I
t is one of the great visions of the
Torah. Jacob, alone at night, fleeing
from the wrath of Esau, lies down
to rest, and sees not a nightmare of
fear but an epiphany:
“He came to a certain place [vayifga
bamakom] and stopped for the night
because the sun had
set. Taking one of the
stones there, he put it
under his head and lay
down to sleep. He had a
dream. He saw a ladder
resting on the earth,
with its top reaching
heaven. God’s angels
were going up and down on it. There
above it stood God …
“Jacob awoke from his sleep and
said, ‘God is truly in this place, but I
did not know it.’ He was afraid and
said, ‘How awesome is this place!
This is none other than the house of
God; this is the gate of heaven.’” Gen.
28:11-17
On the basis of this passage, the
Sages said that “Jacob instituted the
evening prayer.” The inference is
based on the word vayifga, which
can mean not only, “he came to,
encountered, happened upon” but
also “he prayed, entreated, pleaded”
as in Jeremiah 7:16, “Neither lift up
cry nor prayer for them nor make
intercession to Me [ve-al tifga bi].”
The Sages also understood the
word bamakom, “the place” to
mean “God” (the “place” of the
universe). Thus, Jacob completed
the cycle of daily prayers. Abraham
instituted shacharit, the morning
prayer, Isaac minchah, the afternoon
prayer, and Jacob arvit, the prayer of
nighttime.
This is a striking idea. Though
each of the weekday prayers is
identical in wording, each bears the
character of one of the patriarchs.
Abraham represents morning. He is
the initiator, the one who introduced
a new religious consciousness to
the world. With him a day begins.
Isaac represents afternoon. There
is nothing new about Isaac — no
major transition from darkness to
light or light to darkness. Many of the
incidents in Isaac’s life recapitulate
those of his father. Famine forces him,
as it did Abraham, to go to the land of
the Philistines. He re-digs his father’s
wells.
Isaac’s is the quiet heroism of
continuity. He is a link in the chain
of the covenant. He joins one
generation to the next. He introduces
nothing new into the life of faith,
but his life has its own nobility.
Isaac is steadfastness, loyalty, the
determination to continue.
Jacob represents night. He is the
man of fear and flight, the man who
wrestles with God, with others and
with himself. Jacob is one who knows
the darkness of this world.
There is, however, a difficulty
with the idea that Jacob introduced
the evening prayer. In a famous
episode in the Talmud, Rabbi
Joshua takes the view that,
unlike shacharit or minchah, the
evening prayer is not obligatory
(though, as the commentators note,
it has become obligatory through the
acceptance of generations of Jews).
Why, if it was instituted by Jacob,
was it not held to carry the same
obligation as the prayers of Abraham
and Isaac? Tradition offers three
answers.
THREE EXPLANATIONS
The first is that the view that arvit is
non-obligatory according to those
who hold that our daily prayers are
based, not on the patriarchs but on
the sacrifices that were offered in the
Temple. There was a morning and
afternoon offering but no evening
sacrifice. The two views differ
precisely on this, that for those who
trace prayer to sacrifice, the evening
prayer is voluntary, whereas for those
who base it on the patriarchs, it is
obligatory.
The second is that there is a law that
those on a journey (and for three days
thereafter) are exempt from prayer.
In the days when journeys were
hazardous — when travelers were in
constant fear of attack by raiders — it
was impossible to concentrate. Prayer
requires concentration (kavanah).
Therefore, Jacob was exempt from
prayer and offered up his entreaty not
as an obligation but as a voluntary act
— and so it remained.
Encountering God
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
44 | DECEMBER 5 • 2024 J
N