Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha… diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

Hi, I’m Ari Levisohn. 

At the start of this week’s parsha, God comes to Jacob in a dream, and promises him that his children will be numerous and inherit the Land of Canaan. And Jacob also has a famous vision in this dream - he sees a ladder, going up to heaven, with angels making their way up and down.

The dream of Jacob’s ladder and the angels is probably one of the most iconic images in all of Genesis. In fact, I’d venture to say that it’s so iconic, we can miss a basic question about it - and that is - why is it actually here? Imagine for a second that the Torah told us that God came to Jacob in a dream and promised that his children would be plenty and he would inherit the land. Then Jacob woke up the next morning and went on his merry way. Would anything be missing? Does the ladder add something to this vision? Why is it here at all?

In this week’s episode, Rabbi Fohrman discovers a whole new level of meaning in Jacob’s ladder. He shows how, when you read the story carefully, the dream of the ladder actually seems to be referencing other stories in the Torah, and, when you look at these stories together, they reveal something powerful about the promise to Jacob and about how we can make this world a more Godly place.

Here is Rabbi Fohrman.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So the beginning of this week’s parsha tells of a dream – a famous vision beheld by Jacob. He sees this ladder, with its feet planted on the ground, and its top reaching into the heavens. Angels are going up and down the ladder.

In his dream, God declares to Jacob that He’s going to give him this land, the land Jacob is resting upon right now, to him and to his children – and those children are going to be numerous. They're going to be like the dust of the earth.

So the question I have for you is: What’s the deal with the ladder? Was that ladder, you know, just a nice visual effect – a little heavenly CGI to make the whole scene seem more dramatic? Or did the image of the ladder somehow contribute to the message of the dream? Did it actually refine or enrich what the dream meant to say?

I think the latter possibility, pardon the pun, might just be the case. And here’s why.

Jacob's Ladder Reappears

It turns out that there are two other stories, elsewhere in the Torah, that seem to correspond, in an eerie way, with the words, the images of Jacob’s dream sequence here. I want to look at those other stories with you. I have a feeling that they each shed important light on the meaning of Jacob’s dream, and the meaning of the ladder that he envisions in that dream.

So, what are those two other stories, with these resonances of Jacob’s ladder? 

Ok, so to discover the first of these stories, let’s just set the scene for Jacob’s dream.

Here is Jacob: his father, Isaac, has just blessed him and said goodbye to him. Jacob, of course, is trying to run away from his brother, Esav, who he has just deceived. And so, וַיֵּצֵא יַעֲקֹב מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע – Jacob leaves Be’er Sheva, וַיֵּלֶךְ חָרָנָה – and he heads off toward the land of Charan, leaving the Land of Canaan (Genesis 28:10). And all of a sudden: וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם – he meets up with a place (Genesis 28:11). I know it's a strange choice of words, I grant you, but you know, who am I to argue? That’s what the text says. He meets up with a place, and there, Jacob falls asleep and, in that place, has a dream of angels going up and down a ladder. Jacob names the place after the vision, calling it Beit El – the House of God.

So here’s my question for you: where else do we meet a scene that reminds you of this? When else in the Torah is Jacob on the road, journeying between Charan and the Land of Canaan? When else in the Torah does Jacob meet angels? When else does that same, peculiar word, וַיִּפְגַּע, get used to describe his encounter with those angels?

Turns out, there’s another story just like this, and it happens at the very end of Parshat Vayetze, this week’s parsha.

Jacob's Second Encounter With Angels

At the end of Vayetze, Jacob is again on the road – except this time in reverse direction. He is going from Charan back to the Land of Canaan. You see, at the beginning of Vayetze, Jacob was leaving his father’s house. And now, at the end of Vayetze, he is leaving Lavan, his father-in-law’s house.

Back at the beginning of Vayetze, with that dream with the ladder, father had blessed his child and said goodbye. And now, at the end of Vayetze, same kind of thing happening: וַיַּשְׁכֵּם לָבָן בַּבֹּקֶר וַיְנַשֵּׁק לְבָנָיו וְלִבְנוֹתָיו – Lavan, father in law, woke up in the morning and kisses his children goodbye, וַיְבָרֶךְ אֶתְהֶם – and blesses them (Genesis 32:1). As you can tell, it is starting to sound, as Yogi Berra might say,  like deja vu all over again. 

And, you know, picking up the story at the end of Vayetze, listen to what happens next: וְיַעֲקֹב הָלַךְ לְדַרְכּוֹ – And Jacob goes on his way, וַיִּפְגְּעוּ בוֹ מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹקים – and angels of God encountered him (Genesis 32:2). So once again, after leaving father, this time father-in-law, Jacob encounters angels. Same unusual word – וַיִּפְגְּעוּ – used to describe his encounter with them. And, just like the first time, Jacob names the place: וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב כַּאֲשֶׁר רָאָם – And Jacob says, when he saw those angels, מַחֲנֵה אֱלֹקים זֶה – this is the camp of God, so he calls the place מַחֲנָיִם – camps (Genesis 32:3).

