I Did Not Know (Vayeitzei)
In Vayeitzei, we encounter one of the most spectacular images in the entire Torah – perhaps in all of human imagination. Jacob dreams of a ladder that stretches from earth to heaven, angels ascending and descending upon it. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once taught that human beings are bridges between heaven and earth. In this sense, we ourselves are that ladder – beings who carry both dust and divinity, bridging what is and what could be.
Mystical tradition tells us that angels in Jacob’s dream are not winged messengers but pure impulses – spiritual reflections of our intentions. Every good inclination gives birth to an angel that strengthens our capacity for holiness. And, painfully, every destructive impulse does the same in the opposite direction. What a teaching that is: our inner world – our thoughts, our wounds, our dreams – creates spiritual energy that travels between heaven and earth.
When we notice our impulses – when we say, “I see that I am getting upset,” or “I recognize that this pain has been triggered” – we begin the sacred work of self-observation. We start to climb our own inner ladder.
Jacob’s dream culminates with God’s voice:
“Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south… All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants.” (Genesis 28:14)
And then, in a rush of divine reassurance: “Remember, I am with you. I will protect you wherever you go, and will bring you back home.” (Genesis 28:15)
When Jacob awakens, the Torah tells us, he exclaims: “Surely God is in this place – and I did not know.”(Genesis 28:16)
Jacob’s startled awareness – the shock of awakening – gives voice to something we all feel: the realization that holiness was here all along, waiting for us to notice.
The Kotzker Rebbe once asked his students, “Where can you find God?” They answered dutifully, “Everywhere.” He shook his head and said, “No. God is where you let God in.”
My teacher and friend, David Elcott, offers a profound reading of Jacob’s discovery. He asks: What was it that Jacob did not know? Wasn’t it obvious that God is everywhere? Elcott cites two Chassidic interpretations that seem opposite but are, in truth, deeply intertwined.
The first suggests that “the place where God was found was in the state of Jacob himself.” Jacob – consumed with fear, deceit, guilt, and longing – awakens to the realization that God resides even here, in the swirling chaos within him. His vulnerability reveals his potential for divinity.
The second teaching turns this inside out. At the very moment Jacob becomes aware of God’s presence, he declares, “Ani lo yadati” – “It is the I, the self, that does not know.”
Elcott writes, “Only when I am not filled with myself – when I empty myself of the ego and self-serving explanations that encrust me – can I truly experience God’s presence.”
Both teachings point us toward the same truth: to encounter God, we must either face the fullness of who we are or let go of it entirely.
In a world where the ego takes up so much space – at our tables, in our workspaces, in our public discourse – Vayeitzei calls us toward a quieter practice. A little tzimtzum, self-contraction. A softening of “I.”
When we empty ourselves of the need to control or explain, we make room for God – not just in heaven, but in the space between us. Then holiness becomes not an abstract concept, but a shared presence, woven into the connections we create and the humility with which we live.
Elcott’s teaching and Jacob’s dream both insist: God is not only above or beyond. God is present – revealed in the moments when we see beyond ourselves.
As we enter a week in which many mark Thanksgiving, it’s worth remembering that gratitude, too, is an act of tzimtzum – of making room for others, of noticing blessing we didn’t create. The mythic layers of this holiday are complex, but the spiritual core – gratitude – is timeless.
Jacob’s awakening invites us to do the same: to open our eyes and whisper, “God is in this place. Right here. With us all.”
May we come to know a little more.
May we feel the divine spark within and between us.
May we become ladders ourselves – steady bridges between earth and heaven, self and other, I and Thou.
