 | Jacob's dream of a mystical ladder is one of my personal favorite encounters of Torah. Jacob has a transformational experience he didn't anticipate, didn't plan for and didn't fully understand. He learned that he might experience God wherever he went, wherever he put his head. Same for us. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Vayeitzei 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's post on this Torah portion, "The First Stone of Awe"
"WOW!"
If spiritual life has a purpose, it's WOW! It's to have more WOW! in our lives – to sense the inherent WOW! of the universe from big to small, to experience WOW! breaking through our routine awareness, to spice everything in our lives with WOW!
WOW! is the True North of Jewish life. By whatever name we call our WOW! pointer – God, spirit, meaning, holiness – the point of it all is WOW! Or, more aptly, the point of it all is the potential for WOW! It turns out that WOW! isn't fully up to us, only our predilection toward WOW! It might be that WOW! is a happenstance of grace, and spiritual life is to make us accident prone.
Put another way, spirituality is about spiritual encounter wherever we are, however we are.
Long before Judaism associated God with specific rituals much less a fixed address (1 Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel), our ancestors associated God with encounter and experience. One of Torah's most famous is Jacob's dream encounter with a mystical ladder (Gen. 28:11-19):
Vayeitzei 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's post on this Torah portion, "The First Stone of Awe"
"WOW!"
If spiritual life has a purpose, it's WOW! It's to have more WOW! in our lives – to sense the inherent WOW! of the universe from big to small, to experience WOW! breaking through our routine awareness, to spice everything in our lives with WOW!
WOW! is the True North of Jewish life. By whatever name we call our WOW! pointer – God, spirit, meaning, holiness – the point of it all is WOW! Or, more aptly, the point of it all is the potential for WOW! It turns out that WOW! isn't fully up to us, only our predilection toward WOW! It might be that WOW! is a happenstance of grace, and spiritual life is to make us accident prone.
Put another way, spirituality is about spiritual encounter wherever we are, however we are.
Long before Judaism associated God with specific rituals much less a fixed address (1 Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel), our ancestors associated God with encounter and experience. One of Torah's most famous is Jacob's dream encounter with a mystical ladder (Gen. 28:11-19):
| וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם וַיָּלֶן שָׁם כִּי־בָא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וַיִּקַּח מֵאַבְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם וַיָּשֶׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיִּשְׁכַּב בַּמָּקוֹם הַהוּא: וַיַּחֲלֹם וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה וְרֹאשׁוֹ מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה וְהִנֵּה מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים עֹלִים וְיֹרְדִים בּוֹ: וְהִנֵּה יהו''ה נִצָּב עָלָיו וַיֹּאמַר אֲנִי יהו''ה אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ וֵאלֹהֵי יִצְחָק הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה שֹׁכֵב עָלֶיהָ לְךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה וּלְזַרְעֶךָ: וְהָיָה זַרְעֲךָ כַּעֲפַר הָאָרֶץ וּפָרַצְתָּ יָמָּה וָקֵדְמָה וְצָפֹנָה וָנֶגְבָּה וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כָּל־מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה וּבְזַרְעֶךָ: וְהִנֵּה אָנֹכִי עִמָּךְ וּשְׁמַרְתִּיךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־תֵּלֵךְ וַהֲשִׁבֹתִיךָ אֶל־הָאֲדָמָה הַזֹּאת כִּי לֹא אֶעֱזָבְךָ עַד אֲשֶׁר אִם־עָשִׂיתִי אֵת אֲשֶׁר־דִּבַּרְתִּי לָךְ: וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר אָכֵן יֵשׁ יהו''ה בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא יָדָעְתִּי: וַיִּירָא וַיֹּאמַר מַה־נּוֹרָא הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה אֵין זֶה כִּי אִם־בֵּית אֱלֹהִים וְזֶה שַׁעַר הַשָּׁמָיִם: וַיַּשְׁכֵּם יַעֲקֹב בַּבֹּקֶר וַיִּקַּח אֶת־הָאֶבֶן אֲשֶׁר־שָׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיָּשֶׂם אֹתָהּ מַצֵּבָה וַיִּצֹק שֶׁמֶן עַל־רֹאשָׁהּ: וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־שֵׁם־הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא בֵּית־אֵל ... | Jacob happened onto a place and lodged there, for the sun was set. He took one of the stones of that place, put it [under] his head, and lay down in that place. He dreamed. WOW! – a ladder was stood up on the ground, its top reaching to heaven, and angels of God ascending and descending on it. And WOW! – YHVH was standing on it and said, "I am YHVH God of Abraham your father, and God of Isaac. I will give land on which you lie to you and to your descendants. They will be as dust of the earth spreading west, east, north and south. In you and your descendants, all families of the earth will be blessed. Behold, I am with you. I will keep you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land – for I won't leave you until I do what I told you." Jacob woke from his sleep saying, "Surely YHVH is in this place and I did not know!" He felt awe and said, "How awesome is this place! It is none other than the House of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" Jacob woke early the next morning. He took the stone that he'd put [under] his head, stood it up as a marker, and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Beit-El (House of God).... |
Talk about WOW! – awe, encounter, transcendence.
