EXOD182 Parental care of children is motivated by love and instinctive inclination. Yet if love is the sole force shaping parental attitudes, it may destroy the goal which most parents seek to achieve. Loving parents frequently shrink from taking disciplinary measures to enforce their instructions. The erring child of a doting father and mother is even spared stern admonitions. Innate love must be balanced by a mature sense of responsibility if the child's moral development is not to suffer. In addition to parents who love foolishly, there are, at the other end, parents who are bereft of affection for their children and do not have the true interest of their offspring at heart. To protect children against parents who love too much or too little, religious and civil laws have been promulgated, detailing specific parental duties. The Bible stresses parental responsibility for the education of children. Religious principles which are fundamental to the national psyche must be implanted into the child's consciousness. Thus the message of the festival of Passover, eternal opposition to oppression and enslavement, is a mandatory subject of parental instruction [this verse]. In addition to the transmission of ideals which are central to the faith, it is a parent's duty to acquaint his children with all the rules and regulations of the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:7). The importance attached to education was reiterated by Ecclesiasticus (2nd cent. B.C.E.): "Hast thou children? Instruct them, and bow down their neck from the youth" (7:23). Education of children is so basic to Judaism that Josephus wrote in the first century: "Our principal duty of all is thus to educate our children well" (Apion, bk. I, 12).