to their children, such as an apartment. They find themselves with suffocating mortgages, and they are always in pursuit of debt settlements. When they hear that their children are donating tzedakah to mosdos, they go bonkers, wondering how that is possible while they themselves are crushed by debts. Moreover, besides contradicting halacha, which requires giving tzedakah to one’s father and mother before everyone else, they go even further here by not only giving tzedakah, but also volunteering to purchase a Sefer Torah! Many poskim agree that there is no such mitzvah b’zeman hazeh.”
Therefore, Rav Zilberstein concluded, the children would be better off paying off their parents’ mortgage first and not ask for anything in return. If they have money, it is their obligation to do so, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu would certainly be more pleased with them helping their parents than buying a Sefer Torah.
The remarkable conclusion of this true story, as reported by Rav Zilberstein’s grandson, Reb Chaim Maline, is that the couple did indeed accept the psak of Rav Zilberstein and paid up their parents’ debts. In that same month, they received a salary increase of one and a half times what their parents had been paying each month.
{Matzav.com Israel}