It was this past summer, while my family and I were on vacation at the beach. We had spent the past three days building sandcastles, riding boogie boards in the waves, drinking frozen lemonade in the sun, and making s’mores at night. Every day had been a delight. Now, it was the last morning of vacation – and while we were enjoying our final hours on the beach, we wanted to take a family picture, to help capture all of the happy memories.
And this was the moment that things began to unravel. Our kids – exhausted after four long and hot days in the sun, and three nights of staying up way past their usual bedtime – were simply too tired, too sandy, and too salty to cooperate. They told us that they did not want to take a picture. But the more that they refused, the more that I insisted – until, at last, what had begun as an enjoyable final morning on the beach quickly escalated into an all out argument, and the photo never happened.
We likely all have had an experience like this, in which we felt completely exasperated by someone that we love – whether that person was your child or your parent.
Our Jewish tradition has always been finely attuned to the friction that can arise in the parent-child relationship. The Book of Genesis is filled with agonizing stories in which parents and children butt heads with one another. We should consider these stories to be one of our tradition’s many merits – reflecting back to us, in an exaggerated way, the types of parent-child conflicts that we know to be possible in our own lives.
But among all of these stories, perhaps none of them better captures the friction of the parent-child relationship than the life of our founding patriarch: Avraham Avinu – Father Abraham. Abraham is not just the father of the family tree. It seems, rather, that fatherhood is one of his defining characteristics. His Hebrew name, Av-raham, can be translated to mean “excellent parent.”[1] As is the case with our own parents, we never have the chance to see him as a kid; Abraham first appears in the Jewish people’s story already as a fully formed adult.
If there ever was a parent who had conflicts with his children, Abraham is it. His older son, Ishamel, he banished; and as we read last week on Rosh Hashanah, his younger son, Isaac, he nearly killed.
Now, it is Yom Kippur – ten days after the unhappy events that we read about on Rosh Hashanah. His wife, Sarah, has now died – and Ishmael is long since gone. Now it is only Abraham and Isaac: father and son, who have always butted heads, who have always driven each other a little bit crazy – for the rest of their lives, together and alone.
On Yom Kippur, we might wonder: how are things going for Abraham and Isaac? How are father and son getting along, in this complex relationship that – like so many of our relationships – is founded on love, and yet, so often full of discord and strife? And most importantly, we might wonder: can this holiday of Yom Kippur help to repair what has been broken between them?
***
Ever since Isaac was small, Abraham never quite knew how to relate to him. Could this kid really be the child of the great Abraham? Abraham, who heeded the call to adventure, and left behind the country of his birth in order to Lech Lecha – to go – to the land that God would show him; Abraham, who battled with kings and received gifts from pharaohs; Abraham, who took God to task over the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; Abraham, who established ethical monotheism, whose insistence upon impeccable moral standards was matched only by his insistence that there is just one true God of the universe.
And then, there’s his son Isaac – shy, timid Isaac. He is seemingly always forlorn. He spends his days indoors, sulking in the darkened tent of his late mother, Sarah. On the rare occasion that he does go outside, it is not to go off on great adventures, as his father once did, but rather, to wander aimlessly in the field, quietly muttering to himself. His horizons are limited; of all the matriarchs and patriarchs, he is the only one who will never journey outside the Land of Canaan. He lacks all initiative, unable even to find a wife for himself; his father will need to do that for him. Abraham looks at Isaac and feels a pang of disappointment. How can this possibly be the child that he and Sarah had wanted for so long?
Perhaps some of us may have had parents who were like this – parents who put their painfully high expectations on us: parents who, nearly from the moment we were born, were grooming us for greatness, who expected that our homework would always be done and our grades would always be perfect; parents who expected that we would always be on our best behavior, who expected that our beds would always be made and that we would never track dirt into the house; parents who did not understand us, who looked at us and did not see who we were, but rather, only who they wanted us to be.
For those of us who are parents: even if we do not carry these kinds of exceedingly high expectations for our kids, we nevertheless all have certain hopes and wishes which, wittingly or not, we place upon our children. We want them to be happy, to have friends, to do well in school, to find hobbies that they enjoy, to find work that they love, to be able to provide for themselves, to find a partner who brings out the best in them, to become well-adjusted, thriving adults.
