The Relationship

Sometimes the obvious things are taken for granted.  Sometimes taking the obvious things for granted leads to trouble.
Consider what Torah-observant Jewish education takes for granted, for instance.  We simply assume God exists, that He's involved with the universe, that He presented His Torah to us 3327 years ago and that He still cares about us and is moving history forward towards a Final Redemption for our nation.
I've previously written about all those points but I find it interesting that when it comes to basic education most of those things are taken for granted.  The Chovos HaLevavos, for example, begins his masterful work with an extensive discussion proving God as we understand Him (for all we can understanding Him, of course) but this chapter is often skipped in major yeshivos.  Instead the educational process focuses on the acquisition of information, in many ways just like any other program.  It's not about inculcating emunah, it's about how much Talmud can you stuff into these kids and hope they don't ask any big questions.
Perhaps that's the reason not just for the OTD crisis but for the constant parade of frum Jews in the news for all the worst reasons, Jews who should know better.  For the OTD's it's knowledge without a point, rituals without a deeper meaning.  For those who remain on the derech it's knowledge for the sake of knowing minutiae and ritual by rote.  Where is the deeper ethic?  Where is the why behind the what?
The first thing should be an understanding of our relationship with God.  Without that, there is little point to what we are doing.  Keeping kosher just for the sake of keeping kosher is meaningless.  Keeping kosher as part of my relationship with God changes the spiritual universe in countless ways.  Which is better?
So let me make a suggestion of where to start: God is our Father. 
Now I know this sounds simple and I think it's one of those things that's so simple we know it by reflex but without thinking about it, like people who shout "Dear Lord!" out of habit, not a desire to invoke the name of the Creator.  When we say Avinu Malkeinu over the 10 Days of Penitence, are we really thinking of a father figure or just saying the words?
So I say again: God is our Father.  What does this mean?  It means He loves us.  What is love?  A desire to give to another to ensure that other's well-being.
Anyone with children knows that this is the secret of good parenting.  It's that unconditional love that overcomes the sleepless nights and endless frustrations because the child is always worth it.  It's also knowing that saying "No" is the way to show that love even if the child doesn't understand.
Too often we relate to God in an infantile way.  We want Him to help us when we need something but to stay out of our way when we want something He disapproves of, as if He's some giant cash machine in the sky.  This isn't surprising since, in Western culture, this is how children of all ages from young through to adult relate to their parents.  Gimme a roof, free laundy and food but who do you think you are to tell me when my curfew should be?  The idea that the child is dependent in any way on the parents and owes them something grates at the narcissistic nerves.   And like a loving parent who quietly grits his or her teeth, God sits up in Heaven watching and waiting for us to clue in to how things really work.
A truly positive relationship between a parent and child occurs when the child finally realizes that the most important thing in his life is the parent just as the parent has always known that the child is the centre of his life.  This is the level we should be striving for when it comes to relating to God.  Am I working hard enough to please my Father?  Am I doing enough to make the endless gifts He's giving me meaningful? 
Another benefit of seeing the relationship in this light is the closeness that it can provide.  Seeing God as a strict authoritarian, or as an angry old man up in the sky with a notebook keeping careful track of all our mistakes and waiting for us to screw up so he can add to our punishment doesn't create a healthy, functional Jew but a dystopian parody of one.  I can talk to my father whenever I need to and he will listen.  I can also talk to my Father and I know He's listening as well.  Yes, Chazal talk about the iron wall between our prayers and Heaven but God is omnipotent and omnipresent.  Open your heart, speak your peace and He will hear.  It's something we all need to try more often.
Thus a relationship based on a love and an acknowledgement of dependency which doesn't diminish but rather intensifies that love is what can tie a Jew's neshama closer to the Creator.  Teaching this would probably accomplish more than lots of what does get taught in yeshivos nowadays.