Differences Between Jacob's Angel Encounters

So you know, it's hard to escape the feeling that these two stories…they’re somehow connected. Except, for all their similarities, there are some contrasts between these two stories also.

For example, the first time around, in his dream with the ladder, Jacob encounters a place, and in the place, there were angels. But he doesn’t encounter the angels directly. He actually sleeps while the angels go up and down the ladder. The angels pretty much ignored him. He is an observer, we might say, not a participant, in the drama.

But not so the second time around. At the end of Vayetze, he and the angels are moving towards one another, on the same plane. And Jacob doesn’t just encounter the place, he encounters the angels themselves, directly. This time, he is not just an observer of a drama, he is a participant in it. 

And it kind of makes you wonder. What changed? Why are things different now?

Heads in the Heavens

Ok, so let’s move on to that second story that I was telling you about. What other story in the Torah, besides Jacob’s encountering the angels of Machanayim, seems to line up, somehow, with Jacob’s vision of the ladder?

So, I personally got clued into the connection I’m about to tell you about, when I was traveling on a trip to the Grand Canyon, and along the way, I was studying with my daughter, Ariella, in the car, and she asked me about the Torah’s description of Jacob’s ladder. The Torah says about the ladder that it starts off on the earth, and רֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם – its head is in heaven. So Ariella turns to me and says, “Abba, that sure sounds a lot like another structure in the Torah that starts on the ground and רֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם – its head is in the heavens!”

What, folks, is that other structure? Well, what Ariella was thinking about was the Tower of Babel. It’s actually the only other structure in the Torah that’s described this exact way.

וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָבָה נִבְנֶה לָּנוּ עִיר וּמִגְדָּל וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם וְנַעֲשֶׂה לָּנוּ שֵׁם

(Genesis 11:4)

The tower builders, they say, “Come, let’s build a city and a tower, and its head will be in the heavens, and let’s make a name for ourselves.”

So could these two structures have anything to do with each other?

The Tower and the ladder – they do seem to be eerily related. And it’s not just the words רֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם that seems to connect them. There’s actually a whole host of other parallels between the stories. I actually did a webinar a while back exploring the broader connections between these stories.

So I want to suggest to you that, in a way, the ladder may well be a kind of mirror of the Tower. The Tower, of course, is this great building project embarked upon by man, and the ladder, it's built by God. The Tower gets condemned by God, but the ladder, seemingly, the ladder is wonderful.

Which brings us, of course, to the heart of the matter…For the Tower and for the ladder, what was the purpose of each structure?

What Is the Ladder’s Purpose?

Well, here, too, maybe the Tower and the ladder are actually mirrors of each other. You see, the Tower, it seemed designed to help humans make the leap to the stars, so to speak, to God’s realm. And that makes you sort of wonder: If the tower is a way that humans imagined they could get to the heavens, is the ladder a vehicle through which heavenly beings – maybe even God Himself – could reach the earth?

You see, through the Tower, people actually sought to build a name for themselves – וְנַעֲשֶׂה לָּנוּ שֵׁם, in the words of the text. Which means, even if they scatter, and even if their civilization suddenly disappears, still, the tower that they have built, inasmuch as it pierces the heavens, it’s a great monument to them as a civilization. It’s going to be their legacy.

So, could the ladder have had an inverse purpose to that? God’s domain is in the heavens, but this ladder, it’s a bridge between two worlds. Could its intent be to somehow help God make a name for Himself, as it were – to establish some sort of legacy for Himself, in our world?

So, such thoughts are rather intriguing, but the question that immediately comes to mind is, how, exactly, would a ladder do any of those things? How would a ladder help a heavenly God make His mark, as it were, upon the earth? How would it help God establish a name here?

How Can a Ladder Make a Name for God?

And the answer to that might lie in the message that Jacob receives from God in the dream. Because, remember, while he’s looking at that ladder, God had told Jacob that his children would become like the dust of the earth and, collectively, they’d come to possess the Land of Canaan.

We’d asked before why that message was accompanied by this mysterious vision of a Divine ladder. And maybe the answer is that the two parts of the dream we’ve been talking about – the vision and the message – are actually... one and the same. There’s gonna be a nation, but the nation isn’t just a blind fact. It has a purpose, a reason for being. The reason the nation exists is to become the ladder.

The nation, somehow, it's going to connect heaven and earth. It’s going to be a vehicle for bringing God’s Name into the world – our world – for leaving a Divine mark upon this very physical world. How would it do that? And when would it begin to do that?

