Parashat Va-Yetze 5775 - English

By Rabbi Guido Cohen
Asociacion Israelita Montefiore, Bogota, Colombia

The Torah portion known as “Va-yetzei” contains, among other stories, the episode of the divine revelation to our patriarch Jacob.  When Jacob wakes up from his dream after seeing the famous stairway with the angels that go up and down, he exclaims, “Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it!" Shaken, he adds, “This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17)

This may be one of the most beautiful passages from the book of Genesis.  Jacob, that pretentious and clever young man who just a few lines ago deceived his father and brother and ran away after having stolen his brother’s birthright, is shaken by a divine revelation that will change him forever.  It is the awareness of the transcendent in this founding episode of Jacob’s faith that makes him follow the path that will transform him into a man worthy of being a patriarch to the people of Israel. 

However, what did Jacob see in Bet El that made him choose to call that place “the gate of heaven”?  What was so special about this place that made Jacob signal it as a place where the residence of God could be revealed?

The tradition of Israel does not sympathize too much with the idea of sacred places.  Even though throughout our history certain cities have earned the “title” of sacred cities (Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron), in general terms, the idea of a sacred place is not part of our tradition.  For example, Moses witnesses the burning bush at a spot that is called “sacred land” in the Sinai desert, beyond the land of Israel, without a precise or identifiable location.  Only during the time of the temple of Jerusalem did our people consecrate a portion of land and assign it the highest place, a value above territoriality, giving that area the title of “holy land”. 

For the people of Israel, sacredness has more to do with the idea of consecration than with an inherent condition of a thing distinguishing it from others of the same nature.  In other words, the piece of land that Jacob identifies as “the gate of heaven” was no different from the land two kilometers south or half a mile west.  There was nothing in Bet El that Jacob could not have found anywhere else in the globe.  It is the state that Jacob achieves in Bet El that transforms it into a sacred place for him. 

The Torah has already proven that God does not need a special place to reveal Himself, but that He appears wherever a human being searches for Him, whenever there is a voice calling for His presence.  A few chapters ago, for instance, God presented Himself to quench Ishmael’s thirst when he was close to dying in the hot desert.  This is the same God that attended the request of the matriarchs regarding their barrenness, the same God that later on would use a burning bush as a means to begin the project of liberation of an oppressed people calling out to Him to break the yoke of the Pharaoh.   

Is Bet El a holy land in itself and is that why Jacob is able to perceive the revelation there?   I don’t think so.  It is precisely Jacob’s search to sense the divine embrace that encourages him through this physical and essentially existential migration until God reveals Himself, thereby transforming Bet El into a sacred place.  It is the search for the divine presence from the depth of the soul of a man of faith that triggers the revelation and transforms the most profane of places into a holy land.  The search of the wandering Jacob, Ishmael’s desperate scream, and the clamor for liberation from an oppressed people lends strength to the revelation of a God that consecrates the place where He is invoked. 

The maiden of Ludmir (one of the few women that pre-modern Judaism recognized as a leader and who was not erased or forgotten by those who wrote history) teaches us that this story proves how even in the darkest places, in the lands of despair and desperation, there is room for the divine presence if whoever is looking for it knows to search and perceive it.  Jacob’s surprise does not stem from sensing the presence of God, but from being able to perceive His presence at such a difficult and dreadful point in his life. 

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk used to answer the question of where does God reside by responding He resides there where man lets Him in.  No place is beforehand sacred land; it becomes sacred once a man consecrates that part of the world.  There are no sacred lands, but men and woman consecrating the earth through the search for that which is holy.  In that sense, and maybe Jacob’s surprise came from this, a spot that might go unnoticed by many people could become sacred to a person looking to find the transcendent. 

This is probably what happened to Jacob in Bet El, to Moses before the burning bush, and to the entire people of Israel when crossing the Red Sea.  One of my favorite midrashim teaches that while the people of Israel praised God for the miracle of the parting of the sea –which turned a deathly trap into a pathway towards freedom– two men stared down and complained about the mud at their feet.  To them, the presence of God was not there.  They did not witness this miracle, which according to the Talmudic wise men, was more powerful than any prophetic revelation.  Maybe because they were not looking, they could not make room in their hearts and therefore, from their perspective, He was not there consecrating the land they were on.     

May Parashat Va-yetzei inspire us to search, with well-tuned senses and open souls, in order to witness the presence of God even in the most threatening wilderness, so that by sensing the Divine Presence we may call the land we stand on “the House of God”.