Where oh where did we go wrong?
There are a lot of people who turn to religious figures for advice and guidance. How many pictures have we seen throughout the ages of world leaders meeting with the Pope, the Dalai Lama or other well-known religious personages for insight and wisdom? There are rabbis who are sought out by leaders including non-Jews. When I once went to see a very big rabbi in New York, I was told that Senator Alfonse D’Amato had arrived and that we would all have to wait until he finished his audience. There is a picture of RFK, Sr. meeting with the same rabbi at 2 in the morning in order to discuss matters of state.
In Israel, it is not unusual for hundreds of people to go to a rabbi on the days when he makes himself available for consultation. Most people in the world have issues with a spouse, health, finances, or children. While everyone probably has something that keeps him up at night, not everybody goes to a religious figure to get help. Some just live with the problem, while others seek help from professionals or publicly available sources of information, the internet being the king of the latter.
One thing that always impresses me is when the children of big rabbis turn out alright. There are those rabbis whose help, advice, guidance, and assistance are sought 24/7. Most have to have family or associates serve as a buffer between them and those seeking their help. A friend told me of a very big rabbi who lived in our neighborhood. He wanted to sit and learn Torah uninterrupted. He told his grandson to tell anyone who came that he was not at home. “But grandpa, you are at home!” “Yes, but I am not at home for them.” An agreement was reached whereby the grandson would comply as long as the rabbi stayed in his room and did not come out where those at the door could see him. Because the pressure to help others is so great, not all rabbis have sufficient time to be active dads. There is always some medical emergency or some educational institution about to go bankrupt. So when I see kids who grow up and are good people and oftentimes respected rabbis themselves, I cannot help but conclude that their father made a wall around his family and would not sacrifice the time they deserved.
When one looks at the anti-Western mayhem gripping much of the urban US, Europe and Australia, he sees a lot of young people at the forefront Even Bernie Sanders, who helped Abe Lincoln mount his horse, is idolized and supported by young, well-educated “Bernie Bros”. Ditto for AOC, and from what I have read, Zohrani Mamdani’s rise in New York is driven by young trust fund kids and recent college graduates. While youthful rebellion is nothing new, how do we have thousands of bright, young American kids happily protesting with Jew-haters and for the rapists/murders of Hamas? It’s one thing for a child given everything by his parents to denounce them as capitalist swine; it’s something else when transnational movements support jihadism, Marxism and the destruction of the system that put the iPhone in their hands and Coke in their bellies.
Children never grow up in a vacuum. The most important influencers on them are their parents. Sure, teachers, siblings, and friends contribute to their growth and development, but nobody plays the role that parents do. And while children often look at their parents and swear that when they grow up they will drop some of their rules or behavior, it is still mom and dad who are the most influential forces on a child. In the past, this was an advantage: parents had strong values and clear views about right and wrong. They impressed on their children what real success was and how to live a life that was meaningful and rewarding.
But what happens when the parents themselves have no particular values? Sure, they love their children. They clothe them, provide them with food and heal them when they get sick. That’s all wonderful but quite technical. What values do they pass on to them? What is the basis of right and wrong that their children would learn from them? While religious decline is one of the major drivers of low fertility rates throughout the Western world, it has additional negative implications. Parents who were brought up in some level of religiosity at home do not want to burden the children with the demands of their faith. Better that the child go to football practice than to some religious instruction after school. How can we deny our daughter dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant because of some hocus pocus dietary rules? The parents think that they are doing their children a favor by not being too strict, by always praising them as being the best, by not burdening them with the cumbersome ways of their own youth. But in reality, children need guidance, they need rules, they need fences. When a child knows that he is going to bed at 7 o’clock, he makes use of his time accordingly. When the parents don’t care when he goes to sleep, he will find all ways to waste his time and not organize himself. The generation that demands Marxist revolution and praises mass murderers is such because for the first time someone offered them some values—demented and deplorable values, but values nonetheless. Those kids were like the child in the bubble who had no immune system: even the slightest bug could be deadly. And so a nice Jewish boy and a lovely Catholic girl can hold two ends of a sign demanding the eradication of Israel and all of the Jews living there. They can vote for a guy whose economic policies will bankrupt New York and cause tax-paying wealthy individuals and companies to flee the city.
When I was in Madison, there was an Israeli that came to the local synagogue once a year. I asked the rabbi about him and he said that he had some business in town. He also mentioned that he had one son who lived in a monastery in India. Like many Israelis of that day, the son went to India after the army in order to travel. Somehow he was exposed to some form of Eastern religion, and not being brought up religious, it lit something in him. There he stayed and his father would travel to India to visit him. The children voting for the Marxist/jihadist rarely come from religious homes. They grew up with wealth and technical wizardry learned at school. Once someone put an idea into their heads—even a crazy, illogical and dangerous idea—they found purpose. So instead of lollygagging in bed, they run outside in keffiyeh to denounce Bibi and Trump. Their life has meaning! They don’t care about the contradictions of accepting a system that has never produced an iPhone and would leave them miserable. Right now, they have something to hold onto, and that is what makes their lives seem full.
The good news is that there are many youngins who are breaking right. They were also brought up with nothing and if they were boys, they were told that they were bad. Many of them voted for Donald Trump and are looking for traditional values and not socialist claptrap. Young voters supported the president in record numbers. Let’s hope that we can deprogram those on the left, because their political trajectory would mean the suicide of the West.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Townhall VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member