"Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."Exodus 20:12
Honoring our parents is a duty that we owe to God. The relationship between children and parents is parallel to the relationship between humanity and God. Just as our parents gave us life, so God gave life to man. Just as our parents teach us religion, so God taught Abraham our father, how to pray, and how to worship. Just as our parents teach us to abide by the laws, and to distinguish between wrong and right, so God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Indeed, all of humanity is God's children, and in Exodus 4:22, God calls Israel his "firstborn". By honoring our parents, our worldly creators, we honor God, our heavenly creator.
There is however, another aspect of this Commandment which also bears great significance. We are the product of our parents' union -- we are their flesh and blood. Their heredity is our heredity, and their ancestors are ours. Regardless of how morally upright, or otherwise successful our parents are or may have been in life, we are never released from the obligation to honor them. Whether our parents were very good, kind and temperate to us, or if they were neglectful and even abusive, we still must honor them. There is no greater insult that a person can give than to insult another's parents. By honoring our parents, in spite of whatever differences we may have, or grievances we harbor, we affirm our independent existence as moral, responsible adults, and we signal our preparedness to bring our own children into the world. For those who strive under all circumstances to give honor to their parents, the result is a greater communion with God, and a true liberation of the spirit.
At its core, the Commandment to honor our parents is a Godly mandate to have self-respect.
There are many ways to honor our parents. By succeeding professionally, and establishing a positive reputation in the community, we certainly bring honor upon our them. By fighting for justice and living a morally upright life, we honor them. We also can honor our parents through specific acts. We can thank our parents, publicly and privately for all that they have given us. We can instill their teachings in our children. We can, and must assist them when they are in need, whether they ask for help, or not. We also can, and must, care for them when they are sick. When they pass on, we must give them a proper burial. In doing these acts we honor God, and in doing so, reflect credit upon ourselves.
There are also many ways to dishonor our parents. Similarly, a person who dishonors, disgraces or shames his own parents is, in fact, committing these very offenses to himself. Moreover, when a person commits these acts to his parents, he is not only violating the Fifth Commandment, but he is also inevitably committing a variety of other sins. Under Jewish law, the act of shaming another person - causing a person to be humiliated - is deemed to be a very serious sin in its own right, and has been said to be equal in severity to committing the act of murder upon the person's soul. It is also against Jewish law to swear a false oath, to take the Lord's name in vain, to steal, to covet, to murder, to abandon God and His laws, and to turn to idolatry. Almost always, a violation of the Fifth Commandment -- dishonor towards parents -- occasions one or more of these additional transgressions. Regarding actions or words that dishonor our parents, the Torah states:
"Cursed be he that dishonors his father or his mother." Deut 27:16
A phenomenon which has an enduring and sordid place in Jewish history is the existence of Jewish anti-Semitism. At first glance, this does not seem to make any sense. Most people in this world have some degree of love, warmth and loyalty towards their kin. Loving ones own family and culture, does not denote a rejection of others. To the contrary, love for ones family and culture is a predicate for self-respect. The duty to honor ones parents and ancestors is by no means unique to Judaism. For most cultures and religions, this is axiomatic. For example, you will not find many Irish, Italians, or Arabs, who have not only abandoned their sense of identity, but who actually hate other members of their own culture or faith simply because they have not also abandoned and rejected their ancestry and faith. Yet, you will very easily find Jews - or, more properly, people who were born Jewish, or "ethnic" Jews - who have left Judaism, and have dedicated their lives to not only attacking Judaism, but also to impugning the character of the Jewish people. These are Jewish anti-Semites.
There is no creature more piteous than a Jewish anti-Semite. To non-Jewish anti-Semites he is at best a useful idiot, and to Jews, and many unprejudiced non-Jews, he is a merely a disloyal and pathetic wretch. This is an individual who unmercifully flagellates his own culture, his ancestors, and truly himself, in a desperate attempt to flay away the skin from his body that holds his Jewish identity. Ultimately, the Jewish anti-Semite deludes himself into thinking that his Jewish ancestry gives him moral authority to denigrate his own culture and gives him license to violate the Fifth Commandment. What most people see as positive values --culture, tradition, respect for elders, loyalty -- to the Jewish anti-Semite, are burdens to be rejected and cast off. The Jewish anti-Semite lives a life of perpetual unmitigated dishonor. The Jewish anti-Semite attempts to drown out his own conscience by proclaiming that he is somehow serving a larger good for humanity by grinding the bones of his ancestors under foot. The Jewish anti-Semite is utterly without friends, living in a prison he created for himself, and cut off from the love of God.
There is undoubtedly a multitude of reasons why a Jew becomes an anti-Semite. But I would suggest that the following examples provide the best explanation.
Jewish anti-Semitism is Cowardice
One of the most difficult aspects of military training is the "forced march". This entails marching for 20, 25, 30 miles carrying a rifle, ammunition, and upwards of 80 pounds worth of gear. This hike is sometimes referred to as a "hump" - indicating the hump-like appearance created by the back-pack. These marches can be gruelling. Stress fractures, sprained ankles and knees, and horrendous blisters are common injuries, not to mention the ever-present prospect of heat exhaustion and dehydration. The pack seems heavier with each mile. Often, during a "hump", after several hours, with your body wracked with pain and soaked with sweat, and with no end in sight, it becomes tempting to fall off to the side, and quit. Just taking off the pack would be an enormous relief. Yet, you do not quit, you keep the pack on your back, you put your head down and you finish the hike. And when you arrive at your destination, your weapon is clean, you have plenty of ammunition, and although you are physically exhausted, you are ready to fight.
