As most of you know, it is my practice on Rosh Hashanah morning to focus my sermon on one of the countless lessons we can learn from today’s Torah portion - the Akeida - the Binding, or more appropriately, the Aborted Sacrifice of Isaac.  If you were with us last night, then you heard me speak about what I consider to be our crisis of connectedness.  You also heard me state that this year I am dedicating all my High Holy Day sermons to addressing various aspects of that crisis.  So I hope to do so today, particularly as it relates to the text of our Torah reading.

Who could question but that today’s Torah portion is in great part the story of a particular family; the family of Abraham.  Our narrative contains three main characters - God, Abraham, and Isaac.  And while God appears in the beginning and the end of the account, it is Abraham and Isaac - a father and his son - who are the main players through the bulk of it.  Indeed, for the most part, it is a story of a father and his son.  It is the story of a father who, for whatever reasons, feels commanded to sacrifice his son; to sacrifice his son in the name of a cause that he - Abraham - believes in.  It is the story of a father and a son taking a journey; a journey to where the father wants to go and the son dutifully and trustfully follows; a journey during which they hold a conversation that is really not a conversation, for the son asks his father legitimate questions while the father goes to great pains to avoid offering his son honest answers; a journey which culminates in the father nearly slaughtering his son, only to pull back at the very last moment; a journey which concludes with the father leaving the site of the near sacrifice, heading back down the mountain and toward home, but not in the company of his son.  Indeed, according to one rabbinic commentator the journey continues on beyond where our text leaves off.  It continues into the next Torah portion, for as the commentator points out, the next Torah portion begins with the death of Sarah.  Why did Sarah die, the commentator asks?  Because she heard of what Abraham was planning to do to her son and the shock killed her.  Yes, indeed this is the story of a family.

Now, often when this story is discussed from a family perspective, people are quick to point out that it is the story of a highly dysfunctional family.  After all, there is a father who wishes to sacrifice his son; a son who passively submits to gross victimization at the hands of his father; and a mother who observes all this, says nothing in protest - is literally invisible - but internalizes her pain.

That is all well and good, but perhaps we need to look at this story in just a little bit of a different light.  Perhaps it is not that Abraham’s family is so dysfunctional but rather that the story itself is but an in­tended exaggeration in order to strike at some meaningful human truths.  That perspective is not so farfetched.  We often see an exaggerated story used as a artistic device in both literature and film.  Was Moby Dick really as big and white and all consuming as Herman Melville made him or was he exaggerated to teach us about obsession?  This past year, some of you may have seen that very powerful Holocaust film, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.”  If you haven’t seen it, but plan to see it - cover your ears.  As for those of you who did see it, do you think that the creators of that film really just wanted us to accept on face value that the concentration camp commandant’s son went to the gas chamber because of his “Prince and the Pauper”-like clothing switch with the young camp inmate or were they exaggerating the story in order to tell us that in killing other people’s children, it was as if the Nazis were killing their own as well?  Not literally, as in the film, but metaphorically.  For it is true.  Their children have had to live with and live down the blood stained legacy of their parents.  So perhaps, just perhaps, Abraham’s family was not as dysfunctional as it appears on the surface of the story.  Perhaps, just perhaps, this story was meant to be a warning of what could happen to any of our families if we fail to exercise the proper care and awareness in our family life.

Last night I spoke about our growing isolation, one from each other, and our desperate need for connected­ness, what in Hebrew we call kesherim.  I spoke about how there seems to be a growing tendency for us to talk at each other rather than with each other, or not to talk at all; rather to go off into our own private corners and pursue our own private interests.  I spoke about how we can find ourselves sharing a house but not really sharing our lives.  There is at least some of this that we can see in this morning’s Torah story.

Abraham’s life was consumed by his relationship with God.  There was nothing more important to him than pleasing God.  Indeed, his very identity centered on his being the one who was chosen by God.  He loved his family, but he loved God more.  And when forced to choose between family and God, without batting an eyelash, Abraham chose God.

I was once like Abraham, but I have tried to change, and am still trying to change.  And I suspect that there are many among us who also are very much like Abraham.  We have our family and we have our god, whatever our personal god happens to be.  For our personal god in this case doesn’t necessarily have to be God.  It can be our work.  It can be our ego.  It can be our interests.  It can be our material possessions.  It can be our social standing.  It can be our friends.  It can be our unfulfilled dreams, which, if we could live life over again, we would do it differently, so perhaps we live them out vicariously through our children.  It can be any number of the various aspects of our lives.  Whatever it is, it becomes our god when we make it more important than anything else in our life, including our families.

As I said, I was once like Abraham.  For me, being a rabbi and doing rabbi things was my god.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do believe in God, and God in heaven is very much my God in a very personal way.  But just as Abraham was consumed by his being chosen by God, I was consumed by my being a rabbi.  So much so that there was never any question in my mind.  My family always took second place to the Temple.  I willingly sacrificed my family on the alter of what I considered rabbinic responsibilities.  I am duly embarrassed by how many of Shira’s parent-teacher nights and concerts and events I missed - how many dad-daughter date nights Shira went to with Larry Calahan, our neighbor from across the street - because of some meeting or class here at the Temple.  Of course, at the time, I was very self-righteous about it.  After all, this is how I earned a living for my family, and besides, I have been privileged to serve God and the Jewish people; higher purposes.  But truth be known, in the final analysis, as much as it was about Temple Emanuel, God, the Jewish people, and financially supporting my family, it was also very much about me and my needs, and my self esteem, my ego.  And I know that I am far from alone in this.  I see our modern society filled with people as consumed - as self-involved - as was I.

