Bill Dauster
This week’s Torah portion is Vayetze: Genesis 28:10 to 32:3.
Where can we find God? This week’s Torah reading helps us imagine some answers.
The patriarch Jacob was in desperate straits. Jacob’s brother Esau was out to kill him and Jacob was fleeing for his life. When he stopped for the night along the way, Jacob dreamt that God told him that God was with him and would protect him wherever he went. When Jacob awoke, he exclaimed, “Surely God is in this place and I did not know it!”
In his wonderful 1991 book, God Was in This Place & I, I Did Not Know, Lawrence Kushner offers several interpretations of Jacob’s exclamation, ranging from literal to mystical.
First, Kushner pictures Jacob thinking anew, “If God was here, and I didn’t know, then perhaps God has been other places also.” Taking the next logical step, Kushner paraphrases Psalm 24 to say, “The whole world is full of God.”
Then Kushner imagines seven conversations between Jacob and inspired Jews of history to help interpret Jacob’s dream.
Rashi interpreted Jacob’s exclamation to mean, “If I had known God was here, I wouldn’t have gone to sleep.” Kushner explains: “The beginning of knowing about God … is simply paying attention, being fully present where you are, or as Rashi suggests, waking up.”
Kushner hears Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker, teaching, “God was here because I was able to subdue my ego.” Kushner imagines Jacob would say, “God was here all along, and the reason I didn’t know it is because I was too busy paying attention to myself.”
Kushner imagines Hannah Rachel Werbermacher of Ludomir telling Jacob, “When you said God was here and you didn’t know it, you were talking about yourself and what you had done. You were talking about finding God even in your most terrible urges. God is truly everywhere; yes, even in midst of evil.” Hannah Rachel explains to Jacob: “When you said that God was in this place and you didn’t know, you realized that God had been involved from the beginning” — even in the bad parts.
Kushner attributes to Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mezritch, the understanding that Jacob thought, “God was here because I stopped being aware of myself.” Kushner imagines Jacob saying, “The reason that I didn’t know God was here is because I was aware of myself.”
Reading Shmuel bar Nachmani, Kushner imagines Jacob thinking, “I could have climbed this ladder of history.” Jacob’s surprise was because he did not know that this moment would be historic. Kushner concludes, “In the same way that God’s presence can be anywhere and anytime, so too any act may be historic.”
Kushner hears Moses ben Shem Tov de León saying, “‘I’ is the Lord your God.” Kushner imagines de León telling Jacob, “Suppose one of God’s Names is: ‘I, Anochi.’ Now the verse reads, ‘Surely God was in this place, but by the Name, “I, Anochi,” I did not know.’”
And Kushner hears Shimshon ben Pesach Ostropoler tell Jacob that Jacob meant, “I didn’t know that my name was part of God’s Name” — that Jacob was an indispensable ingredient of the Divine. Kushner rereads Jacob’s exclamation to mean, “Wow! God was in this place, and I did not know it was I!”
Kusher asks: Did Jacob’s dream cause Jacob to wonder whether God had been a player in Jacob’s life all along — had God been present throughout Jacob’s life?
Might reading Jacob’s story today prompt us to wonder about all the places where God has been present in our lives, as well, and we did not know it?
Bill Dauster, a Senate, White House and campaign staffer since 1986, has written Wikipedia articles on the 54 Torah portions.
