The best one is Everybody Loves Raymond. It's one of the greatest shows on TV - it's hilarious; but in Everybody Loves Raymond, it embodies the psycho-pathology of what it means to create a new normal. In Everybody Loves Raymond, Debra Barone treats him like he's an idiot. She actually calls him idiot; she calls him stupid, she tells him he doesn't measure up - and she does it in front of everybody. She withholds sex from him. She says: you're not getting any from me, unless you do exactly what I say. So she calls him an idiot, and withholds his basic need for respect; and then she withholds his #1 physical need, unless he does exactly what she says.
So Raymond gravitates himself across the street to the only woman in his life who respects him - and that's his mother; and so you have this huge psycho-pathology going on. It makes for hilarious television, but it makes for a horrible life - a horrible life. It became the new normal, and we run the risk of creating a new normal when we don't honour; when we think that honouring is somehow turning a blind eye and saying: okay, that's okay. That's okay.
I was at a friend's house once for Christmas time, and the whole family's sitting there. The mother, the matriarch of the family - you've got grandchildren and children - this person would have been in her 60s probably, late 50s - and she didn't like the gift that the father gave her. So the father gave the mother a gift she didn't like, and she started screaming obscenities. I'm talking about she used the 'f' word about 25 times. And then he started using it back, and they started calling each other names, and everybody started yelling, and I wanted to find somewhere to hide. But after all the yelling was done, in two or three minutes, everybody laughed, slapped five and went on - and I went what just happened here? They said: oh, that's just how we are. That's just how we are!
If you want to know if your family has created a new normal, ask yourself this question: do I use the excuse “that's just how we are”? We never say that about good things: I'm just happy - that's just how I am. You know what? I'm just generous - that's just how I am. I'm just kind - that's just who I am - take me or leave me. No, we use those things about problems like anger and resentment and rage, and very dysfunctional things. We use “that's just how I am, take me or leave me” - of course most people will leave you, because you've created a new normal.
Honour is not creating a new normal. Honour is not ignoring the wrong. Honour is not saying what was wrong is actually right.
3) Honour is not: having no boundaries.
One of the Hebraic definitions of hell is to live in a boundary-less place. If you're living in a situation where someone can treat you any way they want, and you have no recourse - that's called hell.
Actually the honourable thing is to have boundaries. Sometimes the honourable thing is to say: dad, I love you, and I can be with you in this situation; but I can't be with you in that situation. In this situation, I love to be with you; but in this situation, where there's going to be whiskey involved... When you get drunk, it embarrasses me, so I'm drawing a boundary. I'll be with you here, but I can't be with you here; and it's not that I don't love you, it's that I do. That's honour.
Honour is not ignoring the wrong; honour is not saying what was wrong is right; and honour is not living without boundaries.
Let me give you a definition of what honour is. In Hebrew culture, honour has more to do with what we pass on to the next generation; than how we respond to the previous one.
To say: I honour you dad - that's one thing. But the heavier thing is actually what I'm taking away, and perpetuating to my children, and my children's children, and my children's children's children. The honourable part, in terms of me and my dad, has to do with what I'm passing on, so that when my dad is dead and gone one day, his great-grandchildren are reflecting a heritage of godliness.