Honor thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may be well with thee, O LORD, O God,
(Deuteronomy chapter ten verse ten).
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The source of the commandment to honor the father and mother is learned from the verse in the Book of Exodus:
(Exodus, 20:12)
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“Honor your father and your mother” – is the fifth commandment out of the 10 commandments in the bible. But this highly important idea is in decline, each generation is less respectful towards its parents.
In ancient times there was an obligation to stand up when a parent is walking into the room- in honor of his father and mother.
There are two other commandments in the Jewish Talmud – to do with parent’s lack of respect: 1. Prohibition of cursing father and mother, 2. Prohibition of beating father and mother. Violating these prohibitions commits death.
The Talmud tells the story of Rabbi Ishmael’s mother who complained to sages that her son did not respect her. When they were surprised and asked: What did he do to her, she replied that when he left the committee house she wanted to wash his feet and drink the water, but did not give it to her. Sages said of this: “Since he is her will he is honor” .
But nowadays it is different: it is expressed in the style of speech: rude speech, goes against the parent, is expressed in a context of a power struggles, and in an atmosphere of non-acceptance of authority. And contempt; Contempt is expressed in relation to them as human beings who no longer belong to what is happening here in 2022, do not understand and are not involved with here and now. And the children have a kind of fear that a close relationship with their parents might also affect them to be less acceptable by their peers, and so in order to prevent this from happening – they stay away from their parents.
They see their parents as no longer relevant. As if they have already done their thing, their time has passed, what do they understand at all?
This is one of the most painful areas for parents, they will not recover from the suffering of increasing alienation from their children even when their child is 60. The same longing for a hug – remains.
The children are in the process of getting out of their parents’ lives, and if they visit and a make telephone call – there is no attitude of compassion, caring, humanity, support, and unconditional devotion.
And it is not easy to show compassion and empathy towards them, because it is against the prevailing general tendency; Take care of yourself first and leave your parents with a big pile of claims and complains instead of endless gratitude.
There is nothing to be ungrateful for, the parents love is endless, , every parent will give his heart and soul for his children, all his life and all their lives.
It’s hard to do that, the ruling tendency is towards abandonment and this makes them belong to the young who are the ones setting the tone now and not the ones (the parents) who already had their time and had their chance, what they know might no longer belong to now, generally they are perceived as belonging to what was, and are declining towards irrelevance.
It is rare to find children who give a double love in return. In order to do that they have to swim against this murky collective current of parent abandonment – for the sake of giving them little by little some love & support back.
This returning love to the parents’ is more precious for them then diamonds.
Gabriel