Post by Rabbi Neil on Nov 12, 2021 22:45:17 GMT
Very often in Talmud, the Rabbis refer to God as hamaqom, which literally means, “The Place.” In modern-day parlance, I have always translated hamaqom as the Omnipresent – God present anywhere and everywhere. But re-reading this week’s sidrah, I think I need to understand that word Omnipresent differently.
Jacob lays his head on a rock and has a wonderful dream of a stairway on which angels rise up to heaven and come down from heaven. When he awakes from the dream, he says, “Achen yesh adonai bamaqom hazeh, ve’anochi lo yadati – “Surely God is in this place but I did not know.” This is never how I had read this verse in the past. I always used to read it as “Surely, God was in this place but I did not know,” as though God had been there with him and had then somehow left. But it’s not that at all – God IS in this place. As a result, he becomes fearful and says, “Mah nora hamaqom hazeh – how awesome is this place, although if one wanted to be Talmudic one could suggest it means, “How awesome is God.” Ein zeh ki im beit elohim v’zeh ha’sha’ar hashamayim – This is none other than the abode of God, and this is the gate to heaven” (Gen. 28:17).
This verse is of profound importance to us today. Jacob rests his head on the rock, the most uncomfortable place to rest his head. Not moss, not grass, but a cold, hard rock. The world around him gives him no comfort. And then when he dreams, he sees angels not coming down from heaven, but going up to heaven from earth. Jacob sees that divinity does come down from heaven, yet before it comes down from heaven it springs forth from the earth. And all the while in this dream, God stands with him. Jacob’s realisation is profoundly ancient and yet also profoundly modern.
It’s a realisation that Judaism has always had as a core belief – God is in this place. It’s very easy for us to romanticise religion by saying that God is in a beautiful sunset, or God is in a rainbow. It’s rather easy to say “God is in this place” when something so awesome appears in front of you. Jacob’s realisation is different. The cold, hard rock is just as awesome as the sunset, it’s just harder to see. But, think about it. A rock tells a story. It tells a story of millennia. It tells a story of erosion, of generations that pass it, kick it, roll it, sleep on it. It tells a story of wind and rain, sun and heat, snow and icy cold. A rock is literally just as awesome as a rainbow or a sunset, it just uses less of the paint palette.
Now what I’m not saying is what Judaism has always been opposed to – the viewpoint that that the rock is God. That’s definitely not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is that Jacob realises that even here, even lying on the cold, hard ground with a rock for a pillow, even God is here. God can be found everywhere in this world, even in the mud, in the puddle, in the compost heap, in the desert. God is even here.
Jacob’s realisation shakes him. He, like most of us, is expecting only to find God in certain places, but he realises that everywhere can be sacred. The cold, hard rock that he used for a pillow becomes a key stone in a pillar dedicated to God at that spot. He takes what he thought was mundane and he makes it holy. His verbal response to his realisation is also so interesting – “How awesome is this place.” Now, forgive me if I’m over-generalising, but I’m guessing it’s safe to say that not many of us spend many moments in our lives saying, “How awesome is this place.” We might by the sea, we might in a wood or we might on top of a mountain, but we do less so walking in the street, or maybe even sitting in Temple! How awesome is this place? Why is it awesome? Jacob tells us – it’s the abode of God. Every place is the abode of God. Not that God literally lives everywhere, but that God can be found everywhere. Everywhere. Again, this is not saying that everywhere is but that God may be found everywhere.
So, the term Omnipresent makes absolute sense, but it also misses a bit. It sounds like God is spread out like a cloth over the entire world, dispersed, almost. But it’s the other way round, actually. Wherever you are, God is, too.
