I remember reading, once, an anecdote
about two friends who were competing over who would tell the biggest lie. “I
was in the museum and saw the axe with which Caine killed Abel,” said the
first. “That is nothing,” retorted the other, “I was in the museum and saw the
ladder which Jacob saw in his dream.”
In many cultures, the image of the
ladder signifies the links between Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter and the
Metaphysical and Physical spheres of our existence. There are those who believe
that not everyone has the capabilities nor the readiness to experience or
conceive of a journey between these two realms. They presume that it is
reserved to a very select few and when they least expect it.
This week’s Parashah, Vayetze, shares
with us one such episode. It recounts the famous dream Yaakov experiences on
his way from Canaan to his uncle’s home in a faraway land, as he is trying to
escape the wrath of his brother, Esav.
Needless to add that Yaakov’s
circumstances are far from soothing. They are rather bleak. He is alone and
vulnerable. He is in an unfamiliar terrain with an uncertain future. One cannot
even start to fathom what goes through his mind as he falls asleep on the cold
ground under the canopy of darkness, using a stone for a pillow.
Shortly thereafter, the most
unexpected vision appears to him. “And he dreamed and Behold! A ladder set up
on the ground and its top reached to heaven; and behold, angels of G-d were
ascending and descending upon it.” (Bresheet 28:12).
As a child, I remember wondering why
the “angels of G-d” appeared to be ascending the ladder and only then
descending it. Later, I was introduced to Rashi’s explanation of this verse.
According to him, the ascending angels are those that accompany and protect
Yaakov while he is within the borders of Canaan (the future Eretz Yisrael). The
descending ones, explains Rashi. are the ones who are going to escort and guide
him on his sojourn outside of the Land.
The dream itself, its meaning and its
purpose engaged the minds and the imagination of many artists and poets around the
world. They were also the subject of interpretations of many of our Jewish
sages.
I tend to think that the purpose of
the dream is mainly to comfort Yaakov, reassure him and strengthen his trust in
G-d.
Yaakov, I believe, is not only
concerned about his physical safety through his journey. He is also worried
about being spiritually forsaken by G-d Himself. His apprehension, it would
seem, stems from the conviction prevalent among Jewish scholars that Eretz
Yisrael is unique in the sense that the connection with G-d and His worship can
be expressed better within its borders and stands several levels above that
which is practiced outside of it. Rabbi Ovadia Sforeno, for instance, suggests,
in his commentary to Bresheet 11:31, that the reason Terah left his home to
move to Canaan (prior to God’s decree to Avraham) was because the Land was
known as a place for acquiring and improving mental faculties.
Similarly, during the famine years in
the days of Yitzchak, G-d commands him not to leave Eretz Yisrael even though
the latter wants to follow in the footsteps of Avraham, his father, and go down
to Egypt. G-d appears to Yitzchak and tells him not to leave the Land. The
Midrash, Bresheet Raba, Chapter 64, section 3, depicts it as an indication that
Yitzchak, in his purity and because of his virtue, should serve as an example
to clinging to the Land even during famine times.
The belief that G-d can be worshipped
only in Eretz Yisrael is also echoed in the famous verse in Psalms 137:4, “How
can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
The “changing of the angelic guards,”
as Rashi interprets their ascension and descension on the ladder, may, likewise,
serve as a hint that the angels of G-d who escort Yaakov through Eretz Yisrael,
could not leave its borders for the same reasons listed above.
These, might, also, be the concerns of
Yaakov as he is on the verge of despair, shortly before he has a constitutive
experience via a dream. In it, he is elevated, through a metaphorical ladder to
a reassurance from G-d Himself: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever
you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I
have done what I have promised you.” (Bresheet 28:15).
Rabbi Sacks, as always, offers a very
interesting perspective to this episode. He claims that the “verb used at the
beginning of the passage, ‘He came upon a place,’ in Hebrew vayifga ba-makom,
also means an unexpected encounter. Later,” continues Sacks, “in rabbinic
Hebrew, the word ha-Makom, ‘the Place,’ came to mean G-d. Hence the poetic
way the phrase vayifga ba-makom could be read as ‘Jacob happened on, had an
unexpected encounter with G-d.”
With restored confidence that the Shechinah
will never desert him, Yaakov wakes up from his metaphysical experience to the
mundane world which lies at the foot of that magnificent visionary ladder. What
he “realized when he woke up from his vision,” Rabbi Sacks tells us, “is that
G-d is in this place. Heaven is not somewhere else, but here – even if
we are alone and afraid – if only we realized it. And,” concludes Sacks, “we
can become angels, G-d’s agents and emissaries, if like Jacob, we have the
ability to pray and the strength to dream.”
Sacks’s message, I believe, is that if wish it, we all have the power to see,
in our dreams, the ladder that Yaakov saw in his.
Shabbat Shalom, Am Yisrael and fellow Jews and a wonderful weekend to all
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