It pains us when these things do not happen for them. We do not want to see our kids having trouble making friends, struggling with perfectionism, forming relationships that are unhealthy, or worse, wrestling with substance abuse or addiction – even though we know that we cannot protect them entirely, even though we know that, regardless of our efforts, some of these things will indeed happen to them.
But here is the even more painful part. Deep down, we might recognize that not only can we not protect our kids – in fact, in many ways, the exact opposite is true. Some of the character traits and bad habits that we do not want for our children will befall them not despite us, but rather, because of us.
If I am being entirely honest about that day at the beach, the reason why the family photo never wound up happening is not only because my kids were being stubborn – but rather, because I know someone else who is also deeply stubborn; someone who, on far more significant occasions than a day at the beach, has refused to participate in a family photo; someone who, many more times than once, ruined the last day of a family vacation with his irritability, so that the parting memory of any particular trip became not the joy that had been shared, but rather, the trip’s tumultuous ending. And of course, that person is me.
Deep down, Abraham has a similar realization. He knows that when he looks at Isaac, he feels disappointed not only in his son, but also, in himself. Why is Isaac so timid? Because you, Abraham, scarred him for life when you nearly sacrificed him. Why does he never leave the Land of Canaan? Because you, Abraham, were always gone – always off on some grand adventure, crisscrossing the ancient near east: seemingly everywhere except for at home. Why does he lack all initiative? Because you, Abraham, were so certain of your God and your ethics that you left no room for him to make any decisions for himself. If Abraham is being honest, he knows, deep down, that – although his name, Av-raham, means “excellent parent” – he has been everything except for that.
This is a painful recognition. Our kids will get bruised by life, and we will have been part of the problem. For some of us, our children will inherit our shortcomings: we were anxious, so they became anxious. For others, our children’s shortcomings will develop in reaction to our own: we were hyper-responsible, so they rebelled and became irresponsible.
When we see these traits and habits in our kids, we are subconsciously reminded of the worst in ourselves. They got that behavior from us, just as we got it from our parent, who, in turn, got it from their parent – creating a hall of mirrors in which our disapproval and self-criticism are reflected back and forth endlessly between the generations.
This is precisely what happens for Abraham. He sees Isaac’s shortcomings and is reminded of his own. A feeling of dread courses through him – more intense than anything he has ever felt while standing in the presence of kings or of God. A prophetic vision opens up before him, and in his mind’s eye he is able to gaze into the future, to look upon the generations, where he sees that, like him, his son Isaac will someday scar his children; that, like him, his grandson Jacob will someday scar his children; that, like him, even King David, more than a dozen generations hence, will someday scar his children; that Abraham’s legacy will be not only the establishment of ethical monotheism, but equally, the establishment of a sprawling and quarrelous extended family in which there will forever be conflicts between parents and children – and seated at the top of that enormous family tree will be him: Avraham Avinu, our Father. Abraham.
***
On Yom Kippur, we are called to take an honest look at ourselves. When Abraham does so, he knows that he has not lived up to his name. He has not been an Av-raham, an “excellent parent.”
But thankfully for us, Abraham is not the only model of a parent that we find in our Jewish tradition. Especially on these High Holy Days, we draw our inspiration not from Father Abraham, but rather, from a different kind of parent – not from the flawed human parent with whom we might be able to identify, but rather, from a lofty example of a parent, towards which we might aspire. On these High Holy Days, we seek to emulate not Avraham Avinu, but rather, Avinu SheBaShamayim, our heavenly parent – or, as the name might be more familiar to us, the Avinu of Avinu Malkeinu: the ideal of a loving parent that we associate with God.
To help us understand what Yom Kippur is all about, we might imagine an encounter between these two parental figures – a meeting between Abraham, the flawed, human parent, and God, the idealized, loving parent.
***
Many years have passed since the last time that God and Abraham met. Abraham’s son Isaac is now fully grown, and has become a father himself. But seeing Isaac as a father has not brought Abraham joy. Rather, seeing Isaac now pass on to his children the very same shortcomings that Abraham once passed on to Isaac has only reignited his feelings of disapproval and self-criticism.
God sees Abraham’s anguish – and decides, one Yom Kippur morning, to go and pay Abraham a visit. God arrives at the encounter carrying a very large book. Embossed on the cover in gold letters is the book’s title, “The Book of Memories,” a book that Abraham has heard of, but has never actually seen before – the book that is described in our U-n’taneh Tokef prayer, where it says: v’tizkor kol hanishkachot, v’tiftach et seifer hazichronot, u-mei-eilav yikarei – “You, O God, remember all that we have forgotten. When you open the Book of Memories, it speaks for itself.”
