Editorial: No respect for the elderly

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, we note that not only did the 2,000 Year Old Man, as played by Mel Brooks, never seem to apologize for his ancient point of view, but his interviewer, as played by Carl Reiner, offered only the utmost deference and respect for his subject’s age and experience.

Continuing the thought, tongue still in cheek (but remember, only somewhat), observant Jews are essentially the 4,000 Year Old Man but the Carl Reiner character (played by everyone else) rarely offers the slightest deference or respect.

Instead we’re expected to be tolerant while others bend the rules by which we’ve been playing for almost all of this time, and we’re even expected to bend the rules ourselves as if we see nothing the matter.

But that’s a family matter.

Adding insult to injury, we are subjected to the predatory activities of complete outsiders with the effrontery to suggest that we’ve been getting it all wrong for 4,000 years and that they, somehow, know better and can show us how it’s really supposed to be done.

The underlying subjects here, fairly obviously, are conversion to Judaism and missionary activity, which usually picks up around this time of year.

Conversion is a family matter. But family arguments usually cut the deepest.

After 4,000 years, not all the members of the family are still on the same page, but somehow it’s lost on many of the relatives that the ones who no longer show up to family gatherings first began to drift away from the family after they insisted on making new rules for themselves.

Without the rules, before too long, there simply is no family. So if you want to be part of the family, you’ve got to play by the rules. Or, don’t, if that’s your personal preference, but at least have the respect to not make up new rules and then insist that those are the ones we’ve all got to play along with.

On the matter of missionaries, we never fail to be amazed at the chutzpah of these coldly calculating, deceptive people who lie in the name of religion. By deliberately, subtly misinterpreting works of Jewish origin, they prey on the uninformed. Like crooked traffic agents writing bad tickets to meet a quota, missionaries pad their numbers by prying away the least-knowledgeable Jews with false promises based on faulty premises.

Tragically, many of their victims are genuine seekers who for reasons of geography or circumstance, never had a Jewish education, and who end up in a world peopled by the deluded and the delusional.

The victims only rarely learn that the ancient Hebrew words of Isaiah and other prophets of old are open to mistranslation by modern people with suspect motives.

First among the worst of the missionaries, however — far more objectionable than those who imagine they’re collecting Jewish souls on the road to Armageddon — are the ones who claim that you can have it both ways. Messianic “Jews” present themselves as members of the tribe and seduce the ill-informed into believing that one can be a Jew and a Christian at the same time. The “religion” they present offers salvation to the ignorant in a neat little Chrismukkah package with a red and blue bow.

Reiner: Did you really know Isaiah?

Brooks: Of course I knew Isaiah. We went to summer camp together.

Reiner: And was he talking about Jesus in his prophesies the way people claim?

Brooks: Are you kidding? He was busy trying to get Jews to repent. Who had time to talk about Jesus? Besides, Jesus was much younger. I think he was in my cousin’s class.

4,000 years of life experience and we still have to put up with rude relatives and telemarketers selling salvation in the middle of dinner. Nobody’s got any respect anymore.