Vayetzei 
Genesis 28:10 – 32:3 

By Jen Smith 

Parashat Vayetzei opens with one of the most iconic and mysterious scenes in the Torah. Frightened and alone, Jacob lies down in the wilderness with nothing but a stone for a pillow. As night falls, he dreams of a sulam, a ladder connecting earth and heaven, with angels moving up and down between realms. When Jacob awakens, he utters one of the Torah’s most stirring lines: 

Achen yesh Adonai bamakom hazeh – Surely God was in this place, and I did not know. (Genesis 28:16) 

This moment becomes the heartbeat of the entire portion, and invites us to consider:  

What if holiness is closer than we realize and we simply haven’t opened our eyes? 

The Zohar, the foundational work of Jewish mysticism, interprets Jacob’s ladder not as a structure in the sky, but as a symbol for the human soul. We are rooted in the earthly material world, yet we are restlessly reaching upward toward the heavens. We are bodies of clay with sparks of heaven inside us. The angels ascending and descending the magical ladder reminds us of that spiritual energy flowing in both directions. When we act with compassion, justice, or courage, the ripples reach far beyond us. The implications are clear – even our smallest choices echo upward. 

Jacob wakes from his dream, sets his stone upright, and pours oil upon it. With this act, he essentially transforms a place of fear into a sanctuary for the divine. It’s a small, unadorned act – but it’s everything. Jacob teaches that sanctity isn’t only found in synagogues, retreats, or holy sites. Sanctity is created when we transform our moments of vulnerability into commitments of meaning. 

Lately, I’ve found myself feeling a bit like Jacob before his dream; unsettled, anxious, and exiled from the world I wish existed. Our contemporary landscape is filled with fear, existential loneliness, and deep social fractures. For Jews everywhere, questions of identity, safety, belonging, and unity feel more pressing than ever. And Vayetzei speaks right into this moment. 

When the world feels unstable, that is precisely when we are called upon to build sanctuaries. And not only the physical type of sanctuaries, but also the emotional and spiritual sanctuaries: Spaces of kindness in a time of cruelty; spaces of listening in a culture of shouting, of Jewish connection when the world feels unmoored, and spaces for hope, especially when cynicism feels easier than faith. Ultimately, Jacob’s story and revelation serve as a reminder that holiness is not something we should wait to feel – it is something we are commanded to build. 

Later in Genesis, Jacob will look at his estranged brother Esau and say: 

To see your face is like seeing the face of God. (Genesis 33:10) 

It’s a breathtaking line not because they get along, but precisely because they do not. Their relationship is marked by betrayal, pain, fear, and misunderstanding, and yet, Jacob says to his brother: Your face reflects the Divine. 

God is seen not in isolation, but in encounter. God never intended to be found in abstraction, but rather in another human face. And this is where Vayetzei becomes especially relevant to our contemporary world. In an era of polarization, this verse becomes a mystical, spiritual challenge. 

We are living in a time when society sorts people into “us” and “them” with increasing and frightening ease. Politics has become a battleground, not a conversation, reducing people to positions, soundbites, and caricatures. And the consequences are far reaching, especially when the “other side” becomes not just wrong or misguided, but dangerous and almost inhuman. 

But Jewish tradition pushes back. 

If every human is created b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God – then the Divine spark exists even in those who challenge, unsettle, or infuriate us. The hard part is remembering that this extends beyond the biblical or theoretical to include the relative whose political posts make us cringe, the community member who votes differently, the neighbor whose values seem foreign, and even the public figure with whom we cannot imagine ever agreeing. Seeing the face of God in these individuals is obviously much harder than seeing it in our friends, our community, or those who share our views, but as Jacob’s words reinforce, our tradition demands just that. 

The mystical teaching is that we climb the proverbial ladder to heaven one human encounter at a time – not by winning arguments, but by refusing to deny someone’s humanity. This doesn’t mean we ignore injustice or abandon our values. But it does mean we must refuse to let division eclipse divinity. The face of God is not a metaphor. It is a mandate. 

Vayetzei marks the beginning of Jacob’s transformation into Yisrael, the name that becomes the identity of our people. But Jacob doesn’t become Israel overnight. It takes struggle, heartbreak, love, conflict, forgiveness, and persistence. 

Jewish mysticism teaches that each of us is climbing Jacob’s ladder through the messy work of being human. In a sense, we learn from Jacob that we do not ascend the ladder by embodying perfection. We ascend by being awake. 

And each rung is nothing more – and nothing less – than an act of awareness: Seeking and recognizing holiness, acting with intention, finding dignity in another, building sanctuaries of meaning in uncertainty, and choosing compassion when it is hardest. It is through these acts that Jacob’s awakening to the possibility of God’s presence becomes our own. 

With our dinner tables bursting with family and friends this Thanksgiving, Vayetzei offers us a spiritual challenge to find God not just in the abstract or heavenly realm, but in the faces before us. Not just in sacred spaces, but in the wilderness of our lives. Not just in moments of clarity, but in uncertainty, tension, and complexity. 

This Shabbat, may we have the courage to wake up. May we be blessed with the wisdom to see God in the most unexpected places, embracing the courage required to find God’s divine light in one another.  Shabbat Shalom.