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Dec 10/05 - Parshat Va-Yetzeh Commentery by Rabbi Alan Green
And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and said: “Surely God was in this place, and me, I didn’t even know it!” He was overcome with reverence and said, “How awesome is this place! This is the very house of God…and this is the gateway to heaven.” Jacob awoke in the morning, took the stone that had been under his head, set it up as a marker, and anointed it with oil. He called the name of that place, which used to be called Luz, “Beit El—the house of God.” Genesis 28:16 –19 This week’s Parsha describes Jacob’s famous dream of the ladder, with angels ascending and descending from earth to heaven, and from heaven back down to earth. It occurs at the low point of Jacob’s life as he has lived it up to now. Jacob was named for the way he grasped the heel (AKEV in Hebrew) of his twin brother Esau as they were born. But in Hebrew, as well as English, the word “heel” carries a strong negative connotation: “crooked,” or “conniver” in Hebrew, while in English we simply say that a despicable person is a “heel.”
Unfortunately, Jacob lived up to the negative aspect of his name. A “tent-dweller”, and the spoiled favorite of his mother Rebecca, he is as opposite to his brother, Esau--the hunter, and the favorite of Isaac--as he could possibly be. Perhaps this is why he couldn’t restrain himself from buying Esau’s birthright, and then stealing the blessing that Isaac intended to bestow on Esau. This is a person whose clear priority is to advance by any means necessary.
But at the beginning of this week’s Parsha, Jacob is fleeing for his life. He knows that once Isaac dies, there won’t be anyone to protect him from the wrath of Esau. So he leaves his sheltered way of life behind, hits the road, and becomes vulnerable to the elements, and to God, for the first time in his life. Sleeping out in an open field, with only a rock for a pillow; without a roof over his head, or any walls to protect him, Jacob is finally in a position to glimpse the cosmic ladder, and undergo his first encounter with the Divine One.
The image of Jacob’s ladder, with its base planted firmly on earth, even as it reaches high into the heavens, has inspired the artistic and religious imagination of the world practically from its inception. The ladder is a multi-layered symbol. It means many things simultaneously.
Mircea Eliade, the great historian of religion, cited Jacob’s ladder as an example of AXIS MUNDI—the symbolic centre of the universe. Such symbols create both the metaphysical and physical basis for a civilization. Metaphysically, an AXIS MUNDI becomes a spiritual “hot spot”—a place where spiritual reality erupts like the lava of a heretofore hidden volcano. The very fact that Jacob received his vision on that precise spot makes repeat performances possible for future generations. The place becomes “a holy place,” an island of sanctity surrounded by the vast expanse of chaos and uncertainty that is the unsanctified remainder of the world. This explains why Jacob’s awakening from that night’s sleep was so much more than an ordinary awakening. “Surely, God was in this place, and me, I didn’t even know it!” Jacob was thunderstruck that the ordinary field in which he’d fallen asleep had proven to be “the very house of God,” and “the gateway to heaven.” How could he have missed something during the day that became so obvious in his visions of night? The answer is contained in the verse above: “…and me, I didn’t know it!” Jacob didn’t know himself—his “me”--and therefore could not grasp this reality.
This is the reason why Jacob’s ladder can be understood to be Jacob himself. Were Jacob only able to take himself in hand; to know the true nature of his “me”; to plant his feet firmly on the ground, like the ladder; his consciousness would then pierce the heavens, also like the ladder. “Angels”—thoughts, feelings, memories, and other perceptions—would then freely “ascend and descend,” from earth to heaven, and from heaven back down to earth—easily negotiating the layered realities which would then constitute Jacob’s greatly expanded inner being.
That this is precisely what happens to Jacob is suggested by the fact that he encounters God in the immediate aftermath of the vision. Once a clear channel of communication between heaven and earth has been established, it becomes possible for God to dial Jacob up, and “reach out and touch someone.” In this way, Jacob’s ladder is the necessary prelude to his subsequent encounters with the Divine One.
There is one further stage of spiritual attainment suggested by this section of the Parsha. What if the experience of Jacob’s ladder became the full-time reality of our lives? What if we had the ability to contain both heavenly and earthly reality within the confines of our hearts, minds, and spirits? Would it then not be the case that every place would be “awesome”? Wouldn’t all fields, stones, and most especially, all people shine in their full glory, and be revealed as “the very house of God,” and the “gateway to heaven?” May we live to see it in our generation.
SHABBAT SHALOM |
