Vayetse

Reflections on Parsha and Practice

In parshat Vayetse, Jacob is instructed to leave his home and sets out for Haran to fulfill his destiny. At nightfall, he lays down to rest. He dreams of a ladder, with angels going up and coming down, and encounters the voice of the divine, who blesses him. He awakens, and speaks one of my favorite lines in the Torah: "Surely God is present in this place, and I did not know it!" (Gen 28:16)

There is a Chassidic teaching that the image of the angels ascending and descending the ladder can be a metaphor for the spiritual journey, as we are consistently ebbing and flowing in our experience of divine intimacy and spiritual fulfillment. The masters teach us that the goal of the journey is not to remain on a high rung. Rather, it's to perceive the divine everywhere, which is one meaning of the angel's prayer, "The whole world is filled with God's glory!" (Isaiah 6:3) The divine is not always encountered in bliss, rapture, awe, understanding, exquisite synchronicity. The divine is present in the full spectrum of human experience. And in our lowliest moments, if we can sustain loving awareness, we might become receptive to some hidden gift therein.

Countless times, I have had a difficult moment in life or practice, and in hindsight understood how it was somehow necessary in the greater context of my journey. I've had the realization, like Jacob, that "the divine is here," too - I just did not know it.

And what if I did know it? Would I have acted differently? If I knew that within my difficult experience there was some hidden meaning or necessity, or that divine encounter was imminent, how would I have felt, and what would I have done?

When suffering, I ask myself, "If I knew that this difficulty is going to work out for the best, how would I feel right now?" This question almost always softens my experience in the moment. In that softening, I become more available for grace. For listening. For noticing the ways, though they may at times be almost imperceptible, that the divine is present. Maybe in a small moment of beauty - the light on the wall, the leaves shaking in the trees - or a larger gift that often goes unnoticed - my bed, the roof over my head.

In the realization that "the divine is in this place, and I did not know it," we can awaken to a greater perspective, as Jacob did, and say, as he said, a line I've chanted often on retreat: "How awesome is this place." (Gen 28:17) This place, right now, just as it is, no matter how high or low it may seem - because surely the divine is present here.