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Parashat Vayetze by Gail Norry

It's hard to believe the General Assembly was just a little over a week ago. It seems like the world has changed since then, yet again. Once again, terror has shaken us to our core. I left the GA inspired and feeling uplifted, from the NWP Shabbaton, where a small group of us learned and prayed together with Rabbi Shira, to the final plenary, when Prime Minister Netanyahu left us with a message of hope and a stronger relationship between the United States and Israel. Yet, the events in Paris have once again made it abundantly clear that we are living in a very precarious time.

This week's parsha, Vayetze, begins with Jacob in a very precarious state as well. He is fleeing from Beersheba, where he has just received the birthright from his father, leaving his brother, Esau, angry and dejected. He is obviously in distress and comes to a "certain place" where he stops for the night. He takes a stone to use for a pillow and goes to sleep. In the course of the night, he has a dream in which "a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of G-d were going up and down on it." G-d then stood next to Jacob and revealed Himself, stating that He was going to make Jacob the head of a large family like the "dust of the earth" that He will bless and protect. Pretty reassuring stuff, right? Imagine that you have to run away from home, have no idea what's in store for you, you go to sleep in the middle of nowhere using a rock for a pillow, and then G-d comes to you in the middle of the night promising you an incredible future. Talk about going from being at your lowest to feeling uplifted!

The dream image of this ladder is very powerful, and I think it is one of the most concrete images in the Torah that connects us to G-d. The ladder actually serves as a mode of transporting the angels from G-d in heaven to do their work with humans on earth. It shows an interplay, a give and take, between the spiritual and the mundane, between the Divine and the human.

When Jacob wakes up in the morning, he actually says that he had no idea that he had come to a holy place. He promises that, "If G-d remains with me, if He protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father's house, the L-rd shall be my G-d."

As members of NWP, we know that this is our job: to provide food and clothing for the needy, to lift people up in their hour of need, and to keep climbing the ladder toward hope. We want to be like the angels, traveling back and forth doing those day to day, mundane acts of tikkun olam that bring us closer to G-d and bring the world to a better place. Yet, it's not always easy and the inspiration isn't always right in front of us. Like Jacob, we don't know what's lurking in the night or how we are going to get to the other side. I know that our collective hearts ache for the victims in Paris and for those who have suffered in Israel during the newest wave of terror. It is our job to help them find the ladder and ascend to new heights.

Shabbat shalom,

Gail

Gail Norry
Lifetime NWP Board Member

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