A Hanukah and Christmas Song on Jacob’s Ladder on the Same Day

This year Hanukah begins on the same day (December 25th) that Christmas ends. Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin writes in a December 6, 2024 sermon about Jacob’s ladder which “stretches from the earth to the heavens — with angels of God ascending and descending on the ladder. He asks why are the angels going both up the ladder, and coming down the ladder?

He says “My favorite answer to this question comes from the Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Torah and on other books of the Hebrew Bible. The Zohar teaches us that on God’s throne, there is a portrait of Prophet Jacob (whose name is mentioned 16 times in the Qur’an). God gazes at the portrait of Jacob. The angels descend on a ladder, because they want to see whether the earthly Jacob; has the same face as the heavenly Jacob.

They look at the portrait of Jacob on the divine throne, and they compare the earthly Jacob to the heavenly Jacob. The one that is and the heavenly Jacob. The one that Jacob could be.

Jacob represents all of us. Perhaps that is why the great Hasidic master, Rabbi Zadok of Lublin, says that in every generation, it is not just the image of Jacob that is on the divine throne. Our faces are on the divine throne as well.

The angels have already seen God’s portrait of us — God’s ideal portrait of us. Now they want to see our faces. God has a portrait of every person in the world on the divine throne.

Ever since Oct. 7 — long before that, to be honest — Jews have asked ourselves some very difficult, existential questions: What is a Jewish state? What is a democratic state? What does it mean for both of those to be tied together? How do we save the identity of Israel as a liberal democracy and the classical Zionist definition of Israel as a Jewish state?

Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin goes one step further. He believes God has a portrait of all Americans on the divine throne. There is the America that seems to be unfolding before our eyes, and the America of the Founders’ ideals — the America that could be. That is what Israel and America have in common: the reality and the aspirational ideal.

America, no less than Israel, now faces a sobering crisis of meaning. What will our country look like? What will it become? What will be the role of the individual citizen, and local and national organizations, in determining the portrait that we show ourselves to the world — and God?

America and Israel have something else in common?
A song — written for Israel, but pertaining to America, as well —
“Ain Li Eretz Acheret” – “I Have No Other Country”:

I have no other country
even if my land is aflame.
Just a word in Hebrew
pierces my veins and my soul.
Here is my home I will not stay silent 
because my country changed her face.

I will not give up reminding her 
And sing in her ears until she will open her eyes.
I believe the song equally pertains to America: “I will not stay silent because my country changed her face. I will not give up reminding her, and sing in her ears, until she will open her eyes.”

Oh, do I sing that song to America now.
The you that is; the you that could be.
The Israel that is; the Israel that could be.
The America that is; the America that could be.
Prophet Jacob had a ladder and we all should climb it.