BaMakom HaZeh

[The following was a sermon given at Temple Beth Am in Monessen, PA and adapted from a sermon given at Shir Tikva in Winchester, MA. The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the congregation I am privileged to serve.]

I used to go out to the promenade across the valley from the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem just before sunset, my favorite time in Jerusalem, Yerushalaim shel zahav time—Jerusalem-of-gold time. The time when the slanted rays of the sun hit the sand-colored stones and the entire city shines gold.

Anyone who’s been to Jerusalem knows that it’s just not like anywhere else.
In the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, the narrow alleyways criss-cross sudden courtyards, winding up and down stairs, built upon layers and layers of stones attesting to the special place this hilltop city has held in Jewish history for centuries upon centuries. Suddenly, the city opens up and you’re standing at the Western Wall plaza. Thousands of people stuff notes into the crevices between the stones, carved and set in place during the time of King Herod. But around the corner, at the Southern Wall—that’s the spot I loved best.

The Southern Wall plaza contains a set of stairs leading to arches long since filled in with massive stone blocks. Pilgrims to the ancient Temple climbed these stairs and entered those arches to make sacrifices to God. Before them stood what must have been the largest human-built structure they had ever seen: the Temple of Solomon, and within it, the Holy of Holies. Unlike other sanctuaries of the Ancient Near East, the Temple in Jerusalem contained no statue. Instead, it held the Ark of the Covenant and the tablets on which the finger of God wrote the commandments.

It also held something else: a stone.

Jewish tradition says that the Holy of Holies stood upon the precise peak of Mount Moriah, the very spot where Abraham willingly offered his son Isaac as proof of his loyalty to God. But Abraham wasn’t the only Jewish patriarch to come into contact with that stone. The peak of Mount Moriah served not only as an altar but as a pillow. According to the rabbis, when Jacob camps out in the wilderness, the stone on which he rests his head is indeed the very same stone Abraham used for an altar.

From the Torah: Jacob leaves home to escape his brother Esau’s anger about the stolen birthright. Along his route, Jacob stops to rest, taking a stone for a pillow. In his sleep, “He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached the sky, and angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (28:12).

But Jacob’s experience on that night involved not only a vision of angels and a stairway and a realm beyond human experience.

As Jacob lay on the hard ground, his head upon the stone, he experienced a physical presence. “[Hinei ADONAI] And here is the Eternal [nitzav alaiv] standing beside him.” The God of his father Isaac and of his grandfather Abraham stood, a physical act, with Jacob, promising to give land, prosperity, and blessing to his descendants.

Jacob’s nearness to God motivates and changes him. When he wakes, he wonders aloud at his blindness to the significance of this place:

[Vayikatz Yaakov mishnato vayomer:] And Jacob awoke from his sleep and said: [“Achein! Yeish ADONAI bamakom hazeh v’anochi lo yadati”] “Aha! The Eternal was in this place and I did not know it!” [vayirah vayomar:] and he was shaken/awed/afraid, and he said: [“Mah-nora hamakom hazeh! ] “How awesome is this place! [ein zeh ki im beit elohim v’zeh sha’ar hashamayim”] This is none other than a house of God, and that is the gateway of heaven.” (28:16-18)


Jacob immediately erects a pillar and makes a vow to honor Adonai as his God.

While we tend to think of the presence of God as spiritual, we are strongly encouraged in this Torah portion to imagine the presence of God as physical—as upon us, aleinu. Jacob experienced the presence of God as an overwhelming, physical, bodily sensation. There was the Eternal in this place, here, at that very moment.

We might lament that we have no such opportunity. God simply doesn’t do that anymore. Or we might think, perhaps God appears in Jerusalem, at the peak of Mount Moriah, but not in the Monongahela Valley!

Jacob’s reply can guide us: [“Achein! Yeish ADONAI bamakom hazeh] “Aha! There was the Eternal in this place [v’anochi lo yadati] and I did not know it!” (28:16). In Hebrew, personal pronouns are not necessary; verbs tell us all we need to know about both actor and action. Here, however, we read “v’anochi”—and I—“lo yadati”—I did not know. “There was the Eternal in this place and I, I did not know.”

