Vayeitzei: Living in the House of God

The Torah continues indicating with new situations and circumstances that, in order to connect with our Creator, we must integrate our consciousness.

“And he [Jacob] arrived at the place and lodged there because the sun had set, and he took of the stones of the place and placed them at [lit. of] his head, and he lay down in that place.” (Genesis 28:11)

Our Jewish oral tradition and sages refer to the stones with different meanings, ranging from protecting Jacob from the wild animals around to symbolizing his children, and also to mark the place where the Temple of Jerusalem was going to be built. In a deeper meaning, they also represent the material aspects of life that we gather together in order to serve God.

The literal meaning of placing the stones of his head leads to understand that they too correspond to traits, qualities and characteristics inherent to discernment, thought, emotions, feelings, passion and instinct.

In this context, we have to gather them together in order to introduce ourselves as a unified functioning consciousness before God. In this wholesomeness and completeness we conduct ourselves toward fulfilling the destiny that God offers us in the material world.

This is the place where we either stand or lay down in our consciousness. In this sense, these stones are also the potentially positive and building qualities represented by the Jewish tribes, with which the children of Israel build the Temple of Jerusalem as the permanent connecting time and space with God.

“(...) the land upon which you are lying to you I will give it, and to your seed.” (29:13)

The land as the awareness of our permanent bond with God.

“And behold, I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go (...)” (29:15)

Certainly we must make this awareness permanent as real as it is.

Most of the time we live unaware that God is the reason and meaning of all that exists, for we are captive under to the illusions as dreams that separate us from our essence and true identity.

“And Jacob awakened from his sleep, and he said, 'Indeed, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know [it]'.” (29:16)

Jacob's words want to remind us that we have to know who we are and our purpose in this world. In order to achieve this permanent awareness we have to unify all aspects, levels and dimensions of consciousness. These are the “stones” that are “at” or “of” our head that we gather (“take”) at the “place” where we unite with God. In this process we turn these stones into a single one.

“(...) and he took the stone that he had placed at his head, and he set it up as a monument, and he poured oil on top of it.” (29:18)

The Torah clearly tells us that the stones became one after Jacob's dream.

The lesson is repeated again to teach us that, in order to come to God's house as the permanent bond with Him, we have to unify and harmonize our consciousness. We do it through love as the material manifestation of God's love, for the purpose of love's ways and attributes as the means to fulfill God's will.

“And he named the place Bet-El, but Luz was originally the name of the city.” (29:19)

Interestingly, luz means light in Spanish and indeed there is true light in the house of God! Our father Jacob called it by the real meaning of light as the place where the Creator dwells.

The Torah refers to it as “the name of the city”. As we have pointed out in this blog, our mystic sages teach that cities symbolize principles, values and fundamentals in which consciousness directs its expression. Hence light/love as the awareness of God's love within us is the keystone/cornerstone that unites all aspects and dimensions of consciousness, where we “pour oil” as knowledge to light up our conscious connection with God.

We build our entire existence on this permanent awareness where we establish and recognize our eternal bond with God.

“And Jacob uttered a vow, saying, 'If God will be with me, and He will guard me on this way, upon which I am going, and He will give me bread to eat and a garment to wear; and if I return in peace to my father's house, and the Lord will be my God.” (29:20-21)

In this bond we realize that God is our shield against the illusion of ego's insatiable belief and feeling of lack.

Love always satiates our hunger and thirst of its ways and attributes because love is the true sustenance of all aspects of consciousness. Love generates the bread to eat and the garment to wear. Thus we return to our true identity, the essence from which we are born, “my father's house”.

In this functioning united and harmonized consciousness the Lord is my God, the reason, the meaning and the purpose of life.

This is the unified consciousness that becomes one stone where we are completely aware that all comes from God and is sustained by His love. Here we truly know that all we are, have and do belong to God, therefore we “give” it back to Him. This is a timeless and eternal space when and where we live in God's place.

This is the fundamental stone on which the structure of our life is built upon. This is the temple where we fully experience love as our common bond with God's love.

“Then this stone, which I have placed as a monument, shall be a house of God, and everything that You give me, I will surely tithe [back] to You'.” (29:22)

This awareness is “the ladder” that connects our love with God's love. We said before about this portion of the Torah (see in our blog our commentary on Vayeitzei: “The House of God's love” of November 27, 2011) that the angels who descend and ascend through this ladder represent the blessings of God's love for us as the angels that descend, and our good deeds motivated by God's ways and attributes (God's love manifest in the material world) are the angels that ascend back to Him.

This is indeed the dynamics of our relationship with Him. God loves us in order to make us aware that His love is our essence and true identity, so we manifest who we really are as loving creatures. As we realize this truth, we begin to fulfill our purpose in life as His will.