And that is a prime example of the human disconnect that plagues our society and particular our families today.  Last night, I spoke about how modern technology has contributed greatly to a culture in which we have learned to isolate ourselves from others.  We have become so busy pursuing our own interests and our own pleasures that our lives have become far more about the “me” than the “us.”

Nor is this familial disconnect the shortcoming of just one member of a household; one Abraham.  In increasing numbers, it is becoming most members if not every member of a household, even the children.  Everyone has, or is getting, their own god, whether their god be their career, their recreational activities, their volunteer involvements, their sports, their cultural activities, their children’s sports or other activities, their focused pursuit of pleasure.  Everyone an Abraham.  And we are all hurting.  For it is a great irony that as everyone in a family becomes an Abraham, everyone also becomes an Isaac - a victim of the Abrahamic activities of the others - and a Sarah - an observer who suffers at witnessing the neglect and even the pain that the various members of the family bring down upon each other in the course of their Abrahamic pursuits.

We need to ask ourselves.  Is this really what we want out of our lives?  Is this really what we want for our families?  Do we really want to be so self-absorbed, and for the members of our family also to be so self-absorbed, that the love we hold for each other becomes so overshadowed by our focus on ourselves that it runs the very real risk of diminishing into nothingness?  Do we want to be like Abraham at the end of the story, pulling back from allowing his personal obsession to destroy his loved one, but doing so, so late in the game that the damage was already done.  The knife might not have gone down, ending his son’s life, but their relationship had already be killed as Abraham walked down the mountain alone?  Alone.  As we envelop ourselves in our pursuits of self-gratification, whether we intend to or not, we increasingly disconnect ourselves from those we purport to love.  The more we disconnect, the further we distance ourselves from each other.  And in the end, there can only be one logical outcome.  We will be alone.  And loneliness is the greatest self-affliction of them all.
So how do we rein in the Abraham within us?  How do we reinforce the kesherim, the sense of connected­ness, which should exist between us and the members of our family?  Obviously, every family has its own unique dynamics and therefore every family has to find its own path to kesherim, to a strengthened sense of connectedness.  Still, let me share with you these few reflections that might assist you along the way.

TIME.  In our hectic and harried world, one can argue that time is becoming a more precious commodity than money.  Indeed, often it seems easier for us to spend money on our loved ones than to spend time.  But it is time which is precisely what they need, far more than they need the money or the things money can buy which we give them.  Yet when it comes to giving of our time, it is not just any old time that will do.  We need to give them special time; time which is purely dedicated to being with them.  Family time.  Now family time is not just time we spend on family members, but it is time we spend with family members and they spend with us.  It is time spent on shared activity.  Going to your child’s sports event or performance is nice, and it is important, but it is not nearly enough.  Why?  Because it lacks family interaction.  If we wish to connect with our families, we need to take the time to be with our families and do with our families.  Last night I spoke of a time gone by when families would gather round the dinner table and have real conversations; when families would spend their evenings doing such things as reading to each other or playing cards or board games.  Playing together, talking, laughing, even crying, reveling in each other’s company.  We need to carve out sacred oases of time in which there is but one operating principle; family members being together, doing together, sharing the moment.

LOVE WITH PATIENCE.  Recently, Andy Berkow sent me a very moving film clip.  The scene is a garden with an old man and a young man sitting on a bench, the young man engrossed in reading his newspaper.  Out of nowhere, the old man asks, “What’s that?”  The young man looks up and responds, “a sparrow.”  The old man looks around, and again he asks, “What’s that?” and the young man looks up and says, “A sparrow”.  The old man looks up at a tree and once again asks, “What’s that.”  The young man, now quite exasperated, shouts “a sparrow!  s-p-a-r-r-o-w!” and then proceeds to harangue the older man, shouting, “Can’t you get it?  It’s a sparrow!”.  The old man quietly gets up from the bench, walks into the house, returns with a book, sits down, opens the book and hands it to the young man.  “Read,” he says.  “Loud.”  So he reads from the opened page, “Today my youngest son who a few days ago turned three was sitting with me at the park when a sparrow sat in front of us.  My son asked me 21 times what it was and I answered all 21 times that it was a sparrow.  I hugged him every single time he asked me the same question again and again, without getting mad, feeling affection for my innocent little boy.”  The young man sat there for a moment, absorbing the words of his father’s diary and then turned and embraced him.

Nurturing love often requires patience.  Exercising such patience demonstrates to the members of our family that we love them at least as much as we love ourselves.  It demonstrates that even though there are times when family life can be frustrating, the momentary frustration which we may feel pales in comparison to the lifetime of happiness they grant us by simply being in our lives.  Indeed, remembering how much we love them and how much they love us should serve as our key to an all important long term perspective.  Family is for life while such aggravation is but for the moment.

CONSCIOUS EFFORT.  It is so easy for us to take the ones with whom we share our lives for granted.  Being with us every day, their company can become commonplace.  But that is precisely what we should not do.  If we truly wish to maintain and strengthen the kesherim - that sense of connectedness - with those we profess to love, then we need to work at it, both consciously and conscientiously.  “I love you” are three simple words.  They should come to our lips easily and often.  And just as they should come to our lips, they should come to our deeds as well.  While saying I love you is a step in the right direction, showing I love you can carry us great distances.
In our Torah portion, when Abraham and Isaac walked up the mountain, though they were walking physically side by side, they each were walking alone, lost in their own private world; Isaac, perhaps wondering about his fate; Abraham, pondering how he could best please his God.  Together, yet alone.  Too often that can also be said of too many of our families today.  We can be beside each other but not really connected to each other.  In this new year of 5770, let us each resolve to do more than merely live our lives beside the ones we love.  Let us resolve to do everything in our power to reach out to the ones we love, embracing them in body and soul, strengthening the kesherim that exist between us.

AMEN