Stairway to Heaven
Work and life can help us build a deep relationship with God, or a meaningless transaction. The choice is ours.
He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and messengers of God were going up and down on it.
וַֽיַּחֲלֹ֗ם וְהִנֵּ֤ה סֻלָּם֙ מֻצָּ֣ב אַ֔רְצָה וְרֹאשׁ֖וֹ מַגִּ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמָ֑יְמָה וְהִנֵּה֙ מַלְאֲכֵ֣י אֱלֹהִ֔ים עֹלִ֥ים וְיֹרְדִ֖ים בּֽוֹ
This week’s parsha begins with Jacob’s famous dream of the ladder, or stairway, to heaven. Following the instructions of his parents, Jacob is traveling to Padan Aram to find a wife. On his way there, he stops to rest for the night at a place which, unbeknownst to him, was Mt. Moriah, the location of akeidat Yitzchak [the binding of Isaac], and the future temple in Jerusalem. During his slumber, Jacob dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder that extended from the earth to the heavens. Following this vision, God declares Himself the God of Jacob’s fathers and promises him that the land upon which he sleeps will be given to him and his children and that God will watch over him throughout his travels and return him safely to the land of Israel. Jacob is jolted awake, and overwhelmed by his discovery, exclaims, אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יְהֹוָ֔ה בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי “God is in this place and I didn’t know!” Upon awakening the next morning, Jacob creates a monument and promises God that if He takes care of him, asser aasrenu lach, he will give 10% back from everything God gives him.
There are two striking questions that arise from Jacob’s powerful experience: First, Jacob’s exclamation that he had not realized how holy this place was does not seem to fit with his subsequent behavior. According to Rashi, Jacob’s exclamation implies that if he did know how holy the place was, he would not have slept there. Yet, surprisingly, the verse goes on to say that he woke up the next morning in the same place, suggesting that, even after understanding the holiness of the place, he slept there again. Second, Jacob’s proposal to give back 10% of what God provides him seems to be a form of bartering with God. It appears he was offering a (rather measly 10%) payback to God as if they were engaging in a business transaction.
To better understand both Jacob’s exclamation and his promise to tithe, it is helpful to examine the words of the exclamation itself. When Jacob declares, “God is in this place and I didn’t know” he uses the word anochi to say ‘I’, instead of the more standard ani. The Malbim and the Shadal explain that anochi connotes a deeper ‘I’; it refers to one’s “essence” and “uniqueness.” It follows, then, that the anochi Jacob uses in his exclamation is an allusion to the previous instance when he used this deep self-reference in last week’s parsha where he declares to Isaac, “I [anochi] am your firstborn Esav.”
As we discussed last week in Truth Be Told, the Zohar explains that when Jacob said “I am your first-born Esav,” he was assuring Isaac that in his deepest self, he could represent the physicality of Esav in addition to his own, natural spirituality. This was essential because, as Rebecca understood, the Jewish people could never survive as a bifurcated nation. Rebecca recognized that we needed to integrate physicality with spirituality, our world with the World-to-Come, so she sent Jacob to receive the blessings and demonstrate that he could represent both the spiritual and physical. Jacob expressed this integration to his father by using the word anochi to explain that in his essence, he represented Esav, too.
This integration of the physical and spiritual is represented in this week's parsha both by the ladder in Jacob’s dream and by his sleep itself. The ladder literally connected the physical earth with the spiritual heavens, demonstrating the need for a deep connection between the two worlds. Kabbalah teaches us that sleep functions like Jacob’s ladder because our souls are rejuvenated in heaven while we sleep and return to unite with our physical bodies on earth when we wake up.
This integration also helps explain Jacob’s odd exclamation and his promise to tithe. Why did Jacob react to God’s promise by proposing to tithe? Because Jacob was seeking a genuine partnership with God. Tithing is not absolutely required on products such as, for example, salt or straw, because no work is required by the farmer to harvest them. Tithing is only required on items that the farmer creates in partnership with God: he plants the seeds and God provides the rain. The farmer tithes not because he is merely grateful for the rain, as he may be even more grateful for salt, but because he expresses true hakarat hatov (appreciation) of the collaboration between himself and God. This is a partnership Esav did not understand, and therefore, as Rashi explains, he asked his father how to tithe specifically on salt and straw; he felt a distinct separation between himself and God and was merely paying back God for what he received. In contrast, Jacob viewed tithing like the farmer, as an expression of the deep partnership between himself and God. Thus, Jacob told God that he will tithe not merely if God grants him physical prosperity but if He becomes deeply integrated into Jacob’s life: to be with me, guard me on my journey, and be my God. After his dream, Jacob promised to tithe because he wanted to partner with God in his own life, and tithing represented this meaningful relationship.
Jacob’s desire for connection with God also sheds light on his exclamation that he did not know he was in the house of God, and his curious decision to sleep there again nonetheless. Initially, he thought it was just a place to spend the night, like a motel. Then, suddenly, he realized that it was the home of God, Beit Elohim. He went back to sleep there specifically because he understood that it was holy, and he desired to sleep in the home he shared with God.
As Rebecca envisioned and Jacob demonstrated, we can only live in a world that truly integrates the physical and the spiritual, our world and the World-to-Come, if we form a deep partnership with God in everything we do. If we view our lives, careers, and all the endlessly mundane tasks we are faced with as part of our genuine connection with God, one in which we are not merely grateful for the things God provides us, but appreciative of the relationship that we develop with God, we can elevate our work into a holy endeavor and find meaning even in the seemingly mundane details of life. Shabbat Shalom.