Vayetze, Genesis 28:10 – 32:3 by Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Our torah portion begins as Jacob flees from his home, his brother Esau and his father following his maneuvering for the blessing of his father Isaac. He makes his way toward Haran the home of his relatives. But on the way Jacob has an encounter that shakes him to his very core. He has a moment of divine revelation.

While stopped to sleep for the night, Jacob dreams of his famous ladder that reaches heavenward. On it are angels going up and down. Then he dreams that God is standing next to him and speaks directly to him. God tells Jacob, “I am Adonai, God of your father Abraham and Isaac.”

First Adonai reveals the divine essence to Jacob by establishing the relationship with his grandfather and father. This connection to Jacob’s family tree helps to put covenantal terms of the Jewish relationship with Adonai front and center for Jacob.

God continues, “…The ground on which you are lying I will give to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants.”

Now Adonai confirms Jacob’s place in the covenantal relationship. The covenantal promise made to his grandfather and then to his father, Isaac and now to him is affirmed at this moment. Jacob now knows that even though blessed by his father, he has the ultimate blessing by God. This engagement with the Divine is further proof of Jacob’s status as the heir apparent to the Jewish patriarchal line.

God continues the encounter with a promise of Divine protection. “ Remember I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.” Jacob, who needs protection from his brother Esau’s wrath, has a new measure of comfort in the promise Divine safeguard. Even as he is on his way to Haran, away from the Promised Land, it must bring Jacob comfort to know that he will return safely at some time as promised by God.

Jacob awakes with a start. But he is changed by his encounter. The vivid quality of his divine encounter deeply affects him and he is in changed. He acknowledges the sanctity of the place that he is in both the physical place, the surrounding, and the holiness of the encounter itself. Jacob takes time to ritually sanctify the very ground upon which he slept by building a pillar and pouring oil on to it. Interestingly this site called Beth-El in the portion would later be one of the worship sites of the tribes prior to the Jerusalem temple. Thus this sacred ground always is mythically identified as a portal to heaven. Just as Jacob describes, “ How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.” Beth-El means House of God.

There are moments in each of our lives when we too are shaken to the core by a vivid dream. Its meanings resonate within us. Sometimes the visuals stay in our minds. The feelings echo in our being. And we are shaped in our waking lives by those vivid dreams. Clearly this is how Jacob was shaped by this dream.

His encounter with God through his dream opens up the possibility that each of us also taps into the Divine mind in our own dreams. We have to be open to that possibility. And we have to be open to acknowledging those divine encounters as prayerfully and spiritually as Jacob did. “God was in this place and I didn’t know it,” he says. How often can we feel God’s nearness, feel the divine moment touch us and yet, we have a hard time acknowledging it? That is our challenge. Not only finding those moments of Godly interchange but acknowledging them and celebrating them when they happen and then as Jacob does, realigning how we live to incorporate that encounter with divinity into our being. Jacob, the heel, the trickster, who deceived his father and his brother, now in the rest of our portion, works hard and works honestly to achieve. Comforted perhaps by knowing that God is with him.

Perhaps we too should take that same comfort in the covenantal promise and then act accordingly.

Posted by Lee at November 12, 2004 03:02 PM