Our father Jacob teaches us that we go out (vayeitzei) from the awareness of who we are as creatures of God's love into the world where we encounter material fantasies and illusions that darken the real meaning and purpose of life.

As long as we have a clear and unquestionable awareness of love's ways as the light that dissipates the darkness of ego's separatist agenda, we have nothing to doubt, disbelieve or fear, because we know that God's love sustains our love.

Again, let's bear always in mind, heart and soul that as long as we discern, think, feel, sense, speak and act in, with and for love's sake we are not only being who we really are but also fulfilling God's ways and attributes as His will in His creation. Let's be love to transform that which is different from its attributes, that which separates from what we truly are.

Vayeitzei: The House of God's Love

One of the essential passages of the Torah related to Israel is, “And he dreamed, and behold! A ladder set up on the ground and its top reached to Heaven; and behold, angels of God were ascending and descending upon it.” (Genesis 28:12) and “This is none other than the House of God [Bet-El], and this is the gate of Heaven.” (28:17). It is about a place in time and space that comprises our connection with the Creator, and exists permanently in the highest levels of consciousness. It is where we realize the bond that holds the unity of Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and material dimensions of God's Creation. In this awareness Jacob as Israel realizes his Oneness with the Creator.

We have to know this House where God's Love gives lodge to Israel in the journey to fulfill his destiny as the People of the Covenant. The Torah tells us that Jacob dreamed, which means that Israel's awareness of God's Presence is beyond conscious material perception. However, there is a ladder set on our material consciousness (our “stepping ground”), that its top reaches up to the highest levels we are able to conceive. In this ladder angels (messengers) of God ascend and descend upon it, and let's inquire about who these messengers are.

The Torah indicates that angels' function is to fulfill God's will in the diverse dimensions of His Creation, and some of our Sages define them as the Commandments that we perform as part of His Will. Others define them as the souls that descend from His heavenly dwellings to the material world, and ascend back to Him. We can say that angels are, in some extent, the ways we communicate with the Creator. They descend as the messages of His will to us, and they return as our messages to Him.

We are taught that angels perform their missions without questioning them because they don't have free will. How come we dare to question God's will out of the free will He gave us? We have mentioned many times that our free will is the living proof of God's unconditional Love to us. Hence the least we must do is to reciprocate that privilege by complying with what He wants from us. Still, it is our choice. Jacob was fully aware of this, and his choice is unambiguous because he knows that His personal integrity depends on his service to God, after having the greatest honor to dwell in His House.

Angels are mentioned at the beginning and at the end of Vayeitzei, and this recurrence means a lot to us because they appear as heralds announcing points of convergence between Heaven and Earth. In this sense, the Temple of Jerusalem is the fundamental link that unites both levels, also as our highest awareness of God's Love. This is, as Jacob says, “The House of God and the gate of Heaven”. Though it sounds that there is a separation from here and there, the realization of Bet-El becomes our awareness of the unity between both.

Angels are the messengers and the messages we have to convey in our communication with the Creator, and these are our common Essence with Him. In this context, angels are the manifestation of His Love to us, and when we live in Love's ways and attributes our positive actions are the messengers and messages we elevate to Him to reciprocate the Love that He bestows on us.

There are two defined “camps” we know as the spiritual and the material. Both are meant to meet, embrace and kiss each other when we honor God's attributes as our true Essence and identity, also as our ways and means to connect and relate to God's Love. Walking in His Commandments is the way we go in the material world, and in our way we meet His Love: “And Jacob went on his way, and angels of God met him. And Jacob said when he saw them, 'This is the camp of God,' and he named the place Mahanaim.” (32:2-3)

We know that there are two camps, mahanaim, and Jacob turned them into one because he is aware that ultimately there is only one, the camp of God. We have to achieve this final realization, but first we must place our heads on the rocks that encompass every aspect of consciousness. God's Love turn them into one stone where the ladder of our Love stands to reach out to Him, and where our Love and His Love ascend and descend to unify Heaven and Earth. As we have said many times, Love is the messenger and the message, its own cause and effect. God's Love is manifest as the cause and effect of His Creation.

We just need to realize this as Jacob did, as his greatest legacy for Israel, his descendants: "In Bet-El he [Jacob, Israel] finds Him, and there He shall speak with us. And the Lord is the God of the hosts; the Lord is His Name. And you shall return to your God: [by] keeping loving kindness and justice, and trusting in your God always." (Hosea 12:5-7)

Parshat Vayeitzei: Love as the Place of God in the World

“And Jacob went out (vayeitzei) from Beer Sheba, and he went to Haran.” (Genesis 28:10) Our Sages say that Jacob dwelt in the tents of Eber for 14 years before going to Haran. During that time he immersed in Torah study far from the material illusions of the world represented by Haran (lit. “wrath”) and by Laban, his uncle and future father in law.

