Dec 2/06 — Parashat Vayetze

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

“Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely God was in this place, and I didn’t even realize it!’ He was overcome with reverence, and continued, ‘How awesome is this place! This is the very house of God. This is the gateway to heaven.’ When Jacob awoke in the morning, he took the stone that had been under his head, set it up as a marker, and anointed it with oil. And he called the place, which used to be called Luz, BET EL—the house of God.”

Genesis 28:16-19

Jacob has just tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessing that he had intended for Jacob’s brother, Esau. Esau is mad enough about it to threaten Jacob with his life. So, urged by Rebecca, Jacob leaves Be’er Sheva, and journeys in the direction of his bad-seed relatives in the ancestral home of Haran. On the way, Jacob lies down in a field and, using a rock for a pillow, falls asleep and dreams.

But this is no ordinary dream. Jacob has a vision of a ladder that stands on the earth, but which extends all the way to heaven. Angels ascend and descend it. This would have been vision enough for most of us. But what follows makes this a peculiarly Jewish vision.

God speaks to Jacob, and promises him that in spite of his present difficulties, he will have numerous descendants, and they will possess the very land on which he is lying. And Jacob himself will return to live in the place from which he is fleeing.

The story of Jacob’s ladder therefore expresses both the universal and the particular in Jewish religion. The particular here is obvious: Jacob’s vision has practical import for the future of the Jewish people. They will live in this land, and even if they lose it, as indeed Jacob is losing it, they will return, even as Jacob will return.

The universal aspect is more elusive. The ladder in Jacob’s vision is what the great historian of religions Mircea Eliade calls an axis mundi—a “cosmic pillar.” The axis mundi occurs in every religious tradition on earth and efficiently accomplishes a number of tasks simultaneously.

First, the axis mundi “founds the world”—it gives Jacob, in this case, a stable foundation upon which he can build the rest of his life. Jacob may be fleeing the wrath of Esau, but there is a bedrock of divinity which lies beyond the shifting sands of Jacob’s experience. On this basis, Jacob can create a new, much more positive identity as Israel—”the one who struggles with God and man, and prevails.”

Second, the axis mundi comes into being as a result of what Eliade calls, “a breakthrough in plane”—an eruption of divinity into the world of the mundane—creating a channel of communication between the different levels of the cosmos. In Jacob’s vision, this is the significance of the ladder upon which the angels ascend and descend. Heaven is now directly connected to earth, and earth to heaven. Presumably, Jacob himself can now access the heavenly realms by ascending the rungs of this ladder.

Third, the physical site of this “breakthrough in plane” becomes sacred space. The field in which Jacob spent the night appeared to be an ordinary field, and the rock he used for a pillow appeared to be an ordinary rock. But no more. “Jacob awoke from his sleep and he said, ‘Surely God was in this place, and I, I didn’t even realize it!’ Jacob then concludes, “How awesome is this place! This is the very house of God. This is the gateway to heaven.”

The ordinary field has been utterly transformed. It’s now a “gateway”—a soft spot in the wall that separates the sacred from the profane. The ordinary rock that Jacob used for a pillow has become extraordinary. This is why Jacob anoints it with oil, sets it up as a marker, and names the place BET EL—the house of God. He claims the field and its contents for the sacred. It has become a place of safety and refuge from the chaotic, unpredictable world that surrounds it on all sides.

In the later development of Judaism, this symbolism of the centre expands to include the whole land of Israel. Of course, within the Holy Land, there is the most holy city—Jerusalem; the most holy location—the Temple Mount; and the most holy space—the Temple itself. Not surprisingly, the symbolism of the centre appears in connection with the Temple as well.

So we read in the Midrash: the bedrock upon which the Temple was built reached deep into T’HOM—the watery, chaotic underworld that precedes the creation of the universe in Genesis Chapter 1. The Temple “founds the world”, in that it contains T’HOM, and keeps it from returning the world to a state of pre-formal chaos. At the same time, it provides a channel of communication with the watery realm, which was also seen as the source of blessing and fertility for Israel and the whole world.

In its ultimate development, however, the symbolism of the centre expands to include the individual human being as well. In this amazing conception, we are all Temples who physically embody God’s creation. In the succinct expression of Midrash Tanchuma, “The Temple corresponds to the whole universe, and also to the creation of man, who is a small universe.”

What can we conclude from this discussion? There is a universal spiritual tradition that reminds us that while we may be physically small, our spiritual stature is huge. We all have the potential to become a Jacob’s ladder—our feet planted on the ground, but with a consciousness that penetrates the heavens. Might not the human spine be the physiological counterpart to the ladder upon which angels ascend and descend?

Potentially, we all contain “the gateway to heaven.” Potentially, we are all BET EL—”the house of God.” It is only our “I”—our limited ego sense—that prevents us from realizing that in whatever field we spend the night, God, too, may be discovered in that place.

Shabbat Shalom.