1.
Despite the pressing current affairs, we are in the "Genesis" chapters, and this is an opportunity to delve into the fundamental ideas that shaped our nation, accompanied us throughout history, and are currently behind the heated debates in Israel.
This week's parashat "And Go Out" opens with Jacob's escape from Esau.
Jacob the exile asks to sleep - "And he took some of the stones of the place, and put his stones on them, and lay down in that place."
Since then he hastily left home, knowing no bed or shelter, only doubts and depressing reflections, and a bed of stones to lay his head on.
In the middle of life he must start over.
what was he thinking
Did he regret it?
How did his life turn and what kind of trouble did he fall into... this is what the midrash says: "Because God saw him in trouble, we revealed about him in a dream and made all the same promises." And he hears the promise of the land and the people: "The land on which you lie I will give it to you and to your seed.
And your seed will be like the dust of the earth... and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you and in your seed." And another important promise: I will be with you even in exile and watch over you,
And at the end of the process: "And I will return you to this land, because I will not leave you..." As in previous situations with our ancestors, the promise includes a return home after exile.
for sure.
2.
Jacob's dream opens a series of dreams.
The Book of Genesis taught our people to read current events and history not only on the level of events - a causal view of an event leading to an event - but also on the level of the divine leadership of history.
Not just "this is how it happened", but "this is how it should have been".
On the surface, humanity produces events and influences reality;
And at the same time, deep down there is a divine leadership that leads the world in other directions.
This current of the depths is embodied in the biblical story through the dream, which is not a private dream.
As far as the Bible is concerned, Jacob is not alone in dreaming - the whole world is dreaming along with him.
"The land on which you lie I will give it to you and to your seed."
Our sages read: "If you lie on her, then she is yours; if not, she is not yours."
Here is a statement with historical implications: the right to the land will be given to those who insist on clinging to it
According to Freud's well-known method, the dream is an expression of forbidden things, repressed desires and unresolved traumas.
But the psychoanalyst Jung spoke of the dream as a revelation of our deepest self, the authentic core of the self, before the masks and pretensions, before the external influences.
The dream is the voice of the "inner guide", and within it are integrated components from the general treasury of humanity: myths, images and symbols found within what Jung defined as the "collective unconscious".
The book of Genesis, therefore, tells several stories: the visible story and the hidden story, which, according to most people, do not link between them.
The biblical dream is, therefore, the voice of God speaking to the world and humanity through his chosen ones.
3.
Jacob's ladder is no longer a symbol, it is a super symbol.
The central symbol in Genesis.
In many cultures, the ladder represents elevation, an increase in ranks and a connection between different vertical (vertical) levels.
So, for example, in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system.
Oceanic myths describe how the hero reaches heaven by means of a huge chain of arrows.
In other ancient cultures, the ladder consists of the ancestors, on which man climbs to gain God's favor.
Sacred buildings contain stairs, not only to ascend to the top of the altar - the person who climbs the stairs ascends the cosmic ladder to the Spirit.
The religious researcher Mircea Eliade noted that the stairs (or the ladder) are a vivid image of "breaking through" to the stages of human existence.
Our sages interpreted the scale in diverse ways.
Rabbi Elazar Hakafar, a 2nd century man from the Golan Heights, saw in the ladder an image of the Temple, "Beit A-Lohim" according to Jacob's words;
There were sages who saw the ladder as a metaphor for the height of Mount Sinai, or a picture of the nations rising on the stage of world history and descending and disappearing.
The ladder, from the root PBUH, is composed of the letters "symbol". This is the paved road, leading from the heavenly land, from physics to metaphysics, from matter to spirit, from man to his God. The spirit was nothing but "making a name", what the ancients called "hubris". On the steps of the Tower of Babel, man sought to ascend only to meet himself at the top.
Jacob's dream fixes the Tower of Babel: the ladder is a clear symbol of the "axis mundi", that is, the pillar on which the world exists, the living connection between the upper and the lower, between matter and spirit, between humanity and the gods.
Jacob learns how to "follow", how to pave the road connecting heaven and earth.
Here is the mighty manifesto that our people offered to the world, embodied in one image.
The ladder is "placed on the ground" by the one who is at the top - God.
Man alone cannot build a tower whose head is in the sky, cannot redeem himself from his captivity.
Our sages taught that there is no tyrant who frees himself from the house of the forbidden, he needs a ladder to climb out of the pit of his life.
And who needs it more than Jacob, who in the middle of his life has to start all over again?
In general, where do you get the strength to face a difficult fate?
Where do you draw inspiration from to restore the fragments of life?
Here the owner of the ladder says to Jacob: Now it's your turn.
I placed the ladder, but you will have to do the climbing in its steps, the ascent of life's steps while dealing with their vicissitudes, on your own.
The Rebbe of Gor (Poland, 19th century) writes in his book "Sheft Emet", that in the end man has to set up the ladder when he "corrects his full height". Gods ascend and descend in him, because his body is below them, and the root of his soul is above them." The ladder thus represents Jacob, he is the ladder itself; the Nechalam represents the dreamer.
4.
"The land on which you lie I will give it to you and to your seed."
Our sages read: "If you lie on her, then she is yours; if not, she is not yours."
Here is a statement with historical implications: the right to the land will be given to those who insist on clinging to it.
Jacob does not go back to sleep: "And he was afraid, and said: How terrible is this place."
Not fear or terror but religious awe, or in the terms of Rudolf Otto in his book "On the Sacred", "Mysterium Tremendum": "The feeling of the terrible mystery full of majesty and terror, the secret that inspires courage and trembling... before the secret that is carried above the whole creation and is shrouded in mystery to no end" .
"How terrible this place is," says the thrilled Jacob.
"Horrible" in the sense of "permeating the Holy", which arouses the emotion of creation in a person.
"Terrible" also in the sense of "fear of exaltation", as interpreted by some of our sages.
"Horrible" also in the sense of wonderful and special, different from anything else.
The one who experienced the terrible mystery of the dream of the ladder, the one who heard God's voice speaking to him from above the ladder, is no longer the same person;
He knows that wherever he goes in the footsteps of his ancestors, his God will be with him.
Now he can go on his way.
And from Jacob to his descendants: "For I will not leave you,
We were like dreamers.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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