According to one of the great Litvak sages, Naftali Troup,(חידושי הגרנ''ט) the commandment of honor your father and mother is positive command that has attached to it the punishment of death when not obeyed as in the case of the rebellious son. He brings this directly from the Rambam. You can see why in the religious world this commandment is ignored because religious leaders want the authority to dictate what the Torah commands us.
[Honor of one's parents--to listen and obey them-has a death penalty attached to it as we see in the case of the rebellious son בן סורר ומורה in Deuteronomy. The laws about it are brought in Sanhedrin in the chapter "The rebellious son". Sadly enough I never got to learn this subject in depth with my learning partner. We got close to it by learning to the end of the previous chapter, but then we switched to some other subject--I forget which.]
The religious world however has all values the opposite from Torah. They want to be in charge of you. They want that you should listen to their leaders, not your parents. They are also against family values. They want your wife to listen to them, not to her husband. The religious world is sadly enough, one terrible fraud.
[Later note] It s not that every time your father tells you something, that there is the death penalty for disobeying. Rather the condition of the rebellious son are much harder to get to. Still in essence the idea is the same, though one can not be held liable legally.
But what people do not take into consideration is that even the most simple act of not listening to one's father --or mother--even one time is a component of the death penalty. It is like --for example if one picks up an object in a private domain and puts his hand into a public domain and someone else picks the object out of his hand. He has done half of what it takes to be liable. I realize this is a hard lesson to swallow, but it is true. Next time your mother or father tell you something, and you do not listen, you ought to think twice.
