SHOOTS AND LADDERS:
WHEN YOU MISS YOUR LADDER,
DON’T SAY SHOOTS
ויפגע במקום וילן שם כי בא השמש
And he encountered the place, and he slept there for the sun had set
Alas, Yaakov is forced to head into exile, driven from his home by the fear of retaliation from his brother and arch-nemesis, Esav. Setting out from Be’er Sheva, he heads towards Charan, hometown of his uncle Lavan, as per his parents’ instructions. It is then, tells the Torah, that he encounters “the place”, where he lays down to sleep, being that the sun had set. After surrounding himself with twelve stones, he dozes off, has a dream about a ladder to the heavens upon which angels are climbing, wakes up, realizes that “the place” is holy, and the rest (pun intended) is history.
Or is it?
Our Sages take note of certain nuances in the narrative which reveal an entirely deeper dimension to the story we all thought we knew.
“The place”, says Rashi, is an allusion to the Temple Mount. That the Torah tells of Yaakov “encountering”, as opposed to simply arriving at, “the place”, continues Rashi, indicates that according to his itinerary, Yaakov should not yet have arrived in Jerusalem. Indeed, it was God who actually led Yaakov to encounter the Temple Mount early, by miraculously accelerating his travel speed in a process known as “kefitzas haderech”, or “leaping of the road”.
And it doesn’t end there. Even after having arrived at Temple Mount, Yaakov had no intention of going to sleep, says Rashi, for it was not yet nightfall. And yet, since God wanted him to stay the night, He made the sun set early, thus forcing Yaakov to call it a day. This, say our Sages, is what the Torah meant when it said “and he slept there for the sun had set”; it had set unexpectedly, and only because of this unforeseeable occurrence did Yaakov sleep there.
By now, you have every right to be confused.
God miraculously hastens Yaakov’s arrival in Jerusalem, thus causing him to arrive before nightfall. He is then “forced”, so to speak, to set the sun early, so that Yaakov nonetheless stays the night.
Why the double Houdini? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to allow Yaakov to take the turnpike, arrive closer to nightfall, and check in for the night naturally, without going through the miracle of setting the sun early so Yaakov would hit the snooze button?
And after all that went into this nap, do you think Yaakov was at least happy with the results?
Think again.
Yaakov wakes up from his vision in a fright, exclaiming: “Indeed, there is God in this place, and I was unaware”. To which our Sages add: “Had I only been aware, I would never have slept here”.
What in the world, (or shall we say out of the world), is going on here?
In his vision, Yaakov saw a ladder.
A ladder leading heavenward.
And heavenward is where we all want to head.
Yet where does one find that ladder to heaven? Where can we find those opportunities which allow us to bring ourselves to the next level?
Not where we think they are, that’s where.
Our arrival at opportunity always comes unexpectedly. When our own Temple Mount arrives, it will catch us unawares.
When we arrive at our ladder to Heaven, we will be unprepared.
Just like Yaakov.
And just then, when we need to be at our highest level of awareness lest we miss that cue we weren’t even expecting, the lights will suddenly dim. We will grow tired. Too tired to recognize the awesomeness of the juncture at which we suddenly stand.
Just like Yaakov.
But will we sleep?
Just like Yaakov?
Or will we have learnt the lesson that Yaakov was being taught?
Will we recognize that our ladder to Heaven is standing before our very eyes, just at the moment we least expected it, and just as waves of spiritual slumber threaten to dull our awareness of its presence?
Or will we not?
Will we be history, or will we learn from it?
