לא עבדו ישראל עבודה זרה אלא להתיר להם עריות
I think that if you think about it deeply, the belief system of society at large, i.e. moral relativism etc. is heavily influenced by a lifestyle that is incompatible with religious belief and observance and absolute morality , whether it is sexuality, hedonism, rampant consumerism, it is inconvenient to acknowledge a reality that imposes absolute morals and limits. If one looks at the philosophy being espoused at the highest levels of the most prestigious universities it seems to be influenced by the above rather than by deep soul searching and true introspection. The belief system them filters down to the masses and is accepted as gospel. This poor couple obviously lacked a true internalized belief and value system so they stood no chance when exposed to the morass of modern society. I think that is the lesson here- if your belief system is just a product of the people around you and is never internalized then it will evaporate as soon as the people around you change. We have got to internalize and educate our children to internalize who we are and what we believe in, not just expect our children to imitate those around them,otherwise it is not a true belief system at all; merely a transient product of a (temporary) set of circumstances....
While your comment could use some breaking up into paragraphs for readability, it touches on a very true subject.
Whether this "poor couple" is real or not, I think there are plenty of people all around us (and possibly, to a certain extent, each and every one of us - or else we would all be בינונים ע"פ התניא) that don't properly "internalize who we are and what we believe in".
Your comment about educating our children "not just ... to imitate those around them" resonates with me very strongly. The Rebbe
quotes in Hayom Yom the saying of the Tzemach Tzedek that one shouldn't ask for a ברכה regarding עבודה. I once heard this elucidated in a shiur by Rabbi Yossi Paltiel (don't remember which one, but I think it was a Tanya shiur, his treasure trove is
here) where he said that a Chossid came asking for such a ברכה, to which the response was (expounded from the terse text): My grandfather (the Alter Rebbe) was מוסר נפש so that each Jew should keep Yiddishkeit in his own right, and not because his parents did, and now you are asking me for the opposite?
To me, that is part of what being a Lubavitcher (which I strive to be) is about. I don't want my kids to be frum Yidden because their parents were such, I want them to be frum Yidden by pure choice (and that choice should be מאהבה and not מיראה).