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November 19, 1999/10 Kislev 5760, Vol. 52, No.12
Dreams project reality
Torah Study
RABBI RICHARD ADDRESS
Vayetze/Genesis 28:10-32:3
We have all stood where Jacob stands in this week's Torah portion. Who among us has not felt lost and alone at times, in search of some sense of belonging? Have we not experienced periods when things appeared to be so confusing that we were prepared to reach out for help of any kind? In this week's Torah portion, Jacob finds himself in such a position.
Fleeing from the conspiracies described in last week's portion and in search of his ancestral family, Jacob arrived at "a certain place and stopped there for the night" (Genesis 28:11). Exhausted by physical and emotional stress, he retreated into sleep, only to be confronted by a strange dream. A sulam (ladder or stairway) appeared to him, with angels of God going up and down on it, and God was standing beside him. God promised blessings and protection to Jacob and his descendants. Then Jacob awoke and, aware that something mysterious has occurred, blessed the place where before he hadn't realized that God was present. "How awesome is this place," he proclaimed. "There is none other than the abode of God" (Genesis 28:17).
How many of us in moments of crisis or despair have not wished for a sign from God? How many of us, in those times when we feel most alone and alienated from the world, have harbored the fantasy that we could fall asleep and then wake up to find that what was bothering us was nothing more than a bad dream?
Some commentators have suggested that the ladder represents Jacob's desire to be delivered from the realities of his life at that time. The reality is that Jacob has been cut off from his family and sent away by his mother: "Flee at once to Haran, to my brother Laban. Stay with him a while" (Genesis 27:43-44). He is a young man in search and in need of relationships.
Think about Jacob's need for connection, love, and purpose. Is he not like all of us? Don't we all need to feel that we are wanted, special, and chosen, especially, as in Jacob's case, during moments when we feel most alone? Is Jacob really each of us? Is the ladder really a representation of our own wishes?
Perhaps, then, when Jacob observes that surely God was in this place, although he did not know it, he is referring to his own soul. A contemporary scholar writes: "The ladder is a projection of what is in the heart, and the angels are the feelings, the emotions, that are in the heart, that in some cases raise us up toward our aspirations and in some cases drag us down in the other direction. Jacob's dream is a dream of the vicissitudes of the heart" ("The View From Jacob's Ladder," David Curzon, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996).
Faith, however, is a fluid thing. The genius of the Torah is that it presents and represents people and issues that are very real. Once Jacob has received God's blessing and assurance, one would think that he would have been changed in some profound way. However, Jacob's response, after he sets up a stone as a pillar to mark the place and event, is that he will worship the God of Abraham only, "if God remains with me, if (God) protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father's house" (Genesis 28:20-21).
It is a curious response. Despite his dream, Jacob is not yet ready for a deeper relationship with God. He wants to give God conditions for his faith. Jacob is still a young man, on the one hand emboldened, on the other insecure, seeking the reassurance that allows him to test the waters of experience. This is similar to our own maturation process.
Jacob is no different from us. But the seeds of what will produce the mature Jacob have been planted. Each of us evolves in our relationship with God in a different way. How many times have we been presented with the mystery of God's presence only to respond with conditional faith? How many of us have the faith in ourselves that leads us to true faith in God?
Rabbi Richard F. Address is the director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations Department of Jewish Family Concerns and of the UAHC Pennsylvania Council/Philadelphia Federation. See UAHC's Torat Hayim on the Internet at www.uahc.org/growth.
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