Derekh Eretz and Jacob’s Ladder (my drash on parashat Vayetzei)

Let’s be honest- Jacob, now running away from home to meet his destiny, is a nothing, a spoiled brat even. He has a lot to learn before he becomes Israel- father of our nation.

After Jacob runs away from home he has his first dream, one which, as we will see, provides him with a model of what he must become in order to be Israel:
וַיַּחֲלֹם, וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה, וְרֹאשׁוֹ, מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה; וְהִנֵּה מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים, עֹלִים וְיֹרְדִים בּוֹ. (12)
וְהִנֵּה יְהוָה נִצָּב עָלָיו, וַיֹּאמַר, אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ, וֵאלֹהֵי יִצְחָק; הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה שֹׁכֵב עָלֶיהָ--לְךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה, וּלְזַרְעֶךָ (13) .

Jacob’s dream begins with a vision of a sulam, a ladder with malachim ascending and descending on it. Only after this vision does God appear to Jacob to say that the land will be for his descendants, and that God will be with Jacob.

Why did Jacob have to dream of the sulam? Why did he need such a brilliant visual aid to understand God’s words, when God was able to speak to Abraham without any props? God could have just started talking to Jacob!

The ladder imagery must contain important messages for Jacob to learn in the course of his relationship with God. As the Talmud observes (Berakhot 55b), "A dream uninterpreted is a letter unread." What does the image of the sulam and the malachim reveal to Jacob?

First, as noted in ancient Midrash[1]: “This [sulam], or “ladder” serves as a bridge between heaven and earth upon which angels ascend and descend- thus indicating the dialogic nature of communication between the two realms.”

Second, “Malach”, translated there as “angel”, also means messenger. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner[2] takes this interpretation one step further, writing, “The angels did not reside in heaven at all. They lived on earth. They were ordinary human beings. And, like ordinary human beings, they shuttled back and forth between heaven and earth. The trick is to remember, after you descend, what you understood when you were high on the ladder.”

Aha! So we are the messengers traveling on the ladder, in a literal sense, between heaven and earth. From another angle, we can put Torah study in the place of heaven, and have Earth representing actions/deeds/mitzvoth/prayers, with the ladder as the bridge between them. Starting from the ground, from where we are right now, we actively reach up to God. This understanding reinforces the relationship between the study of Torah and the expression of what we learn through the way we act and live. We can imagine ourselves continuously climbing and descending, or going back and forth on, the ladder, enriching our lives and our surroundings by reinforcing our actions with prayer/learning and reinforcing our learning with prayer/action.

As noted by Chasidic Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman HaLevi Epstein of Cracow (1751-1823) in his commentary on parsha VaYeitzei:
“ ...Just as (Mishna Avot 2:5) states “An ignorant person cannot become a Hasid”, so too Torah knowledge alone cannot complete a person’s soul as seen in our Sages’ teaching (Eruvin 109b)- “Whoever says ‘There is nothing in life but the story of Torah’, this person has not acquired Torah.”[3]

Action alone, or learning alone, are insufficient.

This concept- that a combination of learning and doing is necessary to bring God into our lives and world- is a fundamental precept in Jewish tradition. It’s called “Torah im derekh eretz”:

In Pirkei Avot (ch. 3, verse 21), Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaryah says,
"Where there is no Torah there are no manners/proper conduct (derekh eretz); Where there are no manners/proper conduct (derekh eretz) there is no Torah. Without wisdom, there is no fear of God; without the fear of God there is no wisdom. Without insight there is no knowledge; without knowledge there is no insight. Without food there is no Torah; without Torah there is no food.”

The malachim on the sulam begin from the ground, going up. It is only by engaging in our world, where we start from, that we can ascend the ladder to God. By living mitzvoth through doing them, living with our derekh eretz, we reach up to God. As we climb this ladder we bring godliness down into the world with us- we share God in the world. By being messengers shuttling back and forth, informing our actions/mitzvot with knowledge and intention, we benefit as well. As noted by Reb Nachman of Bratslav, “Let us learn that the more we give, the more we have. Giving changes a person’s impulse to cruelty into kindness of heart. This is the chief service of giving.”[4]

Jacob, at this point in his life, has had limited life experience and questionable moral judgment. This dream of the sulam shows him the way of living that he will have to adopt, as Jacob and as Israel (representing the people Israel), to live a life of godliness and fulfillment as a messenger of light to the nations. Through the metaphor of the ladder, Jacob can understand that the more we strive to grow and climb, the more God comes down to live among us.

Sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in the theory of living, instead of in the practice of it, and learning how to live, living with derekh eretz, is not something acquired overnight. Jacob is only at the beginning of his quest, en route to becoming a messenger, a malach, of God.

Going back to my lawyer days, I remember somebody asking why it is that we practice law. We practice law because we never perfect it- we are always works in progress, combining experience and learning in order to try to reach the essence and share it. As educators, cantors and rabbis we model the possibility that all Jews serve as malachim between heaven and Earth- all works in progress, yet all capable of bringing TORAH TO DERECH ERETZ , of bringing light into the world.

[1] Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p.159-160
[2] God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know, p. 13
[3] Sefer MeOr VaShemesh (Perusho shel harav Kalonymus HaLevi Epstein), Parshat VaYetze (translated by Rabbi Moshe Silberstein).
[4] Quoted in British Reform Siddur, p. 598.