In this time of study Jacob prepared himself to “descend” into the domains of his uncle whom mystic Sages consider as the Deceiver himself. We know that in the realm of illusions everything is deceiving for the fact that all is an illusion derived from materialism. In this context the mission of Israel (Jacob) is to clear the darkness of illusions with the Light of the Torah.

Jacob is indeed ready to execute the birthright as the priesthood despised by his brother Esau. It begins by establishing the permanent connection with the Creator in His place (the Temple of Jerusalem) which represents our highest level of awareness of God: “And he arrived (lit. reached) at the place, (…) and he lodged in that place.” (28:11) and “(…) behold! A ladder set up on the Earth, and the top of it reached to Heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (28:12).

This is the connection that makes us aware of our Unity with the Creator, and the angels as the messengers of God’s ways and attributes that fulfill His will when we allow ourselves to be the vessels of His blessings: “(…) the Land upon which you are lying, to you I will give it, and to your seed.” (28:13).

The place where we connect with Him is also the Promised Land as the material manifestation of His blessings, the goodness we can be and do in this world because His Love is not only for us but for all His Creation: “and through you shall be blessed all the families of the Earth and through your seed.” (28:14), a true partnership with God in His Creation: “I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will restore you to this Land, because I will not forsake you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” (28:15).

This partnership is bound to the Promised Land as the place that we share with our Creator: “And he called the name of that place Bet-El (House of God).” (28:19), where we all yearn to live, and it can happen as long as we live in the awareness of God’s Love. In this sense we understand what our Sages teach when they say that “God is the place of the world, but the world is not His place”: His Love is “the place” that pervades His Creation and sustains it.

We have mentioned many times in this blog that everything emanates from the Creator and is sustained by Him. The entire Creation is a manifestation of His Love, hence we are made of His Love in order to be Love. Thus we exist and belong to Him, and we must “return” to Him as part of the dynamics of a Divine Plan that we yet can’t comprehend, neither His Essence. In this dynamics we understand the meaning of tithing back to Him: “and everything that You give me, I will surely tithe to You.” (28:22).

Our Sages teach that the tithes to the Temple are the means to elevate our souls to God by doing what He considers sacred in our lives (this is how we “sacrifice” for Him), and after the destruction of the Temple our tithes are what we give to those in need. In sum, we are in this world to give from what God’s Love has given us and continues giving us in every breath we take. This is how we rectify the world (tikkun olam) through this Commandment: “and you shall love your neighbor as yourself, [because] I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18) because everything is about God’s Love.

At this point in the parshah we realize that Jacob’s continuous dwelling in the House of God, His place and His Promised Land, is not only God’s promise and will but also His Commandment. Before a permanent settling Jacob first had to face the perils of the illusions of the material world, and clear his way to raise a family amid the darkness of the negative aspects of consciousness where his future wives grew up. As we said earlier, this is Israel’s mission as the Chosen People: to reveal, proclaim and manifest God’s ways and attributes Love as His Presence amid the darkness of gross materialism.

Jacob recognized the Light concealed in the darkness and knew how to reveal it: “when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother.” (Genesis 29:10).

Three times Laban’s name is mentioned in relation to his sister Rebecca, Jacob’s mother. We can infer from this repetition that as Rebecca was redeemed from the darkness of her brother’s household, Laban’s daughters also would be redeemed by Jacob’s diligent labor dwelling in Laban’s domains.

Mystic Sages comment on the complexities of the interaction between Light and darkness because is not an easy matter to deal with ego’s materialistic fantasies in a world where illusions are the references related to life. Love as the Truth is concealed behind the darkness of ego’s feelings of lack in all levels of consciousness, including mind, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts. When these are under the rule of ego’s negative desires and not under Love’s ways and attributes, life and the world can become the hell that already is for many people.

Jacob had to confront the jealousy and rivalry of his wives, the greed and wickedness of his father in law, and the negative emotions that we must redirect into the paths of Love. Children came into this state of affairs, and Jacob’s endeavor became more difficult and challenging to make his offspring the adequate vessels for God’s promised blessings. This is not a quest for “perfection” but a road to turn our individual and collective circumstances into a dwelling place for the Love that made us and the Love that we are.

From the passages of Jacob’s relationship with Laban we learn that the deceit of material illusions fades before the Truth that Love is: “(…) ‘I see your father's countenance [Laban’s], that it is not toward me as before time; but the God of my father has been with me.” (31:5) and as Leah and Rachel said to Jacob: “(…) all the wealth that God separated from our father is ours and our children's. So now, all that God said to you, do.” (31:16).

The portion ends confirming that God's Love dwells with us when we dwell in His ways and attributes, His Promised Land: “And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And Jacob said when he saw them: 'This is God's camp.' And he called the name of that place Mahanaim.” (32:1-2).