75. Although both father and mother must be honored, in some situations one parent receives the child's attention first. For example, if the parents ask for water, the son brings water to his father first. This is because a wife is also obligated to honor her husband and help him. If the parents are already divorced, however, the son may decide for himself whom to bring water to first.
76. If the parents are taken captive, the son must pay the ransom for his mother first.
77. If the parents do not have enough money for food and other necessities, the son must help his mother first.
78. If the parents fall into the water and begin to drown, and only one of them can be saved, the son is obligated to save his father first.
79. If the father and mother lose their belongings while traveling and the son finds the lost items, the father's belongings must be returned first.
80. If, after the father's death, the mother asks her son to do something that contradicts the father's request, the son must fulfill his mother's request, since honoring the dead cannot take precedence over honoring the living. However, some halachic authorities disagree.
81. One parent—for example, the mother—gives a child a task. Immediately afterward, the father comes over, wanting to find out exactly what the child was asked to do. The child knows that he will become very angry if he learns the truth. In such a case, it is permissible to give an altered account of the mother's instructions in order to avoid conflict.
82. If both the father and the son lose belongings, but when the missing items are found it is possible to recover only one item, the son must recover his own first. This law is derived from the passage: "There shall be no poor among you." If everyone takes care of their own property, there will be far fewer poor people, and certain commandments guide us toward precisely this. If belongings were lost, it means they were not properly looked after, so in this case the Torah instructs the son to retrieve his own belongings first. Here too, however, everything depends on value and size. For example, if the father lost something very valuable and the son lost a small item he can easily do without, it is better to attend to the father's lost item immediately.