Yaakov's Dream, a Reassurance of Divine Providence

 

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

The Temple Menorah - What Did It Really Look Like?

“And six branches shall extend from its sides, three branches of the menorah out of one side, and three branches out of the other side”  Shemot (Exodus) 25:32

Any reader of chapter 25 in the Book of Shemot (Exodus) which is dedicated to the customs associated with the Tabernacle, will quickly notice that much attention is given to the description and the embossing of the fine details and ornaments of the Menorah. Little or rather nothing is said about the shape of its six branches nor its stand or base.  

Why, some may ask, the sudden interest in it?

Actually, it is not sudden. Many, and for a long time, have tried to discern what the Temple Menorah really looked like.

Of course, we are all familiar with the one depicted on Titus’ Arch in Rome, the one that was among the spoils of the Temple which were taken to Rome by the Jewish slaves following the destruction of the Second Temple. Many would also recognize that the emblem of the State of Yisrael, the Jewish Homeland, is fashioned after it.

There are, so it seems, some inconsistencies between what we have been familiar with and the description of this holy Jewish symbol in traditional sources.

One of them is the description of the Menorah given in the Book of Zechariah. It is different than the one that stood in the First Temple. The one in Zechariah has an added feature, a “bowl at the top,” which served as a vessel to hold the oil. -  a detail that is not mentioned in the instructions given to Moses at Mount Sinai.

That, however, is a minor detail which is not given much attention in Jewish writings. The added “bowl,” can probably be attributed to and be the result of a more developed version of the original Menorah, a kind that might have been more widespread during second Temple period.

What I find fascinating about the Menorah, though, relates more to the shape of the branches and its stand. The branches are generally illustrated as semi-circular in shape, as we can see on Titus’ Arch.

Archaeological evidence, as in many other incidences, helps us shed light on this issue. A Jewish coin, for instance, minted in 40 BCE shows the Menorah as having curved branches thus lending support to the suggestion that the Menorah had indeed semi – rounded branches.

Another archaeological revelation which renewed interest in the shape of the Temple Menorah was the subject of a Press Release by the Yisrael Antiquities Authority in August 2011. It announced the discovery of “an engraving of the Temple Menorah on a stone object” (which I personally saw) in a two millennia old drainage tunnel near the City of David.

The Authority’s release went on to suggest that “a passerby who saw the Temple Menorah with his own eyes….incised his impressions on a stone.” The drawing, albeit a crude one, clearly shows that the branches are more straight than circular (the depiction of the base proves that the passerby could have drawn curved lines had he witnessed the Menorah as having rounded arms or branches).

Some Jewish sources provide other insights into the question of the shape of the Menorah’s branches. Rashi, for instance, suggests in one of his commentaries on the Torah that the branches of the Menorah “extended upward in a diagonal.…” fashion rather than in a curved, rounded one. The Rambam, like Rashi, though he never makes any definitive statement concerning the branches, shares his view on it. In his commentaries on the Mishneh Torah and Mishnah, he adds drawings which leave no room for doubt. In them, he depicts the branches as extending diagonally and in straight lines.  

Rabbeinu Avraham, the son of Maimonides, states: “The six branches... extended upward from the center shaft of the menorah in a straight line, as depicted by my father, and not in a semi-circle as depicted by others.”

As in the case of the engraving found in the City of David and judging by the fact that the curvature of the base is drawn so precisely, most likely with the aid of a compass, it is apparent that the artist could just have easily drawn curved branches had he so desired.

The base of the original Temple Menorah has also been a subject of controversy for many years. The one carved on Titus’ Arch is very different from the one found in the City of David. It also differs from the drawings attributed to the Rambam. The excavators of the City of David were quoted as saying that the graffito found in there “clarifies [that] the base of the original [ancient] menorah … was apparently tripod shaped.”

The unique, two-tiered, broad, solid and hexagonal Menorah base depicted on Titus’ Arch, has led many to believe that it is nothing like the Menorah would have looked like for two reasons. The first pertains to the fact that the Greeks discovered all polygons much later, during the Pythagorean era. Though, early Egyptians and ancient Chinese developed such geometry, it was mostly used for navigational purposes.

The second, and a more germane reason, relates to Jewish law. Archeologists concluded that some of the panels of the Menorah carved on the Arch (though partially eroded), display creatures such as eagles, sea serpents, dragons and other heathen images which Jews would not have allowed to be present at the Temple.

Experts agree that there is no reason to question the authenticity of the depiction in Titus’ Arch. Its details and its size reflect the sculpture’s close familiarity with the Temple vessels as described in the Tanach and various other Jewish sources.

The question, however, remains, how can the disparity between the two representations of the Menorah base be compromised?

There is no doubt that the Menorah as we see it on the Arch bears a strong Roman influence. The eagles are a well-known symbol of Roman sovereignty. Dragons were a prevalent ornamental motif in Roman art. A similar base albeit with more pagan images, was excavated in Didymus, Turkey where there once stood a Roman temple.

These clues have led scholars to the almost unavoidable conclusion that the disposition towards Roman art coupled with Jewish prohibition of pagan images could be ascribed to one person, Herod, who throughout his appointment as “King of Judea” tried to impose Hellenistic traditional concepts and values upon his oppressed Jewish subjects.

If that was indeed the case, it is safe to assume then that the Menorah plundered from the Temple was not the one that the Maccabees had intended it to be following their rebellion, a symbol of religious freedom. Rather, it was another attempt to suppress it. This might also be the reason why the Menorah was not present on Jewish coins commemorating the Jewish rebellion in 69-70 and 135. Other symbols from the Temple were used in its place.

Regardless of the changes and the origin of some of the details of the Menorah, it has become a symbol of Jewish religious freedom and political sovereignty and Jewish pride for the Eternal Jewish Homeland in Eretz Yisrael.

Am Yisrael Chai!