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Divrei Torah
Vayetze Genesis 28:10-32:3
November 30th, 2011
This week’s reading features angels climbing up and down a ladder – a scene which makes us very proud at Beth El, because it took place at – Beth El.  Or did it? In fact most rabbinic authorities and midrashic commentary locates the scene at Moriah, a hill in Jerusalem, the place of the Akeidah, where the Temples would be built, where, according to several other Midrashim, Hagar received her vision of an angel.  But if it took place at Moriah, why does the text tell us that Jacob named the place “Beth El” – a town many miles northeast of Jerusalem? The Midrash suggests that on the night the angels appeared, God ordained a miracle, and the Earth folded, so Moriah landed on top of Beth El.
This weird Midrash highlights one of the two ways the Jacob’s ladder scene connects Jews to the Land of Israel. One connection is religious.  This is a land where we discover angels, where we feel the presence of God; it’s a portal to holiness, a place of spiritual visions.  At the same time, God – at the top of the ladder – tells Jacob his descendants will inherit the land – that this will be the place where they will fulfill their natural national aspirations.  So this one short scene dramatizes two roles Israel plays in the life of the Jewish people: religious and national.
For many years these were the two great streams in Zionism, the competing visions of the secular Theodore Herzl – the nationalist – and the great mystic Rav Kook – the religious visionary. The good news is that these two approaches are no longer mutually exclusive.  Many people, including myself, feel both powerful religious feelings, but also great nationalistic sentiments whenever visiting Israel, or even thinking about Israel.  Israel today is both the center of my religious consciousness, and the full flowering of my national aspirations.
That’s the good news.  The bad news is that neither approach works very well for many, probably most young American Jews. For me, Israel might be a place of angels – of spiritual awakening – but when I describe the feeling to students