68 | NOVEMBER 23 • 2023 

W

hy Jacob? That is 
the question we 
find ourselves ask-
ing repeatedly as we read the 
narratives of Genesis. Jacob is 
not what Noah was: righteous, 
perfect in his generations, one 
who walked with God. He did 
not, like Abraham, leave his 
land, his birthplace and his 
father’s house 
in response to 
a Divine call. 
He did not, 
like Isaac, offer 
himself up as a 
sacrifice. Nor 
did he have the 
burning sense of 
justice and willingness to inter-
vene that we see in the vignettes 
of Moses’ early life. Yet we 
are defined for all time as the 
descendants of Jacob, the chil-
dren of Israel. Hence the force 
of the question: Why Jacob?
The answer, it seems to me, 
is intimated in the beginning of 
this week’s parshah. Jacob was 
in the middle of a journey from 
one danger to another. He had 
left home because Esau had 
vowed to kill him when Isaac 
died. He was about to enter the 
household of his uncle Laban, 
which would itself present other 
dangers. Far from home, alone, 
he was at a point of maximum 

vulnerability. The sun set. Night 
fell. Jacob lay down to sleep, 
and then saw this majestic 
vision: “He dreamed: ‘Ve-hinei!’ 
— He saw a ladder set upon 
the ground, whose top reached 
the heavens. ‘Ve-hinei!’ — On 
it, angels of God went up 
and came down. ‘Ve-hinei!’ 
— The Lord stood over 
him there and said, ‘I am the 
Lord, the God of Abraham your 
father, and the God of Isaac. 
The land on which you lie I will 
give to you and your descen-
dants. Your descendants shall 
be like the dust of the earth, 
and you will spread out to the 
west, the east, the north, and 
to the south. Through you and 
your descendants, all the fam-
ilies of the earth will be bless-
ed. ‘Ve-hinei!’ — I am with you. 
I will protect you wherever you 
go, and I will bring you back 
to this land, for I will not leave 
you until I have done what I 
have spoken of to you.
’”
Then Jacob awoke from 
his sleep and said, “Truly, 
the Lord is in this place — and 
I did not know it!” He was 
afraid, and said, “How full of 
awe is this place! This is none 
other than the House of God, 
and this is the gate of the heav-
ens.
” Gen. 28:12-17
Note the fourfold ve-hinei, in 

English “and look,
” an expres-
sion of surprise. Nothing has 
prepared Jacob for this encoun-
ter, a point emphasized in his 
own words when he says, “the 
Lord is in this place — and I did 
not know it.
” The very verb used 
at the beginning of the passage, 
“He came upon a place,
” in 
Hebrew vayifga ba-makom, also 
means an unexpected encoun-
ter. Later, in rabbinic Hebrew, 
the word ha-Makom, “the Place,
” 
came to mean “God.
” Hence in 
a poetic way the phrase vayifga 
ba-makom could be read as, 
“Jacob happened on (had an 
unexpected encounter with) 
God.”
Add to this Jacob’s nighttime 
wrestling match with the angel 
in next week’s parshah and we 
have an answer to our ques-
tion. Jacob is the man who has 
his deepest spiritual experiences 
alone, at night, in the face of 
danger and far from home. He 
is the man who meets God 
when he least expects to, when 
his mind is on other things, 
when he is in a state of fear and 
possibly on the brink of despair. 
Jacob is the man who, in lim-
inal space, in the middle of the 
journey, discovers that “Surely 
the Lord is in this place — and 
I did not know it!”
Jacob thus became the father 

of the people who had their 
closest encounter with God 
in what Moses was later to 
describe as “the howling waste-
land of a wilderness” (Deut. 
32:10). Uniquely, Jews survived 
a whole series of exiles, and 
though at first they said, “How 
can we sing the Lord’s song in a 
strange land?” they discovered 
that the Shechinah, the Divine 
Presence, was still with them. 
Though they had lost every-
thing else, they had not lost 
contact with God. They could 
still discover that “the Lord is 
in this place — and I did not 
know it!”
Abraham gave Jews the cour-
age to challenge the idols of the 
age. Isaac gave them the capac-
ity for self-sacrifice. Moses 
taught them to be passionate 
fighters for justice. But Jacob 
gave them the knowledge that 
precisely when you feel most 
alone, God is still with you, 
giving you the courage to hope 
and the strength to dream.
The man who gave the most 
profound poetic expression to 
this was undoubtedly David 
in the book of Psalms. Time 
and again he calls to God from 
the heart of darkness, afflicted, 
alone, pained, afraid:
“Save me, O God, for the 
floodwaters are up to my neck. 
 Deeper and deeper I sink into 
the mire;
I can’t find a foothold.
I am in deep water, 
and the floods overwhelm me.
” 
Ps. 69:2-3
“From the depths, O Lord, 
I call for Your help.
” Ps. 130:1

WHERE WE FIND GOD
Sometimes our deepest spiritu-
al experiences come when we 
least expect them, when we are 
closest to despair. It is then that 
the masks we wear are stripped 
away. We are at our point of 
maximum vulnerability — and 
it is when we are most fully 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

How the Light Gets In

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

