Drash – Vayetze

Rabbi Nicole Roberts Senior Rabbi

North Shore Temple Emanuel

Parashat Vayetze – Transcending Ourselves

At the start of parashat Vayetze, our forefather Jacob was about to begin his “adult life,” writes Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.  Jacob’s dream of the sulam mutzav artza v’rosho magia ha’shamaimah—a ladder planted on earth but with its top reaching toward heaven[i]—symbolises Jacob’s transition to adulthood: “the start of his making his own way in the world and his ability to hear the word of God.”[ii]  The ladder marks a transcendence, from the mischievous exploits of Jacob’s youth (stealing his brother’s birthright and blessing) to the God-fearing reverence Jacob exhibits as soon as he awakens from his dream, exclaiming: Adonai ba’makom ha’zeh v’anochi lo yadati—God was in this place, and I did not know![iii]

Some years ago, my nephew began his ‘adult life’ one parasha prior to Vayetze, chanting the maftir verses of parashat Toldot when he was called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah.  While I doubt that my nephew dreamt of a sulam the night before his big moment on the bimah, he—and our whole family—underwent a notable transcendence, as we navigated the stresses and rituals of the week.

Thursday, on the way to shul, bitter fights ensued between my nephew and his two younger sisters, as they piled into the car, bickering over who would ride in the middle—a stranger would never have guessed that one of the three was on the verge of Jewish adulthood, or that this day was different than any other day in their young lives!  As it was winter in America, that afternoon was spent in pouts and tears over whether we watched (on television) the Thanksgiving Day parade, the football game, or the Charlie Brown special.  On Friday evening, the three distracted each other from getting ready for shul, incurring the wrath of their parents’ pent up irritation and anxiety.  The kids were reprimanded.  The tension was palpable.  Shalom bayit (peace of the home) was but a distant dream.  Would our family ever transcend ourselves and our earthly preoccupations? I had my doubts.

Yet over the course of the week, like so many other families do, we found our sulam.  We found it in the time honoured rituals that took place amidst all the accidents and embarrassments, the flaring of tempers, the silliness and not-so-wholesome moments.  By the end of the week, like the angels climbing up and down the ladder in Jacob’s dream, we had travelled that gap between this world and a more heavenly realm.  We knew we were there the moment that my nephew took the Torah on his shoulder for the very first time: God was in this place.

Holy moments are sneaky things.  Sometimes we don’t realise we’ve climbed a ladder to transcendence, yet there we are, realising how petty everything else seems from this place.  Then, the next thing we know, the moment has passed.  To wit: within an hour after carrying our family to new spiritual heights as he embraced and chanted Torah, my nephew was chasing his sister around the kiddush table, a 13 year old boy again.  One sister had poked a toe through her tights, and the other had food in her hair.  Practically speaking, the bar mitzvah ceremony had changed nothing.

Yet spiritually, it had changed everything.  There was now a sense of profound relief in the air—not simply because my nephew had succeeded at all the religious tasks put before him, and not simply because we all made it up and down the bimah without stumbling on our words or our skirts.  Rather, the relief came from knowing that we could make and experience sacred moments together as a family—that even we could get there, without being angels.  There was a ladder to help us transcend the inglorious, this-worldly behaviours that plague our day to day existence, even if only for a little while.  We, too, could dwell in a ‘higher’ place, and now we knew it.

A child’s coming of age ceremony blesses the entire family.  Sure, after those holy moments in shul, we came back down to earth again.  Yet this time, it seemed, we all came to rest a rung or two higher than before.

[i] Gen. 28:12

[ii] The Steinsaltz Humash: Humash Translation and Commentary, Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Jerusalem: Koren, 2015.

[iii] Gen. 28:16