NUM236 The goal of parental instruction is the development of the child within the framework of a moral and religious tradition. The child thereby becomes a link between the past and the future. Nevertheless, the child's moral instruction is also crucial to the child's ability to function as an informed moral agent in society. As Gersonides observed, when the parent-child relationship functions properly, when the family serves as a conduit for moral values, society as a whole is enriched and improved. The course of study that the parent is to teach the child is a course in the art of living as an individual in society. The goals of the course are to guide the child from ignorance to wisdom, from moral neutrality to virtue, from dependency to independence, from infancy to maturity. The parental obligation to prepare the child to function as an independent adult in an inter-dependent society is reflected in the few rabbinic statements that explicitly list the obligations of a parent to the child. According to a talmudic text: "The father is obligated to circumcise his son, to redeem him open (if he is a firstborn, see Numbers 18:15), to teach him Torah, to have him wed, and to teach him a craft. Some say, to teach him to swim as well. Rabbi Judah said: He did who does not teach his son a craft… is as though he taught him to steal." Kiddushin 32a. According to a variant reading of this text, a father is also obligated to teach his son practical citizenship (yishuv medinah). Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Hayyim Horovitz and Israel Rabin, eds. (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1960), "Bo," chap. 18, p.73.