This week's parasha, Ki Tetzei, contains the famous mitzvah of the ben soreir, the rebellious son:
If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town, "This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard." Thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid.
The rabbis thought this to be particularly harsh and thus, it really isn't ever done. At some point in their lives, every person must go their own way regardless of what their parents want. We don't have to be "gluttons and drunkards," just thinking people who must live their own lives. That is not evil; that is progress.
Yet sometimes rebellion is evil. Sometimes the rebellious offspring are worse than gluttons and drunkards. Sometimes they forget the past, and that is how evil propagates through history. Perhaps that is why, in this same parasha, the commandment to both remember and blot out the memory of Amalek appears. The ultimate rebellion against our parents is to forget their pain and to champion that which was abhorrent to them. That is a rebellion that cannot be tolerated.
Today a little snippet from the High Holy Day service:
Zochreinu
