Parshah Summary – P’shat
Jacob leaves his hometown of Be’er Sheva and journeys to Haran. On the way, he stops to sleep and dreams of a ladder spanning earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. In the morning, Jacob raises the stone upon which he laid his head as an altar and monument, pledging that it will one day become a house of God.
In Haran, Jacob lives and works for his uncle Laban, tending Laban’s sheep. Jacob loves Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel, and Laban allows them to get married, in return for seven years of work from Jacob. But on the wedding night, Laban switches Rachel with his elder daughter Leah—a deception Jacob only discovers in the morning. A week later, Jacob marries Rachel as well, after agreeing to work for another seven years. Leah gives birth to six sons: Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Judah, Yisakhar and Zebulun, as well as a daughter, Dinah, while Rachel remains barren. Rachel gives Jacob her handmaid Bilhah as a wife to bear children in her stead, and two more sons, Dan and Naphtali, are born. Leah does the same with her handmaid, Zilpah, who gives birth to Gad and Asher. Finally, Rachel’s prayers are answered and she gives birth to Joseph. Jacob has now been in Haran for 14 years, and wishes to return home. But Laban persuades him to remain, offering him sheep in return for his labor, and Jacob becomes wealthy by breeding the sheep in a seemingly magical way. After six years, Jacob flees Haran in stealth, fearing that Laban would prevent him from leaving with his family and property. Laban pursues Jacob, but is warned by God in a dream not to harm him. Laban and Jacob make a pact on Mount Gal-Ed with a pile of stones as a witness, and Jacob proceeds back to Canaan, where he is met by angels.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יי בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי “Surely the Divine is present in this place and I didn’t even know it!” - Bereisheet (Genesis) 28:16
Imagine you lived in a place where the sky was constantly overcast, so that the sun was hardly ever visible. From your point of view, it would look like the dim light of the overcast sky was coming from the clouds themselves. If you were a small child and had never heard of the sun, that’s what you would probably assume. Now, imagine you are that child – you have no knowledge of the sun, and your parents take you for a trip on an airplane. As the plane gets higher and higher, you look out the window, and you see nothing but cloud all around. Soon after, the plane bursts through the cloud cover and you see the blazing sun and the blue sky for the first time. Imagine what a revelation that would be! That’s what spiritual awakening is like.
For most of us, the sky has been covered with clouds our whole lives. Meaning, our minds are constantly moving with the “clouds” of thoughts and feelings. Without ever questioning, we assume that our consciousness and our thoughts and feelings are identical. Because of this, we also don’t tend to distinguish between our thoughts and feelings we have about reality, and actual Reality. All we know are the clouds; we experience the present moment through the lens of our stories, through our sense of past and future. How to awaken from the seductive dream of our minds and hearts and come to the truth of this moment? וַיִּפְגַּ֨ע בַּמָּקֹ֜ום וַיָּ֤לֶן שָׁם֙ כִּי־בָ֣א הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ He encountered The Place and spent the night there, for the sun had set… The setting of the sun is a metaphor – Jacob is running away from his murderous brother - he is in a state of inner darkness. At first he was running and running, until he “encounters The Place” – he sets stones for his head and lays down on the earth. In other words, he connects with the support beneath him – the physicality of his present experience. Then, Jacob has a dream in which God appears and he sees a ladder reaching from the earth to heaven with angels going up and down. Then it says: :וַיִּיקַ֣ץ יַעֲקֹב֮ מִשְּׁנָתֹו֒ וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יְהוָ֔ה בַּמָּקֹ֖ום הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי Jacob awakened and said, “Surely the Divine is in this Place and I didn’t even know it!” The Divine is not something separate from the truth of this moment – it is the radiant sun of consciousness, ever-present as the perceiving Presence that you are. But, there are clouds! The way to “rise of above the clouds,” so to speak, is paradoxically to connect with the earth. That’s because when we become conscious of our physical sensations, the “clouds” of thoughts and feelings can clear up naturally, revealing the radiant awareness beneath them; this is meditation. :וַיִּירָא֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר מַה־נֹּורָ֖א הַמָּקֹ֣ום הַזֶּ֑ה אֵ֣ין זֶ֗ה כִּ֚י אִם־בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְזֶ֖ה שַׁ֥עַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם He was in awe and said, “How incredible is this Place – it is none other than the House of the God, and this is the gateway to Heaven!” Now what you don’t get in the English is that the word for “The Place” is HaMakom, which is Itself a Name of God. So, if you want to rise above the dark clouds of this world, the way up is actually the way down. Come down from your mind, into your body and into connection with the earth, with the support of the physical world, the world of the senses – because this, here-now, is the gateway of heaven…
Read past teachings on Vayetzei HERE
Learn Integral Jewish Meditation
Get Free Guided Meditation Below:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2025
|
RSS Feed