Parashat Hashavua: Vayetze
וַיֵּצֵא יַעֲקֹב מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע וַיֵּלֶךְ חָרָנָה (בראשית כ״ח:י)
Jacob left Beersheva and went to Haran. (Genesis 28:10)
To say that Yaakov “left” Beersheva is already a bit of a romanticization of the truth. In fact, he fled Beersheva, on the run from a brother who had threatened to kill him, into the wilderness of Haran at night, alone.
Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, an early Hasidic rabbi and the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, has the following to say about this particular moment in Jacob’s life:
In these verses we find the mystery of expanded and contracted consciousness, as explicated by my sainted grandfather: “the chiyyut/life force moves away and comes back” (Ezek. 1:14) and it is impossible to remain on one spiritual level for all time. Rather, we go up and down, and the descent is for the sake of later ascent.
The concept of ירידה לצורך עליה – “[spiritual] descent for the sake of ascent” is a foundational Hasidic teaching. This week the Lower School Judaic Studies teachers learned and discussed Rav Nahhman’s text as a faculty. It was a conversation full of deeply felt convictions among a group of Israeli teachers two years after 10.7. It did not take long for a teacher to ask, “how could we possibly say that the experience of the hostages in Gaza was [spiritual] descent for the sake of ascent? That would be an unthinkable trivialization of what they went through.” But, another teacher pointed out in response, “what about the hostages who said themselves that it was prayer that got them through this time and that they emerged with a deeper relationship to Jewish practice and even to God?”
In the end, we proposed two principles for thinking about this spiritual teaching. First, only the person who is herself experiencing adversity can judge it to be spiritual descent for the sake of ascent.” We did not feel it was wise or recommended to suggest this perspective to someone else in most cases. And second, many of us felt that the teaching could be useful as a spiritual tool if we could stipulate that it is a powerful perspective in some cases, while holding onto the conviction that there are also cases when it cannot fully encompass the reality of the situation.
Last week we marked Rosh Hodesh Kislev. We are heading into the coldest, darkest part of the year. Some of us may be facing truths in our own lives and in the world around us that feel profoundly like a descent. At the same time, Hanukkah will soon be upon us with its slender light, and we will pass through the winter solstice, when the days finally begin to lengthen. I invite you to consider if there is some way that this teaching about the possible connection between spiritual descent and ascent could be a lens that might illuminate the possibility of growth and change in your own life.
Rabbi Anne Ebersman
EC/LS Director of Jewish Life/Director of Hesed (Community Service) and Tzedek (Social Responsibility)