If we really took this message to heart, we would have an entirely different approach to this world. We would love this world because, as Jacob says, “it is a gateway to heaven.” If we really saw that every place were a gateway to heaven, we would cherish every place. We wouldn’t just romanticise about rainforests, we would protect local fields from having roads built over them. We would object to building on protected land. Yet, even if the world were covered in tarmac, we would still be able to find God there, on that cold, hard stone. It would just be harder. So much of our world is manufactured stone. Stone buildings, stone roads, stone pavements. We’re so used to it that we see it as dead, and we become numb. We become like Jacob before his dream – not seeing that God can even be found there. Because when we concrete over our world, it becomes grey, and we then only find God in dazzling arrays of colour, which certainly is ironic for me since I’m colourblind!
So, our concrete roads and pavements are not as dazzling as natural rocks and stones that have been untouched by human hands, but God is still there, just harder to find. People often call this country a Developed nation, but I struggle with this term. Technologically we may be developed, but with that technological development comes a spiritual impoverishment. We’ve forgotten that God is in this place too, and when we realise it, it shakes us to the core, because we know that once we truly realise that God is in the world, particularly the world that God created in its raw form, we have a duty to protect it, because every natural area is a gateway to heaven. Every part of God’s natural world says, “God is in this place, too.” Realising that means that we have to protect it, and that’s perhaps why we don’t want to realise it, because with great awareness comes great responsibility.
This week, we’ve been treated to more utterly predictable failures at an international climate summit, with global temperatures now expected to rise two and a half degrees if current agreements are held, which they never have been in the past. What we’re watching in real-time is the political dismemberment of the gateway to heaven, a gateway that we have a duty to keep open as much as possible, for if the earth is impoverished due to global heating, it will once again be harder to say that God is in this place.
So, governments can set targets of carbon emissions and they can talk about personal carbon credits or an end to deforestation, but unless human beings are made to shake from within with the existential awe that God is in this place, these will merely be numerical exercises with little value and little social enfirocement. The only way to make people shake from within when it comes to the natural world is to remind people that everywhere in the natural world is a gateway to heaven, and that if they allow it to become polluted or covered over, then they make it much harder to connect with God once more. We need to remind people that being developed technologically seems to have meant becoming undeveloped spiritually. We need to be able to look around at every spot on Earth and say, “God is in this place too, and I did not know. But now that I do know, I’m going to make sure that I treasure it.”
This week, may we all take a moment to find a space and pause until we truly recognize that God is in that place, too. May that realization change us, terrify us, and empower us, and let us say, Amen.
Jacob lays his head on a rock and has a wonderful dream of a stairway on which angels rise up to heaven and come down from heaven. When he awakes from the dream, he says, “Achen yesh adonai bamaqom hazeh, ve’anochi lo yadati – “Surely God is in this place but I did not know.” This is never how I had read this verse in the past. I always used to read it as “Surely, God was in this place but I did not know,” as though God had been there with him and had then somehow left. But it’s not that at all – God IS in this place. As a result, he becomes fearful and says, “Mah nora hamaqom hazeh – how awesome is this place, although if one wanted to be Talmudic one could suggest it means, “How awesome is God.” Ein zeh ki im beit elohim v’zeh ha’sha’ar hashamayim – This is none other than the abode of God, and this is the gate to heaven” (Gen. 28:17).
This verse is of profound importance to us today. Jacob rests his head on the rock, the most uncomfortable place to rest his head. Not moss, not grass, but a cold, hard rock. The world around him gives him no comfort. And then when he dreams, he sees angels not coming down from heaven, but going up to heaven from earth. Jacob sees that divinity does come down from heaven, yet before it comes down from heaven it springs forth from the earth. And all the while in this dream, God stands with him. Jacob’s realisation is profoundly ancient and yet also profoundly modern.
It’s a realisation that Judaism has always had as a core belief – God is in this place. It’s very easy for us to romanticise religion by saying that God is in a beautiful sunset, or God is in a rainbow. It’s rather easy to say “God is in this place” when something so awesome appears in front of you. Jacob’s realisation is different. The cold, hard rock is just as awesome as the sunset, it’s just harder to see. But, think about it. A rock tells a story. It tells a story of millennia. It tells a story of erosion, of generations that pass it, kick it, roll it, sleep on it. It tells a story of wind and rain, sun and heat, snow and icy cold. A rock is literally just as awesome as a rainbow or a sunset, it just uses less of the paint palette.
