Place is central to our most important Jewish dream. That singular dream is recounted at our Passover Seders: L’shanah habaah b’yerushalyim—next year in Jerusalem. And now, as the Psalmist sings, we are in fact like dreamers who have returned to Zion. We can in a matter of hours touch the land that our ancestors only saw in their mind’s eye and sang about in their prayers.
Vayetzei begins that dreaming. Jacob arrived at the place. And he dreamed of a ladder reaching toward heaven. And God reiterated to him the promise that the land on which he was lying will be assigned to him and his offspring. Today his dream has become real. Yama—West—becomes Tel Aviv. Tzafona—North—is now Haifa. Our dreams are now real places.
For millennia this was not the case.
The rabbis of old were forced to fashion Judaism out of the embers of a destroyed Jerusalem....
Vayetzei begins that dreaming. Jacob arrived at the place. And he dreamed of a ladder reaching toward heaven. And God reiterated to him the promise that the land on which he was lying will be assigned to him and his offspring. Today his dream has become real. Yama—West—becomes Tel Aviv. Tzafona—North—is now Haifa. Our dreams are now real places.
For millennia this was not the case.
The rabbis of old were forced to fashion Judaism out of the embers of a destroyed Jerusalem....
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