God opens the cover and shows the book to Abraham. The pages are filled with family photographs.
Immediately, as if by reflex, Abraham breaks into a sweat. He knows where this is going. First, God flips to the photos of Isaac: a photo of him sulking in his mother’s darkened tent; a photo of him wandering aimlessly in the field, quietly muttering to himself; photo after photo where the backdrop is always the same, the Land of Canaan that Isaac was never brave enough to leave. Then, God flips to the photos of Abraham: a photo of him almost sacrificing his son on Mount Moriah; a photo of him lecturing his son about the certainty of ethics and of God; side-by-side photos where Abraham is off in far-away places, and meanwhile, his tent at home is empty.
Abraham begins to feel that terrible sensation of dread – the endless hall of mirrors filled with disapproval and self-criticism.
But then, God flips to another page, with different photos on it, photos that Abraham has never seen before: a photo of Isaac in his mother’s tent – not sulking in the dark, but rather, happily reading by the glow of candlelight, traveling in his imagination to worlds far beyond the places that Abraham has ever visited; a photo of Isaac wandering in the field – not aimless and quietly muttering, but rather, deep in meditation, entranced by nature, filled with wonder and delight by every glorious blade of grass; a photo of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac on the day that Isaac was born, enormous smiles on both parents’ faces, at last holding the child that they had hoped for all those years, a day of immense joy – a reminder of why they gave him the Hebrew name Yitzchak, a name that means “laughter.”
Opening the Book of Memories, Abraham begins to see Isaac in the way that God sees Isaac: not his disappointment of a son, a reminder of all his own shortcomings – but rather, a beautiful human being, a quiet and gentle soul, his own person.
On Yom Kippur, we are called to see the people in our lives the way that God sees them – not just our kids, but equally, our parents, our siblings, our partner, and all of the other people that we are hardest on. This does not mean ignoring all of the ways in which we find them to be difficult. Rather it means trying to see them more fully: seeing not only their challenging behaviors, but also, all of the good that is in them; seeing not only their flaws, but also, having compassion for all of the ways in which they are bruised and vulnerable; seeing not only the moments in which they drove us crazy, but also, all of the moments in which they were thriving and at their best. The Book of Memories contains them all.
This is what we mean when we call God Avinu: that we human beings are flawed, and make mistakes, and disappoint one another, and regularly fail to live up to our potential – but nevertheless, regardless of whether our human parents recognized it or not, we Jews affirm that there is good in every single person.
If Abraham can begin to see the good in Isaac, not only will he help his son to thrive, but also, he will free himself from the endless cycle of disapproval and self-criticism – and at last become the Av-raham, the “excellent parent,” that he always wanted to be. And if we can begin to see the people in our lives in the way that God sees them, then we will also begin to see ourselves in the way that God sees us: good, and flawed, and beautiful.
***
On Yom Kippur, we are called to take an honest look at ourselves, to open the Book of Memories – a photo album in which every moment of our lives is recorded and forever sealed behind the plastic laminate sleeves of time. And of course, we will see there all of the moments that we are least proud of, all of the photos that we wish we had not taken: our arguments, our stubbornness – and recognize in these shortcomings a family resemblance that runs across the generations.
But this is not all that we will see there. Yom Kippur is not a day for relentlessly beating ourselves up over all the things that we have done wrong. It is, rather, a day for transforming ourselves, a day for opening the Book of Memories and recalling all that we have forgotten – a day to be reminded of all of the good that is in us, and is in every single person.
When we open the Book of Memories, we will find there photos beyond number: photos of us, photos of our parents and of our children, photos of our ancestors both mythic and real, photos of the entire human family – a scrapbook overflowing with portraits of each and every human life. And if we are looking carefully, we will begin to recognize among the pages and pages of photos a certain family resemblance that is shared among us all: that each of us is good, and flawed, and human. And that will be a family portrait that is worth keeping.
__________
[1] Traditionally, Avraham is taken to mean “father of a multitude.” However, his original name is Avram – which can be broken into two parts: av (“father/parent”), and ram (which can be translated as “esteemed”).
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