Vayetze/He Departed - Shabbat 11/13/10
“A ladder was set on the ground, its top reaching the sky;
angels of God were going up it and coming down.”
Fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau, Jacob leaves his family in Be’er Sheva and heads for Haran. At sundown he stops to rest, and dreams of a ladder that reaches Heaven. In the dream he receives a blessing, both for his own protection and for his descendants. When he wakes, Jacob makes his famous declaration, “God was in this place and I did not know it.”
When Jacob continues eastward, he encounters Rachel who has come to water her flocks. While the other shepherds look on, Jacob single-handedly rolls off the giant stone covering the well. After this show of strength, Jacob kisses Rachel, raises his voice—and weeps.
Jacob works for his uncle Laban (La-van) in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage, but not before Lavan tricks him into first marrying his older daughter, Leah. Leah bears many children while Rachel struggles to conceive, until finally she gives birth to Joseph. When Lavan’s deceitful ways extend to his business dealings, Jacob decides to take his family and leave. Lavan pursues him, and ultimately they agree to a truce.
Many commentators note that there is something strange in the verse describing Jacob's dream. Given that the top of the ladder is in the Heavens, we might have expected the angels in the dream to first be descending from Heaven before going back up the ladder, and not vice versa as the text above indicates. Why the counter-intuitive order? Rashi’s explanation is that the angels accompanying Jacob through the land of Israel would not be accompanying him further; thus they were the ones who ascended the ladder, after which new angels descended to accompany him on his journey outside the land.
So it is with us; like Jacob, individuals in our day have their own ‘angels’ that must remain behind when they travel or move to new places. Friends, families, jobs and communities cannot accompany people when they move; instead people must find new support networks. By welcoming newcomers with open arms into a warm and inclusive synagogue environment, we may serve as ‘angels’ to those who have come to make a new home in our community.
