Children Save Parents

I heard an interesting dvar Torah from Rabbi Yaron ben David, the rabbi of Kibbutz Be'erot Yitzhak, that I would like to share. 

As Moshe tells over the annals of the Jew's travails in the desert, he adds details of the story of the golden calf that we did not see earlier in the Book of Numbers. 

"Moreover, Hashem was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him; so I also interceded for Aaron  at that time."

Interestingly, the Midrash goes on to share the details of what unfolded; Hashem was irascible, intent on destroying any remembrance of Aaron's name (indicated by the Hebrew word, lehashmido - "Hashem was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him," lehashmido being a word only reserved for the demise of nations, but in biblical texts, not that of individuals).

How, then, in the face of God's wrath, did Moshe save Aaron?  With a very interesting parable. Aaron's progeny, his sons, will serve in the Beit Hamikdash. And the branches of the grape vine, and olive branches are not allowed to be burned on the altar, out of honor and respect for their fruit, olives and grapes which are used respectively for the oils of meal offerings, and libations. So, how can it be God, that you accord honor and respect to olive branches and the trunks and arms and canes of grape vines, when you so readily wipe Aaron HaCohen off the face of the Earth?

Thus, Hashem accepted Moshe's prayer, and logic, and saved Aaron, in honor of his sons; two, though were killed when they acted inappropriately at the time of the sanctification of the Mishkan - the composite of their wayward actions and Aaron's earlier sin, sealing the decree against them. 

The logic here is very nuanced, and precise; when one link in the chain is strong, either a father or son can be saved, explaining the differential treatment experienced by Yishmael and the wayward son. Yishmael was judged "be'asher hu sham," given his state of being at the given moment. Why? Because he had a positive parental figure, namely, Avraham Avinu. The wayward son, who stole from his parents to guzzle wine, and glut himself on meat, had no positive parental figure - there was no healthy link in the chain. Talmudic tradition teaches about the juxtaposition of that topic with the ones before it that the wayward son was fathered by a man who had gone to the battlefield, and could not control his urges and temptations. Having lusted after a non-Jewish woman, he brings her into his home, creating enmity between his two wives - one who is now loved, the other hated - and then, because of the decomposition of the family fabric, comes to love not his firstborn child, but rather the child he fathers from the captive woman he defiled on the battlefield; a child like that, tradition teaches us, has little chance of redemption, and thus, when he starts going down the wrong road, stealing and acting covetously, he is judged based on what will come of him, a very sorry and sad fate.