In other words, how could I not have known? How could I not have seen? How could I not have felt? What was it about me that prevented me from recognizing the presence of God bamakom hazeh, in this place?

Torah commentators pore over the exact, earthly location of Jacob’s dream site. Rashi infers from this passage a remarkable reshaping of the physical world that brings Jacob close to important sites in the history of the covenant between God and Israel: “God folded the entire Land of Israel beneath [Jacob]” (Genesis Rabbah). Jacob’s pillow represents layer upon layer of sacred spots: Hamakom hazeh, “this place,” is at once the site of Abraham’s prayer and worship; Mt. Moriah, the place of the near-sacrifice of Isaac; and the field where Isaac prayed after his ordeal. Rashi argues that “this place” is extraordinary, linked to the Jewish past and deeply significant to the covenant between God and Israel.

We can wait for a dream of our own—one in which we are seamlessly folded into the Jewish past—but this is not the only way our Torah portion imagines the potential for humans to encounter the Divine.

Perhaps the key is that God was indeed bamakom hazeh, in this place—not at the top of the stairway, not behind the gate of heaven, but standing over Jacob, who slept on the hard ground with a rock for a pillow. What if that rock was “just” a rock?

Standing on the stairs by the Southern Wall in Jerusalem, it’s all too easy to think, “Achein! ” The rise is steep; you are truly climbing, the closed arches before you, behind you, the rocky hills of Jerusalem and beyond, the expanse of the desert and the looming mountains of Morav. Awesome.

In arguing that God provided a very special pillow for Jacob, the rabbis imply that certain places offer unique access to the divine.

When we pray in this sanctuary, do we have a special access to God? Do you feel differently in this room than you do in your living room? I do. But I am not sure that what is different about this place is the presence of the sefer Torah or the smooth stone surrounding the ark or the lovingly-tended and beautiful mantles covering the scrools. I am not sure it is the physical structure, this building with its ritual objects and works of art, its Talmud volumes and schooldesks. Rather, what makes this place sacred, what makes this place a Beit Elohim is you, is us, is the community we form each month when we gather to hear the words of our tradition, the community that continues to nurture one another in very real ways throughout the year, throughout the lives of each of its members. What makes this space sacred are the memories of b’nei mitzvah celebrated on this bima, offers of food and sympathy carried to a mourner’s house, the names of this community’s ancestors displayed on the memorial plaques, holiday dinners shared down in the social hall, lively arguments at Torah study. This Beth Am, a house of the people, is indeed a Beit Elohim, a House of God. Like Jacob’s dream-place, like hamakom hazeh, this place offers us a vision of a stairway to the divine.

Jerusalem is special. And being in this sanctuary helps many of us to differently focus our attention toward Jewish ideals, our own Jewish memories, and the Divine. But we learn in this week’s Torah portion that we can connect to our Jewish tradition in any and every place. God manifested in an ordinary place, a physical spot in the real, tangible world. The fact that Jacob, upon waking, builds not a temple or a palace but a pillar, a marker for the next passerby, suggests not that bamakom hazeh is the lone, particular, special dwelling-place of the God of our ancestors, but that we, if we are open to it, can experience the presence of God in the places where we find ourselves.

So, despite the rabbis’ confidence that Jacob’s makom hazeh marks an actual location in Israel, we need not conclude that we can find God in only a finite number of places. Rather, our tradition tells us that God loves the Jewish people enough to transform any place—even a bed on the ground and a stone pillow—into a space in which we experience God’s nearness. If we are open to the surprise (Achein! ), we too might find God bamakom hazeh, in this place. As Lawrence Kushner writes, “There is another world, right here within this one, whenever we pay attention” (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2006: 25). We can open our hearts and minds to the surprise that, unbeknownst to us, God has been bamakom hazeh, in this place, all along.