Vayetze – thick of Yaakov’s cycle. The famous dream of the stairs to heaven, marriages, children – 12 out of 13, flight from Lavan’s house after 20 years.
Our portion opens with Yaakov fleeing into the wilderness – alone, afraid, going into exile, leaving his family behind. He has nothing but his staff, used for walking and shepherding. He gathers stones fr a pillow and, exhausted, falls asleep. There, in that desolate place, he dreams one of the most famous and consequential dreams for the Jewish people in particular and for humanity in general: a ladder connecting earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending.
Notice: the angels go up first, then down. The movement begins from below, and then reaches heaven.
Viktor Frankl, who survived the darkness of Auschwitz, taught us something present in the kernel of Yaakov’s dream: idealists are the ultimate realists. Those who clung only to physical reality in the camps—who saw only the hunger, the cold, the cruelty—they often perished first. But those who held onto meaning, who found purpose even in suffering, who believed in something beyond the immediate horror—they were a lot more likely to endure and survive. Frakl was an example himself: he had his PhD thesis confiscated by the Nazis when he and his family were taken to the camps. He knew his father, mother and brother had died,but clung to two things: the possibility of his pregnant wife having survived and recreating his thesis in his mind while surviving four different camps.
Cynics call themselves realists. They see this broken world and say, “This is all there is.” They see human beings and say, “We are all only moved by selfish reasons”. But Yaakov and Frankl both show us a deeper reality, a meaningful one: even in our darkest wilderness, the ladder stands. Heaven and earth remain connected. The question isn’t whether the connection exists – it’s whether we choose to climb. The question isn’t if there is meaning in this existence – it’s whether we work internally enough to find meaning.
Frankl wrote that between any external stimulus and our response, there is a space – and in that space lies our freedom. It is the space of the moment of our personal choice: we chose our actions, our attitude, our mindset, we chose to follow our deepest yarnings, our soul. The ladder in the dream is that space made visible. It is asking Yaakov to respond to the question that life asks of us: what response will you chose? Who will you become, day after day, as you walk through life? We cannot control what happens to us, but we can always control whether we ascend or remain lying on stones.
So today, I want to invite you to
- Find your “nevertheless.” Each day, identify one thing you’ll do not because the world is good, but to make it good. Visit someone lonely. Study one line of Torah. Perform one act of justice. Not because it’s easy or because you’ll be rewarded, but because meaning demands it.
- Be an ascending soul. Share one story of hope, resilience, or goodness each week – with your children, your friends, our community, online. Not to deny the darkness, but to testify that the ladder still stands. When we bring light to despair, we ascend the ladder and bring heaven’s blessing down.
The scene of the dream ends with Yaakov awakening and saying, “God was in this place, and I did not know it.” Our work, like Yaakov’s, is to open our eyes and feel God’s presence. And then, with open eyes, to climb towards meaning.
Shabbat Shalom.
Shabbat morning:
Read the dream and its aftermath. What does it signal, to you – opinion – regarding Yaakov’s relationship with God?