The concept of "keeping your pack on", is a metaphor for refusing to quit, not taking the easy way out. When things get tough, someone will remind you, "don't drop your pack". Judaism, as I've stated previously, can be a difficult path. Many Jews suffered and died horrific deaths because they chose to walk the path, and not to quit. The Jewish anti-Semite is someone who has "dropped his pack", he has "unburdened" himself from the culture, traditions, and heritage that sustained his ancestors for thousands of years. But, for the Jewish anti-Semite departure from Judaism is not a private matter; for he cannot accept the fact that others did not follow suit and similarly "drop their packs" with neither regret nor remorse. The fact that others continue to maintain and honor the culture and traditions of their ancestors, and continue to take the difficult path, stands as a constant reminder to the Jewish anti-Semite, that perhaps, he is little more than a nebbish, a cowardly moral failure.
The Jewish anti-Semite attempts to cover his moral bankrupcty with a false bravado, and attempts to reinvent himself as one who "speaks the truth to power". In reality, however, there has never been any significant price - any worldly price - to pay for abandoning and betraying Judaism. It takes far more courage to be Jewish, and to walk the sometimes difficult path, and to embrace the culture and traditions of your forefathers, then to attempt to run and hide from who you are. It takes far greater moral fibre to seek to honor your parents and ancestors, and to cherish their traditions, than to frantically attempt to cast off "the weight of three thousand years."
Jewish anti-Semitism is Moral Derangement
"Derangement" literally means a state in which things are "out of place" -- the natural order is broken. Personal derangement is always an undesireable state of existence, and in extreme cases it indicates profound psychosis and mental illness.
Jewish anti-Semitism is comparable to any deranged and deviant moral path that a person might follow in life. For example,a child molester, at some point, before he starts committing crimes, awakens to the reality that he strongly desires intimate sexual contact with innocent children. At first he resists, perhaps due to his conscience, or perhaps due to fear of being caught. But ultimately, he gives in, and he is instantly addicted and incurable. Similarly, a serial murderer, at first resists killing people (usually starts with killing and torturing animals), but eventually takes his first human life. The unsurpassed evil of committing murder is intoxicating to the serial murderer. He spends the rest of his life until he is caught, selecting, stalking and killing new victims. In both examples, grave sin and evil have overtaken free choice and the portion of the conscience that cries out in horror is either non-existent, incapacitated, or ignored.
So too, when the Jewish anti-Semite crosses the line and "draws first blood", he becomes intoxicated and seeks to replicate the experience again and again. His behavior becomes compulsive, until he transgresses beyond the point of all possible redemption. His conscience either never was, or becomes dead. However, unlike child molesters and serial murderers, the Jewish anti-Semite does not commit his sins in secret, hoping to avoid being caught. Jewish anti-Semitism is intrinsically voyeuristic. The Jewish anti-Semite does not incur the universal wrath and condemnation of society, rather, he will be enthusiastically cheered on (and exploited) by those who have always hated Jews and Judaism. Having abandoned and savaged his people, and God, the Jewish anti-Semite attempts to fill his spiritual and moral void with the perverse encouragement and recognition he receives from those who would trample the graves of his ancestors. The Jewish anti-Semite is a willing agent in his own degradation and spiritual destruction. Indeed it is the Jewish anti-Semite's own shame and defilement -- as a Jew, not as opponent of Jews, but as a Jew -- that entertains and brings the greatest pleasure to his bemused and hateful non-Jewish patrons.
Far worse than Esau, the Jewish anti-Semite has sold his birthright, and forever broken his covenant for a bowl of feculent pottage.
To be sure, I do not see leaving Judaism, in and of itself, as a violation of the Fifth Commandment. It is certainly possible to honor parents, even though one has chosen to leave the spiritual and cultural realm of ones ancestors. A true, sincere conversion to another faith, born of love, and commitment, does not permit the convert to dishonor or despise his own culture and ancestors. Even falling away from Judaism into some vague agnostic creed, or losing belief in God altogether need not inevitably lead to the dishonoring of ones parents. However, Jewish anti-Semites have gone far beyond taking a divergent spiritual path or neglecting, or even abandoning, the laws of the Torah; they have in fact gone directly into the service of Amalek, the historical and eternal enemy of the Jewish people.
In Judaism, a psychotic individual is referred to as a shoteh. One way of defining a shoteh is:
He who destroys all that is give to him.Gemara Hagiga 3b
Under Jewish law, a truly mentally ill person is to be accorded great pity, and is often excused from being held accountable for his acts, because he simply does not know any better. But in the realm of judging the actions of a person, there are few things more offensive than a man (or a woman) blatantly and knowingly engaging in criminal behavior, and then claiming or feigning insanity in an attempt to gain absolution. The Jewish anti-Semite is indeed a person who destroys all that has been given to him, but unlike a true shoteh, the Jewish anti-Semite knows all too well what he does; he acts not from mental illness, but from moral infirmity.
In his degenirate world, the Jewish anti-Semite does not listen to the voice of God, calling out in sorrow:
I thought you would call Me Father,
And not turn away from following Me.
Jeremiah 3:19
Ultimately, the Jewish anti-Semite would be worthy only of pity, if he and his ilk throughout history had not been so intimately involved, as a partner of Amalek, in the creation of so much misery, suffering and death for the Jewish people. For their sins unto God, God alone can forgive them. But, for their sins unto the countless souls who suffer and perish unjustly because of their words and actions, they must never be forgiven. Beware of them, turn your eyes away from their evil, do not listen to their words.
And follow your heart.
