Genesis Cycle Five Vayetze

Vayetze

God-as-Home


Yaakov one day is between homes. He looks-in and sees more than himself.

 God was in this place, he says and I, I didn’t know it.  According to  Tiferet Shlomo (Poland, 19^th century): I have obliterated everything that was in me, my self-awareness, any consciousness of ego, any self intention. Everything was now only for the sake of the holy name, for unifying the holiness within all being and its presence.

This is not an easy God-intimacy to find.  But Yaakov finds it. And it’s in Torah. So it’s wise to follow a few of his steps along the way.

This is the first. He's on the run from a brother who wants to kill him. This is not by any means a situation that any of us would want to replicate. What is important though is that it causes him to approach a holy balance of both darkness and light.

This is how:

Back to story, he's heading to Haron, the land that his grandfather Avraham was told to let-go-of.  The land where people  focus on the appearance of things. Yaakov has had to let-go of his home, Beer Sheva…literally well of seven….named by his father Yitzhak when re-digging family wells plugged up by the Philistines.  This motion seems to be a continual process. You gain something and then you…or your son… loses it. You gain then lose again.  You rise and fall.

Therefore since he is between homes, in a place of loss, and threatened  Yaakov is vulnerable, As we read in Talmud, he has to use caution.  He must meld with his surroundings, the natural tapestry. His eyes are sharp, his senses open. He moves through all forms carefully, heart beating.  He becomes them. They become him.

Think of sculpture by Rodin.  A foot is not defined. It’s in the earth. A hand is half-there as it melds onto the seamless black thigh of a lover. This is a beautiful merge.

Here though it's both beautiful and not-so-beautiful. As mentioned,  his brother Esau has sworn to kill him. It seems that Yaakov stole their father’s blessing from him.

   
Let’s look at the blessing of Yitzhak for Yaakov.  As the Sfat Emet points out of Gen 27:28…may God give you of the dew of the heaven and the fat of the land….is interpreted by midrash as…may God give you godliness.  The real intent (according to the Sfat Emet) is that the Jew receive godliness from everything that exists in the world.

If we blend this teaching with a Mishnah of Berakhot…9:5… we read that one is obliged to bless for the evil. 


How do we interpret this?  A blessing transmits to radiance. A blessing transmits to darkness. Therefore the very fact of Yaakov running while carrying that blessing merges a death-threat with the infusion of the holy radiance and expands Yaakov’s mind before he even arrives at the place in question.

 How then does Yaakov achieve this God-intimacy? First, he holds in his heart a godliness that can and must carry within itself scraps of darkness. Deep within, he moves in the direction of light/dark  balance. Or as the kabbalists might prefer, the balance of loving-kindness and harsh judgment.

 The next step for Yaakov…step number two… has to do with making this amorphous mind-expansion real and solid in his world. In short, we might be carrying a force in our subconscious but realizing it is a different story.

  Let’s not forget that Yaakov is in nature. Usually, for many rabbis and teachers, nature can help with such realizations.  Reb Nachman like the Baal Shem Tov had a profound connection with nature (Wrapped in a Holy Flame, Shachter-Shalomi). However, we need to remember that Yaakov is on the run.  No Mom and Pop motels in this makom. And it’s far from any yeshiva where he may have been studying.  So he’s wise to stop as the sun sets. Think of how we move through life. We often don’t stop even to sleep. The fact that he does and it’s written in Torah means we are to experience this with him. And it’s a good idea.  We have to pause to know our position in this universe, to really see through our heart where God resides (Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman).

 Step two therefore is big.  It shows us how Yaakov is realizing his new-found consciousness and adapting it to his known reality.

How does Yaakov begin to do this? Well, in many ways. Let’s focus on the ladder in his dream. To remind you, this is when he dreams of a ladder and angels are going up and down it.

 A sage once said that the width of this ladder is 8,000 parsangs. This vast measurement resonates with those of an anthropomorphic God in Sefer Haquomah, a mystical writing claimed by some to be penned by Rabbi Akiva himself.  Here’s more: The same verb for to stand is used for both God and the ladder. Netzavim. These two facts suggest that the ladder is a part of God.  Any ladder (by definition) has a lot of space between the rungs. In fact,  there’s more space  than there is solid matter. That infinite white space of the ladder gets infused into Jacob’s consciousness and not only that...he realizes it when he wakes up.

This is when the intimacy with God is so great Yaakov is offered  the b’rit, the covenant. Yaakov is in full-growth-momentum  to a place of tiferet (balance) within his subconscious self.  It’s like he has been two different people, the one who didn’t know and the one who knows now. The simple recognition reveals  God-in-self so that self becomes simply a God-vessel.

As we see with Yaakov, righteousness is not synonymous with revelation. One doesn’t need to be a perfect tzaddick for true intimacy.  In fact, one only needs to be open, experiencing full God-approach and embodying  the mundane along with the radiant. Of course there's much we don't know. However, Torah is telling us that this is how we can bring the worlds together. It’s a good lesson to learn. When between homes, we simply need to be moving towards God-as-Home.