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