Vayetze: One Revelation or Two?

Quite some time has gone by since we celebrated the holiday of Sukkot. Frankly, there is much about that holiday that I have already forgotten. But one memory remains etched in my mind, one biblical phrase that was part of the Sukkot service that continues to haunt me.

I refer to the words of the Book of Kohelet/Ecclesiastes, a work which inspires me, and occasionally confounds me, all year long but especially when we read it in the synagogue on the Shabbat of the Intermediate Days of Sukkot/Shabbat Chol HaMoed.

This year, there is this one verse which caught my attention and hasn’t vanished with the passage of many weeks. It reads:

"Do not hasten your lips, do not hurry your heart to make a vow in the presence of God—for God is in heaven while you are here on earth; so, let your words be few." (Kohelet 5:1-2)

That short phrase, “[He] is in heaven while you are here on earth,” troubled me. Is the Master of the Universe so very distant from me? Was I not taught the He is close to us all? Do we not recite the verse in Ashrei three times a day which reads:

"The Lord is close to all who call on Him, to all who truly call on Him. He fulfills the will of those who revere Him; He hears their cry and saves them. The Lord guards all who love Him…" (Psalms 145:18-20)

This question brings us to this week’s Torah portion, Vayetze (Genesis 28:10-32:2).

But first, a point of information, which may be familiar to many of you, but which is vitally important for all who study Torah. It is this: the Torah generally alludes to the Master of the Universe with one of two appellations: either Elohim on the one hand, or the Tetragrammaton YHVH, which we pronounce Adonai. I will refer to the former as the “Almighty” and the latter as the “Lord.”

The earliest rabbinic commentators are keenly aware of this duality and generally understand that there are two aspects to the divine, “Almighty” being the term used to express His din, or tendency toward strict judgement, versus “Lord,” representing His rachamim, or His tendency toward boundless compassion. So-called Bible critics have rejected this rabbinic approach and explain the duality very differently, but that is not a subject for this column.

In this week’s parsha, we have several examples of the use of both terms for the divinity, occasionally in the very same verse. I will share with you one man’s approach to the use of two very different terms, Elohim and YHVH (“Almighty” and “Lord”). It is an approach which stands within the traditional rabbinic approach, with some variation. It is the work of a fascinating and brilliant Jewish scholar of the twentieth century named Rabbi Mordechai Breuer. Rabbi Breuer was a major Torah scholar who developed a methodology known as “multiple perspectives”/Shitat HaBechinot, and who is responsible for the recovery and publication of what is generally considered the most accurate extant edition of Tanach (Keter Yerushalayim). He passed away in 2007. He applies his framework to this week’s parsha in his two-volume commentary on Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis, entitled Pirkei Bereshit.

Here is one of the passages that he chooses to analyze:

"Yaakov left Be’er Sheva and journeyed toward Haran. In time he chanced upon a certain place and decided to spend the night there, because the sun had set. He took some stones from the place and put them under his head, and in that place lay down to sleep. And he dreamed: he saw a ladder set upon the ground, whose top reached the heavens. On it, angels of Elohim/Almighty went up and came down. The Lord/YHWH stood over him there and said, 'I am the Lord/YHWH, the God of Avraham your father, and the God of Yitzchak. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth… Through you and your descendants, all the families of the earth will be blessed. I am with you. I will protect you wherever you go…'" (Bereshit 28:11-15)

Note that both appellations for the divine are used in the same verse, first the “angels of the Almighty” climbing and descending the ladder, and then “the Lord” standing above—not the ladder—but above Yaakov himself (see Rashi).

Thus, asserts Rabbi Breuer, Yaakov lies down to sleep with no spiritual intentions at all. The sun sets, he’s tired, and arranges some stones around him to protect him from the local wildlife. Perfectly mundane situation.

Then comes the dream, with not one revelation but two. First the angels of the Almighty, the aspect of the divine that is distant from, although not always absent from, mankind, the “transcendent” aspect of the divine, the Almighty who dwells in the heavens and who comes down to earth for a brief visit but then scrambles back up the ladder. This assures Yaakov of some degree of divine assistance on his journey into the unknown. One revelation.

But then the Lord appears, not attached to the ladder at all, but standing above Yaakov with rachamim, compassionate and reassuring. This is the “immanent” aspect of the divine. The Lord carries a much more encouraging message guaranteeing Yaakov not only a successful journey but a safe return to his homeland in the Land of Israel and promises him all the blessings that He promised Yaakov’s ancestors. He reveals to him not only that he will have many descendants but that these descendants will bring blessing to all of humanity throughout human history. A second revelation and a much more magnificent one.

We can generalize from this analysis to our own personal relationship with the divine, as well as for the relationship of the Jewish people with the divine during the entire course of our diaspora.

Our people, at this very moment, are beset by enemies from many quarters. Every day brings unspeakably tragic losses of life and limb and dispossession. Yet there are silver linings in every cloud, and if not miracles then near miracles occur daily. Is the Master of the Universe in the mode of din or harsh justice? At times, it certainly seems so. But does He also display His other aspect, that of profound compassion? Yes, He does, and we can only hope for the time when “He who makes peace in His high places will bring peace to us and to all of Israel” and to the entire world.