It all happens, maybe, at the end of Vayetze with that parallel story we’d been talking about, the one with the angels of Machanayim.

Becoming the Ladder

Vayetze begins with a lonely Jacob on the lam, running away from his brother, leaving the Land of Canaan, and if those are the circumstances under which Jacob has his dream of the ladder, Vayetze ends with an inverse of those circumstances. Jacob is on his way home, back to the Land of Canaan. He is not a lone individual anymore. He’s got a family, comprised of children who are the incipient Tribes of Israel. The dream…it’s happening now. The nation... it’s actually being born.

And when it's happening, Jacob begins to become the ladder. How? Not just because he’s becoming a nation, but because he is actualizing, in his life and the life of his family, something that the nation needs to actually stand for. He is beginning to bring Godly values from heaven, as it were, down into this world. He’s beginning to make them a reality in this terrestrial sphere of ours.

A brave and noble thing is happening at the end of Vayetze, a Godly thing. Jacob, who once fled from his brother’s wrath, is coming now, proactively, to meet his brother in person. He doesn’t evade him, as before. He seeks him out. He comes to meet him. He embraces him, and he kisses him. He does his best to reconcile with him.

Isn’t it interesting that it’s at this very moment that Jacob, once again, just happens to meet up with angels? Angels that are not oblivious to him, but are coming to actually meet him. Angels that are not just in a dream, but angels that are there in real life. Angels that are not perpendicular to him, but angels that are actually aligned with him. What changed?

Jacob’s Fateful Step

Maybe the answer is, the angels haven’t really changed. They, perhaps, are the same angels that were on the ladder. The angels haven’t changed. Jacob has changed. His perspective has shifted. No longer is he asleep on the floor as angels ascend to heaven in a mere dream. No, the dream has started to become real. The ladder isn’t imagined anymore. Jacob’s becoming the ladder in real life. And so, of course, the angels, whose whole goal is to go down to the ladder, those angels are meeting him now head on, eye to eye.

What does it mean to say that Jacob has become a ladder in real life? Well, the ladder is a conduit, a way the Divine could connect to the earth. And how does the Divine connect to the earth? The answer is, through human action.

When human beings act nobly, courageously…when they bring Divine values into the world through their actions, they become a kind of ladder.

You see, a Divine value is just a thought. It’s intangible. It is all very nice for God to have all these values, but if they don’t affect life here, we all merrily go on our way without them. By embodying God’s values in our actions, we build a שֵׁם, a name, for God in the world. We help make a lasting mark for the Divine here, in our very tangible, physical reality.

At the end of Vayetze, Jacob takes a fateful step. Laden with the children that will become scions of his nation, he approaches his brother and seeks to make things right with him. That overture may seem small, but it is the beginning of a journey for this incipient nation – a journey of bringing heavenly values into the real world.

Jacob has begun to make his dream real. And in doing so, with his feet planted firmly on the ground, he has begun to pierce the heavens.

Ari: Bringing Godliness into this world... Sounds great doesn't it? But what does it mean practically? And can little ‘ole me really do that? What I find inspiring and empowering about Rabbi Fohrman’s teaching here, is that he’s showing that, yes, little ‘ole me really can bring Godliness into the world. It wasn’t that Jacob used miraculous powers or fasted for 40 days or sacrificed 40 animals. What he did was to try to make peace with his brother. That’s something practical. Peace, kindness, honesty – these are Godly values we can all uphold. One of the challenging parts for me, though, is that these opportunities don’t necessarily come knocking at my door. But Rabbi Fohrman points out that Jacob doesn't sit around waiting for the opportunity to present itself. He goes out of his way to send messengers to his brother to attempt to heal the damage. 

You know, this reminds me of something that happened this past Rosh Hashana. About four hours into the service, a friend of mine noticed that the security guard the synagogue had hired had been standing on his feet all day long. So he figured he would offer the guard a chair and was shocked by how grateful he was. "In five years of doing this," he said, "no one ever thought to offer me a chair." When my friend offered him water too, it really made the security guard’s day. This story stuck me because it was such an easy thing to do. Who wouldn't have done this simple act of kindness if they had been asked. But sometimes these Godly moments require us to follow the example of Jacob and really keep our eyes open.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to learn more about exactly how Jacob reconciles with his brother, tune in next week as Ami Silver, one of the Aleph Beta scholars, presents that theory in a whole new light.

Credits

This episode was written and recorded by our lead scholar, Rabbi David Fohrman. 

When this episode originally aired on Aleph Beta, it was edited by Rivky Stern. 

Into the Verse editing was done by Evan Weiner.

The senior editor was Daniel Loewenstein.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our editorial director is, me, Ari Levisohn. 

Thank you so much for listening.