Jacob escapes his parents’ dwelling place in Beer-Sheba in order to avoid the wrath of his brother, whom he had deceived. His journey is long: we are told that he is headed to Haran, a town believed to be in Turkey just off the Syrian border. A long journey, no doubt, yet we only hear about one episode on the way. The text tells us:

וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם וַיָּלֶן שָׁם כִּי בָא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וַיִּקַּח מֵאַבְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם וַיָּשֶׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיִּשְׁכַּב בַּמָּקוֹם הַהוּא.

He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. (Genesis 28:11)

Significantly, the text volunteers no details about the exact location but calls is just “a place.” The Hebrew for “he came to a certain place”, is vayifga bamakom (ויפגע במקום), “he stumbled upon a place”, which emphasizes the randomness of the location. The text also makes sure that we know that the only reason Jacob stopped at that place was “because the sun had set” and for no other reason.

Then comes the fantastic dream: he sees the ladder between heaven and earth and angels ascending and descending on it. And he hears God speaking to him, giving him a vision of a glorious future and pledging to support him forever.

Notice what happens right after the dream:

וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר אָכֵן יֵשׁ יְהוָה בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא יָדָעְתִּי. וַיִּירָא וַיֹּאמַר מַה נּוֹרָא הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה אֵין זֶה כִּי אִם בֵּית אֱלֹהִים וְזֶה שַׁעַר הַשָּׁמָיִם. וַיַּשְׁכֵּם יַעֲקֹב בַּבֹּקֶר וַיִּקַּח אֶת הָאֶבֶן אֲשֶׁר שָׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיָּשֶׂם אֹתָהּ מַצֵּבָה וַיִּצֹק שֶׁמֶן עַל רֹאשָׁהּ.

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely Y-H-V-H is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. (Genesis 28:16-18)

These words are important: “Surely Y-H-V-H is in this place—and I did not know it!” But where is this place? Any place. It’s just somewhere, anywhere, between Beer-Sheba and Haran. And the stone that he put under his head as a pillow is just a stone, any stone. What has changed, then? His consciousness has changed, his perception, his awareness. The place is the same place, the rock is the same rock, but it is Jacob’s internal transformation that allows him to realize the truth of the maxim propagated by the Zohar, the Book of Splendor: leyt atar panuy miney (לית אתר פנוי מיניה), “there is no place where He is not.” Or, in the words of the Breslav Hassids:

הכל מכל עצם זיו חיות אלוקותו יתברך ממש

Anything and everything is, in actuality, the very essence of the radiance of the liveliness of Him, the Blessed One.

Jacob’s symbolic response is to take the rock and pour oil on it. He anoints a rock. It’s an expression of a deep recognition of the fact that even a piece of inert matter is, in its essence, the one and only Reality, the ONE.

Only then does the text tell us that, in fact, this no place in the middle of nowhere had a name. We are told that Jacob named the place Bethel (lit. House of God), instead of its original name, Luz.

וַיִּקְרָא אֶת שֵׁם הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא בֵּית אֵל וְאוּלָם לוּז שֵׁם הָעִיר לָרִאשֹׁנָה.

He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

Where is this Bethel, this House of God? Anywhere you are, so long as you are open to recognizing it. What transforms any old place into a sacred house of God is your own recognition, your own attention, your own consciousness.

One cannot think of a more important message for the Torah to convey. It’s one thing to say that God is omnipresent. It’s much more implicating and challenging to say that He—or She or It—is nearer to you than your own breath. But this is precisely the message that this story conveys, a message that is later elaborated by Moses as he speaks to the people of Israel:

כִּי הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם–לֹא-נִפְלֵאת הִוא מִמְּךָ, וְלֹא רְחֹקָה הִוא. לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם, הִוא לֵאמֹר: מִי יַעֲלֶה-לָּנוּ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ, וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ, וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה. וְלֹא-מֵעֵבֶר לַיָּם, הִוא:  לֵאמֹר, מִי יַעֲבָר-לָנוּ אֶל-עֵבֶר הַיָּם וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ, וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ, וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה. כִּי-קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר, מְאֹד בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ, לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ.

