(Delivered November 29, 2025)

One of the many things the Jewish community will probably never agree about is how to answer the question, “Where is God?”

Ask someone who’s spiritual but not religious and they are likely to say God is everywhere. Ask an atheist or a cynic and they’ll say God is nowhere. A reading in the Reform siddur describes God as, “closer than the air we breathe, yet further than the furthermost star.” So where is that, exactly?

The opening of Parshat Vayetze invites us into this unanswerable question with its famous image of Jacob’s Ladder. On the run from his murderous twin brother, Jacob lies down out in the open, and dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder that reaches all the way to the sky. This electrifying vision jolts him into a different realm of consciousness, and when he wakes up he says the famous words:

אָכֵן יֵשׁ ה’ בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא יָדָעְתִּי
Indeed there was divinity in this place, and I didn’t even know

It’s easy to credit Jacob’s realization to the vision of that ladder teeming with angels. It’s an incredibly powerful image, which has found its way into all manner of artistic representation. And as a concept, it has plenty of crossover appeal. A quick AI search on the phrase ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ yields this: ​​”Jacob’s Ladder” most commonly refers to a biblical dream about a ladder to heaven, a 1990 psychological horror film starring Tim Robbins, or a type of wildflower with ladder-like leaves. It can also refer to a specific type of toy, a staircase in the Peak District of England, or a symbol in Freemasonry. In other words, Jacob’s isn’t the only imagination captured by the angel-filled ladder.

Jacob is a character who doesn’t appear to have much of a spiritual life prior to this encounter. He has so far come across as cunning and manipulative, not as a person in touch with a spiritual core that would prompt him to reflect on morality. In Parshat Toldot, he’s described as an אִישׁ תָּם—a simple man, which calls to mind the comparison with the simple child in the Haggadah. We can easily picture Jacob, when confronted with a spiritual question, responding like that simple child and saying מַה זּאֹת—what’s this?

So God has to hit Jacob over the head, with a vivid, unforgettable impression. But if we slow down over the passage, we can put together some of the unsung pieces of holiness.

Take, for example, Jacob’s physical experience and surroundings. The same verse that tells us he is an אִישׁ תָּם also describes his happy place: יֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִים—dwelling in tents. Unlike his twin brother, he’s almost an indoorsman and stays close to home. But at the beginning of Vayetze, he finds himself sleeping outside on the hard ground, out in the open, with a rock for a pillow. Like many of us, he resists going outside but when he finally ventures out, he finds something both grounding and uplifting. (Kind of like a ladder, if you think about it.) Getting closer to the natural world allows Jacob—and us—easier access to the divine. Encountering the mystery of creation invites us to ask מַה זּאֹת—what is this?—and increases the chance that we might sense the presence of  the Creator.

There’s more to it still: in verse 11, the text specifies that when Jacob arrives at the place, he stops for the night because the sun has set. Rashi comments that the word order suggests something unusual about the sunset. Had things been as normal, the text would have said: וַיָּבֹא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וַיָּלֶן שָׁם—the sun was setting, so he lay down for the night. According to Rashi, the text reverses the order to say he lay down because the sun had set, implying that the sun set suddenly for Jacob, not at its usual time, forcing him to stay in that exact place overnight. In Rashi’s reading, Jacob was taken aback by the sunset. It stopped him in his tracks.

In a different comment on the same verse, Rashi also specifies the place where Jacob stops. Because it is designated with the word מָּקוֹם, Rashi connects it to these words of Parshat Lech L’cha וַיַּרְא אֶת הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק—and he saw the place from afar—meaning Mount Moriah, the location of the עַקֵידָה—the binding of Isaac. That Jacob would experience the divine in the location of his father’s trauma opens the possibility of a kind of tikkun, a redemption of the horror of the earlier experience. 

To our question of where is God, though, this connection offers yet another layer. In Jewish tradition, the word מָּקוֹם is sometimes used to refer to God. Substituting it in, we can read the verse in Lech L’cha וַיַּרְא אֶת הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק—as he [maybe Abraham, maybe Isaac] saw God from afar. And here in Vayetze, Jacob gets a closer encounter: וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם—and he met God.

Jacob’s conflicting impulses show some of his theological confusion: when he makes his vow to God after receiving the vision, his goal is to return to his father’s house. Yet he names the place where he is Beit El—House of God. For Jacob, there is confusion as to where God is: at home with his complicated family, or out in the open, in this special place that, despite its association with some of what makes his family so complicated, becomes a מָּקוֹם, a stand-in for divinity itself. 

It’s a little bit of both, as I suspect is the case for many of us. Jacob definitely taps into something larger than himself in the solitude of nature, aided and abetted by an extravagant vision of the holiness that he could access if he knew how. Yet he remains rooted to his family and his past, with all its competition and missed connections and hurt feelings and drama. Home and away. Isaac’s house and Beit El. Both speak to something essential in Jacob.

Ultimately, I think the parsha wants us to pause and locate God in each moment. The word וְהִנֵּה—and here—shows up eleven times in Parshat Vayetze. And so it is with God. God is here. And here. And here and here.

Shabbat shalom!