NOVEMBER 11 • 2021 | 55

pain and hardship: the decep-
tion of Lavan; the loss of his 
beloved wife, Rachel; the sep-
aration from his beloved son, 
Yosef; and many other severely 
challenging experiences. And 
yet, throughout, this vision — 
this pledge that God would be 
with him at all times — sus-
tained him, and gave him the 
strength to withstand all of the 
difficulties and challenges that 
lay ahead.
This vision can sustain us 
through our own difficulties 
and challenges. As King David 
famously said: “Even though I 
walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I fear no evil 
for you are with me.
” (Psalm 
23) He does not say: “I fear no 
evil because no harm can befall 
me,
” but rather: “I fear no evil 
because You are with me.
” 
Everything that happens to 
us is from God and is therefore 
ultimately for the good, even if 
we cannot see it at the time, and 
there is great comfort in know-
ing that God is with us and 
looking after us throughout our 
life’s journey.
This is all from a personal 
perspective. The Midrash of Rav 
Eliezer ben Hurkenus, on the 
other hand, probes the national 
significance of the angels on 
the ladder. He teaches that 
the ascending and descending 
angels symbolize the rise and 
fall of the great empires of the 
world that would oppress and 
seek to destroy the nation of 
Israel. Yaakov was being shown 
that the Jewish people would 
undergo great challenges and 
distress, as one kingdom after 
another — the Babylonians, the 
Greeks, the Romans and oth-
ers — came to subjugate them. 
And yet, somehow, through the 
incredible Divine miracles of 
Jewish history, we survived, and 
that was the message to Yaakov 

— that no matter what forces 
of destruction would come 
against his descendants, God 
would be with them and would 
ensure the survival of the Jewish 
people.
Indeed, this is one of the 
great miracles of human histo-
ry. No other nation in history 
has endured as much hardship 
through exile, dispersion and 
persecution as the Jewish peo-
ple. And what has sustained 
us throughout is this vision 
of “Jacob’s Ladder” — God’s 
pledge that He would be with 
us, always.
There is another Midrash that 
explains that the ladder sym-
bolized Mount Sinai. In fact, the 
gematria — the numerological 
value — of the Hebrew word for 
‘ladder’ and ‘Sinai’ are identical. 

ACCOMPANIED BY TORAH
The Midrash says the angels 
themselves symbolize Moshe 
(Moses) and Aharon (Aaron), 
who ascended and descended 
Mount Sinai at the time of the 
giving of the Torah.
This further reinforces the 
idea of the ladder as a bridge 
between heaven and Earth. 
Many of the mitzvahs of the 
Torah relate to the physical 
world. There’s the famous 
Midrash that describes how 
“God looked into the Torah 
and created the world,
” that the 
Torah is the blueprint of cre-
ation. Indeed, most of the pre-
cepts of the Torah are fulfilled 
through the physical world — 
lulav and etrog, tefillin, challahs 
— these are all physical objects. 
Simply by utilizing them within 
the framework of the Torah’s 
instructions, we infuse them 
with a cosmic significance. We 
elevate the physical world and 
connect it with the upper world, 
God’s eternal world.
Similarly, the Torah is also 

about elevating our physical 
lives, our physical bodies, and 
transforming them into vessels 
of Godliness and spirituality. 
The relationship between a man 
and a woman, for example, or 
the act of raising children, or 
the process of eating. All of 
these are governed by Divine 
parameters laid out in the Torah 
that enable us to elevate them 
beyond the biological and trans-
form them into something truly 
transcendent. To connect heav-
en and Earth.
There’s a third Midrash that 
says the ladder represents the 
altar in the Temple, and the 
angels going up and down rep-
resent the Kohanim, the priests, 
who would serve in the Temple 
(and ascend and descend the 
altar). In other words, the lad-
der represents the service of 
God — through prayer and 
mitzvot and the daily activities 
we dedicate to our Creator — so 
our lives themselves become an 
active act of service.
These last two Midrashim 
are connected. It’s about receiv-
ing the Torah, which connects 
heaven and Earth, and living a 
life that connects heaven and 
Earth. Through the Torah and 
through acts of service, our lives 
become filled with meaning. 
We become more than physical 
beings eking out an existence; 
we become elevated, spiritu-
al beings, connected to our 
Creator.
So this then becomes the 
overarching vision that sus-
tained Yaakov and has contin-
ued to sustain us through all of 
our generations — that God is 
with us every step of the way, 
and there is a way to uplift our 
lives and connect heaven and 
Earth. What is so powerful is 
that, according to our sages, 
Yaakov was shown this vision 
after he’
d already arrived in 

Haran. The Talmud explains 
that Yaakov had mistakenly 
passed over the holy place 
where Avraham had brought 
his son Yitzchak on the altar, 
and that he hadn’t stopped to 
pray. Yaakov felt such a yearn-
ing, such a sense of lost oppor-
tunity, that a great miracle was 
performed, and that holy site 
was miraculously transported to 
Yaakov, whereupon he had his 
vision.
Rav Moshe Feinstein says 
the message here is that even 
though he had left the holiness 
of his parents’ home and was 
now in a place of spiritual des-
olation, through maintaining 
a loyalty and a devotion to the 
vision that was given to him, he 
would be able to achieve that 
holiness and that connection. 
The holy place came to him — 
and so the message was that he 
could take the vision with him 
and implement wherever he 
went.
People often believe them-
selves to be limited by their 
circumstances. But what we see 
here is that having a vision — a 
great, lofty Divine vision that 
we dedicate ourselves to — can 
enable us to transcend those 
circumstances. It can inspire 
us and guide us and transform 
the world in which we find 
ourselves.
This is the vision that Jacob 
took with him on all his jour-
neys; the same lofty, life-affirm-
ing, transformative vision that 
has accompanied the Jewish 
people on all of our journeys, 
both national and personal. 
It is the vision that makes us 
who we are and has held us all 
together throughout the gener-
ations. 

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, who 

has a Ph.D. in Human Rights Law, is the 

chief rabbi of South Africa. This article 

first appeared on aish.com.

