Timeless Torah

Jacob has his first prophetic vision when he is alone. Not when he is in his father and mother's house, but in the dark of night in a lonely field. There on the road, with wild beasts about, he is forced to use a rock as a pillow upon which he rests his head. He prays the evening service, falls asleep, dreams and, “Behold! A ladder was standing on the ground and its top reached the heavens. And G-d’s angels were going up and down upon it.”

At first glance the dream is optimistic and obvious. G-d promises Jacob that the land upon which he lies will belong to him and his progeny forever. The pledge, not a new one, indeed has its own tradition. It was given to Jacob's father and grandfather. G-d himself reminds Jacob of this when He begins His words with, "I am G-d, L-rd of Abraham and L-rd of Isaac."
This promise then is made to Jacob, the chosen successor and conscious bearer of their destiny. He is partly Isaac and partly Abraham. But having said this, we have almost stated a contradiction.

Abraham and Isaac are strikingly different. Abraham is dynamic, a revolutionary. He converts thousands to monotheism. A decisive individual, he does not vacillate. He is not afraid of crisis. When necessary, he fights battles to save his nephew and argues with G-d to save Sodom. Throughout his life he makes the painful decisions. He cuts himself off from his birthplace and family; he performs his own circumcision; he offers his beloved son as a sacrifice to G-d.

He believes man to be the captain of his fate and master of his soul. He is confident that individuals can mold and influence their lives and the world around them. He is very much a man of this earth.

Isaac, however, is another story. Events happen to him while he passively observes, knowing that G-d's will, not man's machinations, ultimately prevail. The cataclysmic watershed event of his life, the akeidah, is done to him, not by him. When the time comes for Isaac to have a wife, he stays put. Instead, his father's servant, Eliezer, is sent to accomplish the deed. Isaac is the silent and blind one. For when one has glimpsed Paradise and the world above as Isaac did, bound and ready for the slaughter, what else is there to see? When one has been told by G-d Himself that one is holy and cannot leave the Promised Land, what else is there to say?

So while others may think they have deceived him- be it Rebecca, Esau or Jacob - Isaac knows that these transitory incidents are themselves illusions. It is the Divine plan that will eventually triumph. Isaac then is the creature of heaven, for the most part unconcerned with the lives of man.

From this genealogy emerges Jacob. He needs a plan, an approach to life. The dream, rather than soothing and clarifying, provides no answer. It only ponders the question and states the dilemma. Shall he be part of the ladder that is rooted upon earth, like his grandfather Abraham, an active participant in the perfection of this world? Or perhaps he should be the section of ladder that scales the heavens, similar to Isaac who withdraws from the mundane in order to reach for the stars? G-d may bless Jacob on his venture, but the choice of which path to follow is still man's.