Vayetzi, And Jacob went out. He was running away.
Jacob was on a journey. He left everything he knew behind him and then he set out for Laban’s house, to find a wife and to escape his brother’s rath.
We are all on a journey, from one place to another. And perhaps back again.
He lay down with a stone as his pillow and he began to dream. A ladder going up and down. And on the ladder, angels, messengers, going up and down.
I’ve been thinking a lot about tents this week. I love camping. It is something I choose to do. And once we went camping in Quebec, in Charlevoix, and it rained the whole time. Not easy for cooking. We played lots of boggle in the tent and ate more meals out in the little village than we had planned on. We ended that vacation in Quebec City in a very modern hotel. I slept better in the tent than I did in the hotel. It was quieter without the air conditioner fan noise! Oh, for sure there can be a rock that gets under you in a tent—usually my hip, but I haven’t tried a stone for a pillow!
Balaam, the non-Jewish prophet who was hired to curse the Jews, instead blessed them and said, “Ma Tovu Ohalecha Ya’akov. How good are your tents O Jacob. Your dwelling places, O Israel.” We open every service with these words. They are particulaly meaningful this week after the fire at Tent City, the homeless encampment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Wj1oCAPqhwU
When Jacob woke up he declared, “G-d is in this place and I knew it not.” He named the place Beth El, House of G-d.
We are grateful to be in this building, with heat, and light, and a roof that doesn’t leak. With these beautiful stained glass windows. And we are grateful for all of you, for showing up, for being you, for building this community together.
Along our way we may encounter angels, messengers. I remember a big argument with my father when I was in first grade. He insisted that Jews don’t believe in angels. He was wrong, but I got to do a different art project that year. No wreaths, angels or bells to decorate the classroom!
The angels, malachim that are in the Hebrew Bible are not the Valentine’s Day, Hallmark card, Renaissance cherubim of Rembrandt, Raphael and Ruebens. Rather they were beings that came with a specific task, to guide us on our ways. Each one had a purpose or message. For instance, in the story of Abraham and his three visitors, each one had a unique mission. The first announced that Sarah would have a baby. The second announced that Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed. The third messenger was sent to test Abraham’s faith.
Perhaps you have encountered an angel or a messenger. Someone in the right place and the right time to communicate just what you are supposed to do or to guide you over a particular hump. Sometimes they are not easy to spot. Sometimes they remind me of Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. If you haven’t seen that classic Christmas movie, you really should. It is so very Jewish in its themes.
When my mother was dying, there were some big decisions that needed to be made. I was by myself at the hospital in Grand Rapids. The rest of the family had not yet arrived. My daughter was a freshman in college. She was trying to balance starting school well and being in Grand Rapids. Seemingly out of nowhere, a high school classmate who worked in the hospital as an anesthesiologist found me in the stairwell. She told me it was all going to be OK. An angel? You bet. And I am forever grateful.
Fred Rogers, from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood had this to say: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
This week we had the opportunity to see lots of helpers. Lots of angels and messengers. That’s where I get my hope. Each of you is an angel.
Sometimes, however, those messengers and messages come in the middle of the night. Seemingly when we are all alone. That seems to be true of Jacob. Both in our story today and how our story ends.
Our story ends today with Jacob going out. He is going back to Isaac’s house. It i twenty years later. He is a different man, older, perhaps wiser, with wives and servants, livestock. Next week we will meet him again, alone again where he encounters another being, an angel, G-d himself.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav thought that each of us should be outdoors in nature pouring out our heart to G-d. Here is his prayer:
Grant me the ability to be alone;
May it be my custom to go outdoors each day
Among the trees and grass—among all growing things
And there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, \
To talk with the One to whom I belong.
May I express there everything in my heart,
And may all the foliage of the field
All grasses, trees and plant–
Awake at my coming.
To send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer
So that my prayer and speech are made whole
Through the life and spirit of all growing things
Which are made as one by their transcendent Source.
May I then pour out the words of my heart
Before Your Presence like water, O Lord.
And lift up my hands to You in worship,
On my behalf, and that of my children!
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav
Debbie Friedman, z’l set it to beautiful music.
This is not unlike Henry David Thoreau describing why he went to Walden Pond:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
How Jewish. Going to the woods to live deliberately. With intention. With kavanah.
We are each on a journey, May we be blessed as we go on our way, coming and going. May we discover as they did in Tractate Sukkah the place that our hearts hold dear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9-2t7W_8M0
Makom she-libi ohev, sham raglai molikhot oti.”
“The place that my heart holds dear, there my feet will bring me near.”
Mishnah,Tractate Sukkah
May you find the messengers and the messages of your lives. May you be an angel for someone else.