Parashat VaYetzei

Rabbi Mark H. Levin, DHL

November 8, 2013

“Jacob left Beer Sheva and set out for Haran.  Alighting upon a certain place, he passed the night there, for the sun was setting…”

So begins one of the most famous stories in the entirety of the Torah: the episode of Jacob’s ladder. 

The parashah continues, “He dreamed, and lo – a ladder was set on the ground, with its top reaching to heaven, and lo—angels of God going up and coming down on it.  And lo – Adonai stood upon it…”

God blesses Jacob, and when Jacob awakens he marvels, “Truly, Adonai is in this place and I did not know it.”  He was awestruck and said, “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gateway to heaven.”  The emotion of awe often is the human reaction to the overwhelming and beautiful.

The Rabbis have debated the meaning of the words translated as “He alighted upon this place,” for at least 2,000 years.  They are special because the place is termed “the gateway to heaven,” and “the house of God.” 

In the classic interpretation, Jacob arrives in Haran, and realizes that he bypassed a place where his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, prayed.  He returns immediately to that place, transported immediately and magically by God.  He transcends time and space, arriving at Beth El, the house of God, which the Rabbi interpret not as the city of Beth El, today’s Ramallah, but Mt. Moriah where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac and the site of the First and Second Temples. In other words: “this is the house of God” refers to an Axis Mundi, a world axis, the place around which the entire world revolves, which for Jews is clearly the Temple Mount.  In Jewish lore the Foundation Stone of the World lies deep beneath the Temple Mount, and the location of the Holy of Holies in the Temple was always, from the creation of the world, the holiest place in the entire world. There God’s presence is manifest in no uncertain terms.  No wonder Jacob was upset at having bypassed it on the way to Haran. You would be, too.  God causes the sun to set early, and Jacob dreams this epiphany of God’s presence.

But Reform Jews reject the rabbinic idea that different places in the world possess different levels of holiness, with the Land of Israel possessing 9 out of 10 parts.  Yet, many of us have had holy experiences in different places, and people will tell me that they can return to a particular place and that will evoke the holy experience they had there years earlier. 

Reform Jews focus for holiness more on the idea that, as Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they who live therein.” So if the entire world is equally holy, what was Jacob’s revelation, “Behold, the Lord was in this place and I did not know it?”

Jacob suddenly experienced deep inside a revelation: the holiness of the place.  He had placed himself in the position to experience something entirely new, by praying where his ancestors prayed.  But it transformed his reality, “Behold, God is in this place and I did not know it.”  Suddenly the experience is no longer about Jacob, now it’s about God.  In other words, the holiness Jacob experienced occurred because Jacob altered his orientation to the world, feeling God’s presence in a place.  It’s not simply the place that changed, it’s Jacob.

Last week many people in the congregation had just such a change in their lives.  With the experience of writing in the Torah, many people said that they experienced something wonderful that they could not quite put into words.  As Jacob put it, “How awesome is this place and I did not know it; this is none other than the gateway to heaven and the House of God.”  We can put ourselves into an experience in which we discover levels to reality.  The world is not as we had previously imagined it to be. But an experience uncovers a new awareness.  God is in this place means, “I experienced God in this place because I opened myself up to the experience of God, even if it took me by surprise.”

I can’t describe someone else’s experience; I can only listen. But I heard wonder in many voices: the wonder and awe of a holy encounter that lifted individuals to a higher level of existence, a more meaningful level, something they had not anticipated and could not explain.  In other words, the experience of the holy is often without content.  It’s filled with meaning, and the hint of purpose; but often without an explicit direction of where to go from that moment, other than to know that life has been forever altered by the encounter.

Jacob had the same thing occur. Having recognized, “How awesome is this place, and this is none other than the gateway to heaven,” he attempted, as we do, to fill the moment with content, perhaps to hang onto or perpetuate the experience.  Jacob makes a vow to the God he had just encountered, “If God is with me and watches over me on this path that I am taking and give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and if I return safely to my father’s house, then will Adonai be my God, and this stone that I have set up will be a house of God. And of all that you give me, I will dedicate a tenth to you.” 

In other words, Jacob interprets the divine encounter, his moment of epiphany, as God’s concern for his well-being, but then sets out to test it. If God will provide for him, then will Jacob be loyal to God.  Encountering God, Jacob interprets the experience very much as we would, in terms of our own lives, time and place.  If God is concerned with Jacob, then Jacob will pay attention. Gods in the Middle East were considered to be powerful if they positively affected the lives of believers. If they delivered rain, crops and health at the right time, then they were powerful and deserving of worship.  Jacob will not be Yisrael, one who struggles with God and triumphs, for another 20 years. He will not be spiritually prepared to lead until he has suffered more and discovered what the presence of God in his life actually means.  It’s not to be narrowly defined.  The reality of God teaches us that existence is not as we have known it to be up until that time. We’d been wrong in interpreting our own lives.  Rather, God breaking through in time and place, this divine incursion into his life, is a symptom of God’s presence, not defining of God’s presence. And so it is with all of us today.  Having felt God’s presence at a given time and place, in the Torah writing for instance, we should become aware that the experience of God’s presence is constantly available, and can change our perspective on life.

Let me give you an example:  I am reading Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  In it Pollan argues, convincingly I believe, that all animals and the earth that supports us have evolved naturally into a complex whole that fits together perfectly.  We are part of a natural, highly sophisticated system that fits together perfectly, and do much better in nature when we realize our harmony and live accordingly.  He demonstrates, convincingly I believe, that industrial agriculture, the feeds lots in western Kansas for instance, are poisoning us.  Pollan is not arguing religiously, but I am reading it religiously. What do I mean? God created the world as a perfect and closed system, and the world has evolved as God has meant it to be. Therefore, realizing God’s presence in all things demonstrates that living in harmony with this world, in terms of everything I do and everything I eat, maximizes not only my health but also my encounters with God and every person around me.  Each morsel of food and each moment becomes more satisfying and enlightening.  The one moment encounter with God is not to be exploited for all its earthly rewards.  It is to be seen as a sign, an indication of how the world actually works so that we can alter the entirety of our lives accordingly.

God is in this place, and we did not know it.  It’s perhaps true of every time and every place.  The question is not God’s presence, but our awareness of that presence.  May our search be rewarded with a renewed satisfaction of life in both place and time.