Vayeitze: Don't Look Down!

In this week's Torah portion, Jacob has his famous dream in which he sees a vision of a ladder. The feet of the ladder are planted firmly on the ground and the head reaches the heavens, with angels ascending and descending.

G-d is Infinite, yet He created a finite world with finite beings in it.  How do we reconcile the finite with the Infinite?  Just like the ladder in Jacob's dream, we are provided with our own ladder - the mystical Zohar text tells us Jacob's ladder is a metaphor for prayer.  Through prayer (and the performance of the Torah's Commandments), stage by stage, rung by rung, we are connecting the finite, material world with the Infinite.  The base may be rooted on the earth, the finite, but the highest step reaches the Heavens, the Infinite.

Life is compared to a ladder.  The deciding factor is not how high you have reached, but which way you are going - up or down.  Better to be at the bottom yet ascending than at the top but descending.

A story is told of a very smart child who, despite being very young, had managed to climb very high up a tall tree.  When his father asked him how he had managed it, he told him "simple - I didn't look down".

It is well-known that one way to avoid or at least decrease the fear of heights is "not to look down".  So too, in our lives, by always aspiring to go one better, looking towards the future and not looking down, backwards, into the past, the task of moving on to the next rung of the ladder becomes far less formidable.

The Jewish people, scattered throughout the world, are charged with the sacred mission of being a light unto all the Nations, of bringing light to every corner of the world - a sense of higher purpose, a higher set of values.

G-d tells Jacob "... your seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and you shall burst forth to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south... and through you... all shall be blessed."

May we all be blessed with peace and prosperity.

Shabbat Shalom