“And he encountered the place...” (28:11)
In Parshat Vayetze, Yaakov Avinu leaves the holiness and security of his father Yitzchak’s home and steps out into the uncertainty of exile; alone, without possessions, without protection.
The Torah says, “Vayifga bamakom – and he encountered the place.” Chazal teach that this word vayifga implies prayer — an encounter not by arrangement, a chance encounter so to speak. Yaakov does not plan to find Hashem; it’s as though he stumbles upon the Divine.
This is the essence of galut — of exile. In that darkness, when the familiar secure structures of holiness fall away and we don’t “see” Hashem through the clear light of prophecy or miracles. Instead, we stumble upon Him — in the loneliness, in the confusion, in the pain. It is precisely there, in the hiddenness, that the deepest revelation awaits us.
For a pillow, Yaakov takes stones — separate and unyielding. Yet by morning, they have become one stone. From the fragmented world of exile emerges unity. This merging of the stones represents the inner work of the Jewish People in exile: to gather the scattered sparks of holiness and reveal, in a world that appears unreparable, beyond fixing - the oneness of the Creator.
And Yaakov dreams: “Sulam mutzav artza...A ladder standing on the earth with its top reaching heaven.” On this ladder there are Angels ascending and descending. Heaven and earth — two opposites — are connected through this ladder. The Torah says that the angels were ascending and descending ‘bo’. Bo can mean “on it”, on the ladder, or “in him” – in Yaakov. That ladder, says the Zohar, is the soul of Yaakov, the bridge between the upper and lower worlds. In every generation, that ladder exists — that ladder is the Jew who, even in a dark world, lives a life that connects earth to heaven.
Today, as our people once again face fear and uncertainty — with threats, divisions, and moral confusion — the vision of Yaakov Avinu speaks directly to us. The world feels fragmented, the night long. But each of us holds a stone. Each mitzvah, each word of prayer, each act of kindness — these are our stones. When we dedicate them to holiness, they unite and become one foundation, the foundation of the Beit HaMikdash itself.
Yaakov awoke and said “Achen yesh Hashem bamakom hazeh va’anochi lo yada’ti — Truly, G-d is in this place, and I did not know.” This is the voice of discovery after darkness — the awareness that even in confusion, in exile, in the darkest night, the Shechinah never departs. You can stumble across Hashem in the darkest places.
May we, like Yaakov Avinu, awaken to find that the very stones of our struggle have become the foundation of holiness — and that even in the most hidden moments, Hashem is in this place.