Now what I’m not saying is what Judaism has always been opposed to – the viewpoint that that the rock is God. That’s definitely not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is that Jacob realises that even here, even lying on the cold, hard ground with a rock for a pillow, even God is here. God can be found everywhere in this world, even in the mud, in the puddle, in the compost heap, in the desert. God is even here.
Jacob’s realisation shakes him. He, like most of us, is expecting only to find God in certain places, but he realises that everywhere can be sacred. The cold, hard rock that he used for a pillow becomes a key stone in a pillar dedicated to God at that spot. He takes what he thought was mundane and he makes it holy. His verbal response to his realisation is also so interesting – “How awesome is this place.” Now, forgive me if I’m over-generalising, but I’m guessing it’s safe to say that not many of us spend many moments in our lives saying, “How awesome is this place.” We might by the sea, we might in a wood or we might on top of a mountain, but we do less so walking in the street, or maybe even sitting in Temple! How awesome is this place? Why is it awesome? Jacob tells us – it’s the abode of God. Every place is the abode of God. Not that God literally lives everywhere, but that God can be found everywhere. Everywhere. Again, this is not saying that everywhere is but that God may be found everywhere.
So, the term Omnipresent makes absolute sense, but it also misses a bit. It sounds like God is spread out like a cloth over the entire world, dispersed, almost. But it’s the other way round, actually. Wherever you are, God is, too.
If we really took this message to heart, we would have an entirely different approach to this world. We would love this world because, as Jacob says, “it is a gateway to heaven.” If we really saw that every place were a gateway to heaven, we would cherish every place. We wouldn’t just romanticise about rainforests, we would protect local fields from having roads built over them. We would object to building on protected land. Yet, even if the world were covered in tarmac, we would still be able to find God there, on that cold, hard stone. It would just be harder. So much of our world is manufactured stone. Stone buildings, stone roads, stone pavements. We’re so used to it that we see it as dead, and we become numb. We become like Jacob before his dream – not seeing that God can even be found there. Because when we concrete over our world, it becomes grey, and we then only find God in dazzling arrays of colour, which certainly is ironic for me since I’m colourblind!
So, our concrete roads and pavements are not as dazzling as natural rocks and stones that have been untouched by human hands, but God is still there, just harder to find. People often call this country a Developed nation, but I struggle with this term. Technologically we may be developed, but with that technological development comes a spiritual impoverishment. We’ve forgotten that God is in this place too, and when we realise it, it shakes us to the core, because we know that once we truly realise that God is in the world, particularly the world that God created in its raw form, we have a duty to protect it, because every natural area is a gateway to heaven. Every part of God’s natural world says, “God is in this place, too.” Realising that means that we have to protect it, and that’s perhaps why we don’t want to realise it, because with great awareness comes great responsibility.
This week, we’ve been treated to more utterly predictable failures at an international climate summit, with global temperatures now expected to rise two and a half degrees if current agreements are held, which they never have been in the past. What we’re watching in real-time is the political dismemberment of the gateway to heaven, a gateway that we have a duty to keep open as much as possible, for if the earth is impoverished due to global heating, it will once again be harder to say that God is in this place.
So, governments can set targets of carbon emissions and they can talk about personal carbon credits or an end to deforestation, but unless human beings are made to shake from within with the existential awe that God is in this place, these will merely be numerical exercises with little value and little social enfirocement. The only way to make people shake from within when it comes to the natural world is to remind people that everywhere in the natural world is a gateway to heaven, and that if they allow it to become polluted or covered over, then they make it much harder to connect with God once more. We need to remind people that being developed technologically seems to have meant becoming undeveloped spiritually. We need to be able to look around at every spot on Earth and say, “God is in this place too, and I did not know. But now that I do know, I’m going to make sure that I treasure it.”
This week, may we all take a moment to find a space and pause until we truly recognize that God is in that place, too. May that realization change us, terrify us, and empower us, and let us say, Amen.