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. (Deutoronomy 30:11-14)

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The immediacy of divine presence is a fundamental teaching of all major religions. Prophets, saints, enlightened founders of religions and realized teachers throughout the ages and in every culture have been trying in every way to help their followers grasp this simple fact: God is nearer than near, and only our insistence on His/Her/Its distance and inaccessibility makes God distant and inaccessible.

But the Truth is as radical as it is simple. In Jesus’ words:

The Kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)

In the Qur’an Allah proclaims:

وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ

wanahnu aqrabu ilayhi min habli alwareedi

We are nearer to him [man] than his jugular vein. (Surah 50:16)

The Upanishadic sages of India sang:

Brahman shines forth, vast, self-luminous, inconceivable, subtler than the subtle. He is far beyond what is far, and yet here very near at hand. Verily, He is seen here, dwelling in the cave of conscious beings. (Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.7)

In the Adi Granth, the Sikh sacred text, it is said:

Ever is He present with you—think not He is far.
By the Master’s teaching recognize him within yourself. (Majh Ashtapadi, M.3)

In the Buddhist Parinirvana Sutra we read:

It is only when all outward appearances are gone that there is left that one principle of life which exists independently of all external phenomena. (XXXIX)

In the Shinto tradition we find the following:

Do not search in distant skies for God. In man’s own heart is He found. (Shao Yung)

There is the famous quote attributed to Confucius:

” what the undeveloped man seeks is outside, what the advanced man seeks is within himself.”

And the list goes on and on.

* * *

Reckoning with the Truth of the immediacy of the divine presence poses some deep philosophical and practical questions. What does it mean about external acts of worship? One Algerian Sufi teacher, who is considered a saint by his followers, proclaimed that he does not pray. Praying would make him a kafir (heretic), he said, because it would suggest an existence of God separate than himself.*

So is it a free-for-all? And what is the difference, then, between someone who does not pray because she asserts non-separation from the divine, and another who does not pray because she does not believe in God, or believes but feels lazy?

While philosophically, the omnipresence (and therefore nearness) of God is unconditional, it only becomes a living, experiential reality in us when we choose to make it so. There’s a saying, “The God you don’t believe in does not exist.” And that applies here too. Which is why the Psalm says:

קָרוֹב יְהוָה, לְכָל-קֹרְאָיו, לְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָאֻהוּ בֶאֱמֶת.

Y-H-V-H is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
(Psalm 145:18)

Our attitude, our faith, is what makes the truth about the immediacy apparent in our lives. Here’s how the Muslim Hadith Qudsi describes the “leaning in” that is required, and what it leads to:

God has declared: I am close to the thought that My servant has to Me, and I am with him whenever He recollects Me. If he remember Me in himself, I remember him in Myself, and if he remembers Me in a gathering, I remember him better than those in the gathering do, and if he approaches Me by as much as one hand’s length, I approach him by a cubit, and if he approaches my by a cubit, then I draw nigh to him by two hands’ length. If he takes a step towards me, I run towards him. (Musnad-e Ahmad Hanbal)

* * *

It is interesting to note, that in this last quote, the Arabic word used in the text for “remembering” and “remembrance” is dhikr. In the Sufi tradition, this has come to mean not just memory, but a whole host of meditative practices that are aimed at taking the awareness of the devotee, or aspirant for truth, from his normal state of mundane perception to the point where he would perceive any mundane place as Bethel and any rock as an object worthy of anointment.

Indeed, if God can be found most easily and most readily within, one could argue that meditative and contemplative practices should occupy a more central place in serious religious life. Psalm verses such as lecha dumiya tehileah (לְךָ דֻמִיָּה תְהִלָּה) “Silence is praise for Thee” (Psalm 65:2) or harpu ude’u ki anokhi elohim (הַרְפּוּ וּדְעוּ כִּי אָנֹכִי אֱלֹהִים) “Be till, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:11) should not be seen as merely poetic expressions of a devoted ancient king but as practical formulas for entering union with the divine. Such meditative practices are the most effective way to “hear” the kol dmama daka (קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה) “The sound of subtle silence”**(1 King 19:12) through which God appeared before Elijah. And then we too can realize, “Surely Y-H-V-H is in this place—and I did not know it!”

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*This was told to me by a follower of his. I regret that I do not remember the name of the person, nor do I have a reference.

**Commonly translated as “a still small voice.”

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)