"This is none other than the House of G-d”

 

"This is none other than the House of G-d”

(Genesis 28:17)

Kislev 5, 5785/November 27, 2024

We are all familiar with the fabulous dream Yaakov dreamt as he stepped foot out of the land promised him through his fathers and into a foreign land. A ladder firmly placed on the earth and extending into heaven. Angels ascending and descending and HaShem appearing atop the ladder pledging to Yaakov the land upon which he slept and G-d's protection over him and his children forever. Yaakov wakes in awe, lifts up the stone upon which he had placed his head, anoints it and declares it to be the foundation stone of a future House of G-d. 

"Surely HaShem is in this place" (Genesis 28:16) Yaakov declares, and, indeed, HaShem was not only in this place, HaShem was this place, and the stone that Yaakov lifted was none other than the Foundation Stone of all creation, the very point in reality through which G-d brought all creation into being. Just as G-d was in Yaakov's dream of an eternal bond between heaven and earth, Yaakov was in G-d's dream of an eternal bond between man and G-d. Their shared dream would one day be embodied in the Holy Temple.

But far less celebrated is Yaakov's second dream of which we read in parashat Vayeitzei, the dream he had just before returning to the land promised him after twenty years of hardship in the house of the wily Lavan. With barely a moment of peace, Yaakov nevertheless prospered, establishing a large family and a large flock of goats and sheep. 

Despite his success, or because of his success, Yaakov detects a definite change in Lavan's attitude toward him, a change not for the better. Troubled by the chill he was feeling, Yaakov lies down and has a second dream, this time sans the grandeur of a ladder reaching into heaven, but quite the contrary. In this dream Yaakov was surrounded by "he-goats mating with the flock that was streaked, speckled, and mottled." (ibid 31:10) Hardly the vision of heaven in his first dream, and maybe the surest sign that it was time to return home. 

HaShem tells Yaakov "Return to the land of your fathers, your homeland, and I will be with you." (ibid 31:3) HaShem continues, saying, "I am the G-d of Beit El, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now, arise and leave this land and return to your native land.’” (ibid 31;13) Twenty years later, and G-d still remembers the dream of Yaakov's youth, and reminds Yaakov of his pledge to establish in his land a House of G-d -  a Holy Temple. The sublime trappings of the first dream have dissolved, washed away by the travails of twenty years in exile. But the dream itself, shared by Yaakov and G-d, remains.

Yaakov returns to Canaan just as G-d instructed him to and eventually, but not immediately, returned to Beit El, the place of his dream and his vow. "Come, let us go up to Beit El, and I will build an altar there to the G-d who answered me when I was in distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone." (ibid 35:3) Not a House of G-d but definitely a step in the right direction. Some suggest that had Yaakov returned directly to Beit El he would have saved himself and his family much of the distress that they suffered after returning to Canaan. Nevertheless, Yaakov left the land of his fathers with a dream and returned with a dream.

Yaakov's twenty years in Haran was Israel's first experience of exile. It would become the blueprint for the Egyptian exile that he and his children would experience decades later, received with an embrace yet ultimately oppressed. And nearly a millennia later Israel would experience her third exile, this time in the land of Bavel. 

But each time Israel returned with a song and a dream. The Song of the Sea, sung by Moshe and the children of Israel while crossing the Sea of Reeds  would remember the shared dream of Yaakov and HaShem: "You shall bring them [our descendants] and plant them on the mount of Your heritage, directed toward Your habitation, which You made, HaShem; the sanctuary, HaShem, which Your hands established." (Exodus 15:17)

And when Israel returned from seventy years of exile in Bavel they too returned with a song and a dream: “When HaShem brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream. Then our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with songs of praise; they said among the nations, ‘HaShem has done great things with these.’" (Psalms 126:1-2) They were dreamers who rebuilt the destroyed first Temple built by Solomon, reestablishing Yaakov's House of G-d.

Today, Yaakov's children have returned yet again, this time from an exile not of twenty years or of seventy years, but of two thousand years. And yes, our mouths are filled with song and our hearts are filled with a dream, the dream of our father Yaakov, who as a wide eyed youth dreamed the greatest dream one could dream: the dream of an eternal bond between man and G-d, and a place on this earth where that bond could be fully experienced. Yaakov's dream is a dream of humanity, a dream of the ages. May his dream and our dream and G-d's dream come true, soon, in our days. The time has come to fulfill Yaakov's pledge to HaShem and make the "House of G-d, a gateway to heaven." (Genesis 28;16)

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