Our ancestors sliced and diced this famous WOW! – and maybe we're inclined to do likewise. Where was this WOW "place"? (Tradition's answer: Mount Moriah, place of the Akeidah and where the First Temple would be built.) Why did WOW angels "ascend" from the ground and then "descend" rather than the other way? (Tradition's answer: spiritual encounters create angels.) How could God be seen much less "stand"? (Tradition's answer: the Hebrew implies a non-physical hovering – after all, God has no "legs.") Why would God say that God ever would "leave"? (Tradition's answer: This was Mideast-speak for "I'll keep My promise.")
Countless famous teachings emerge from this narrative, but to me all of them pale against the reality that, to Jacob, this "place" was anyplace – a nondescript outdoor spot strewn with big rocks in highlands familiar enough to him that he could lodge there overnight outdoors – with nothing built and no suggestion that anything was out of the ordinary. Jacob wasn't looking for anything: he "happened onto" the place. Yet exactly in that ordinary place, something extraordinary happened: Jacob's experienced WOW.
Call it what we will – a mere subjective experience, a dream, a psychological trip, an energy center, a divine decree – doesn't matter. To Jacob it was utterly real and it pervaded his waking experience.
A few weeks ago, we saw Abraham encountering the sacred in a fever dream. Here we have Jacob encountering the sacred in a dream. Next week, Jacob will have yet another dream – wrestling a "person" and having a name change to Israel. His son Joseph will prophesy by dream. All of these dreams – all of these WOW experiences – impact the dreamers' waking life and, in turn, the lives of people around them.
I've learned to listen to dreams – not to interpret them (my teacher, Rodger Kamenetz, calls dream interpretation "killing" the dream by trying to box it into a meaning of mind rather than an experience beyond rational thought. If this subject interests you, read his wonderful award-winning book, The History of Last Night's Dream). I've also learned to listen to waking experiences as if they were more than themselves.
What if you did? What if you lived your life as if anywhere you put your foot, anywhere you place your head, could be what Jacob called Beit-El, House of God? How might our lives change? How might we?
Our ancestors sliced and diced this famous WOW! – and maybe we're inclined to do likewise. Where was this WOW "place"? (Tradition's answer: Mount Moriah, place of the Akeidah and where the First Temple would be built.) Why did WOW angels "ascend" from the ground and then "descend" rather than the other way? (Tradition's answer: spiritual encounters create angels.) How could God be seen much less "stand"? (Tradition's answer: the Hebrew implies a non-physical hovering – after all, God has no "legs.") Why would God say that God ever would "leave"? (Tradition's answer: This was Mideast-speak for "I'll keep My promise.")
Countless famous teachings emerge from this narrative, but to me all of them pale against the reality that, to Jacob, this "place" was anyplace – a nondescript outdoor spot strewn with big rocks in highlands familiar enough to him that he could lodge there overnight outdoors – with nothing built and no suggestion that anything was out of the ordinary. Jacob wasn't looking for anything: he "happened onto" the place. Yet exactly in that ordinary place, something extraordinary happened: Jacob's experienced WOW.
Call it what we will – a mere subjective experience, a dream, a psychological trip, an energy center, a divine decree – doesn't matter. To Jacob it was utterly real and it pervaded his waking experience.
A few weeks ago, we saw Abraham encountering the sacred in a fever dream. Here we have Jacob encountering the sacred in a dream. Next week, Jacob will have yet another dream – wrestling a "person" and having a name change to Israel. His son Joseph will prophesy by dream. All of these dreams – all of these WOW experiences – impact the dreamers' waking life and, in turn, the lives of people around them.
I've learned to listen to dreams – not to interpret them (my teacher, Rodger Kamenetz, calls dream interpretation "killing" the dream by trying to box it into a meaning of mind rather than an experience beyond rational thought. If this subject interests you, read his wonderful award-winning book, The History of Last Night's Dream). I've also learned to listen to waking experiences as if they were more than themselves.
What if you did? What if you lived your life as if anywhere you put your foot, anywhere you place your head, could be what Jacob called Beit-El, House of God? How might our lives change? How might we?
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