A rock is more than a rock
Dear friends,
Pope Francis, in his beautiful Thanksgiving offering, invited us to use this moment of “stoppage,” as he called it, to dream big. He quotes Holderlin: “Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” As we have sensed from the start, this pandemic, with its horrors and difficulties is an opportunity to rethink, re-imagine, re-see the world for what it is and what it can be.
This week’s parasha, Vayetze is ripe for dreaming big.
It begins in danger. Jacob’s brother Esau wants to kill him. His mother sends him away. Alone in the middle of nowhere, he lays his head down on a rock and falls asleep. He dreams as big a dream as one can dream.
“…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. And, behold, the LORD stood beside him, and said: "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac... thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
The dream is so big that it includes the spiritual reality of the world, the far future of the physical world and the purpose one should strive toward in life. But that is just the starting point. As we are learning in our chevrutah, the text invites us to dream further into it. The commentators show us how it’s done. Rashi:
“The stones began quarrelling with one another. One said, “Upon me let this righteous man rest his head”, and another said “Upon me let him rest it”. Whereupon the Holy One, blessed be He, straightway made them into one stone!”
Chizkuni picks it up from there:
This stone was the one known in later generations as the even shetiyah, symbolising the navel of the globe. A mystical stone at the site where the Holy Ark had stood in the Holy of Holies during the first Temple. This stone, if removed, would expose a hole going down to the center of the earth. It is supposed to have served G-d as the first piece of solid material of what would be the globe on which we live.
I have seen this stone. It now sits in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Until it was closed to non-Muslims following Israeli politicians’ forceful provocations, I used to go up and see this amazing, large, flat rock. You could imagine how the whole world could be established on it. What was more amazing was how these ancient dreams became a reality for the millions of people who would come see it and gain strength and faith and wonder from it, and the billions who would dream up its beauty in their imaginations.
Temple Mount, where the rock stands, is a perfect example of the place of danger, which is where the saving power grows. These are energies that often live together.
If we can take Pope Francis’ calling right now in this moment, our dreams will manifest. A rock, I learned, is much more than just a rock. A dream can be far more real than reality.
How does that happen? The Talmud explains how human beings easily turn dreams into reality. Join us Wednesday at 4pm for chevrutah to learn about it.
Shabbat shalom, with rocks and dreams of gratitude,
Rabbi Misha