Parashat Vayetze

Ya’akov has an elaborate dream in this week’s parasha. He lays his head down on the ground and dreams of a ladder. It’s top is not able to be seen because it reaches the gates of heaven and it’s bottom rests on earth. Going up and down the ladder are angels.

The question that can be asked here is what exactly are the “gates of heaven”? Usually we understand them to be Yerushalim. Chazal go as far as to say that they are the Bait Hamikdash.

In Breisheit Raba (Parasha 68), Chazal say that the ladder represents the sacrificial lamb. The earth that it’s legs rest on is the Mizba’ach or sacrificial alter. It says in Shemot 20:20 “You shall make for me a Mizba’ach of earth”. The head of the ladder reaches heaven, this represents the sacrifices that go up to heaven. The angels that go up and down the ladder signify the high priests going up and down the ramp of the Mizba’ach giving the sacrifices.

If this is so, then the dream in fact represents the Bait Hamikdash. However, Ya’akov wasn’t even in the area of Yerushalim. He had left from Bea’ar Shava on the way to Charan.

Rashi explains that the ladder was positioned between Bea’ar Sheva and Bait El with the middle being Yerushalim.

Maybe we can explain this differently. Ya’akov left his house in Bea’ar Sheva, the house of Yitzchak, the house of a Tzadik and went out into the mundane world. As soon he left he had the feeling that G-d was not around. Suddenly, specifically at that time, he has a revelation. There he has a meeting with G-d, a prophecy in the shape of a ladder.

The place that man has a revelation of G-d is the “gates of heaven”. They are not in any specific place. The “gates of heaven” can be any place that man feels G-d.

You don’t only have to feel G-d in a Shul or in a time when your learning Torah but rather at work, in school, in every aspect of life. Our goal is to feel G-d in every place that he is and at every moment. Then we can merit to enter the “gates of heaven”.

The ladder teaches us about the connection between sacred and profane, it teaches us that in every place that we are, we have the ability to feel G-d.

Shabbat Shalom!