The Possibility of darkness: Rabbi Abramowitz Senior Sermon, Parshat Vayeitzei 2020

So many of my favorite memories happened in the dark. Chasing fireflies in the summer, bounding out of the house to look for the three stars that would mark the end of Shabbat. Driving around aimlessly with friends in high school, wondering where the road and the night might take us. 

But my favorite memory of all, comes in the raucous midst of Bar-Mitzvah preparation. Vayetizei was my Abba’s Bar-Mitzvah parsha, and it was also my brother’s. Coby was 12 or so, and I was 17. And this was the first time I was hearing trope being studied out loud. Hearing the trope of Parshat Vayeitzei, made me feel that one day, I could learn to read Torah, too. 

So, in the evenings, Coby and my Abba would sit at the dining room table. Listening to tapes and reviewing the trope marks. While I sat on the stairs, just out of sight, singing along. Off in another room, I was also learning to leyn Vayeitzei. But, my singing, and my intruding in on Coby’s preparations were understandably irritating, and disruptive. So my Imma would emerge from another room, take my hand, and lead me outside, where we would sit in the rocking chairs until Coby finished his lesson. 

This was our time. Every night for nearly a year, my mom and I would leave through the front door, and sit, rock our way through those hours on the front porch. Sometimes we would argue, sometimes we would sit in silence. But most of the time, those hours passed quickly with laughter, jokes, and stories. The darkness gave us something we couldn’t replicate in any other place or time. Under the cover of the moon and the stars, we could just be. 

Jacob is the first of the Avot, the first of the patriarchs to contend with darkness. 

וַיֵּצֵ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב מִבְּאֵ֣ר שָׁ֑בַע וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה׃ וַיִּפְגַּ֨ע בַּמָּק֜וֹם וַיָּ֤לֶן שָׁם֙ כִּי־בָ֣א הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ וַיִּקַּח֙ מֵאַבְנֵ֣י הַמָּק֔וֹם וַיָּ֖שֶׂם מְרַֽאֲשֹׁתָ֑יו וַיִּשְׁכַּ֖ב בַּמָּק֥וֹם הַהֽוּא׃

Jacob left Beer-Sheba and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep in that place. 

In the very opening verses of Parshat Vayeitzei, we see Jacob contending with two kinds of darkness. The first, the metaphoric darkness of leaving his parents’ home in Beer-Sheva, of separating from his family. And the second, the more literal darkness that comes in the nighttime. 

The word Makom, place, is used three times in our verses. Three times we are reminded that Jacob has come to this temporary place. This place of transition, and rest. The land on which Jacob sleeps has traditionally been identified with Mount Moriah-- the site of the Akeidah, where Jacob’s father Isaac was bound up and nearly sacrificed by his father Abraham. Mount Moriah is also the future site of the Temple. Avivah Zornberg describes this place as one of prayer and sacrifice, of the human attempt to come close to G-d. It is a place of purity and danger, of great longing and distancing.

The Midrash in Genesis Rabbah tells us that when Jacob arrived in this place, between Beer-Sheva and Haran, when the night fell that  “He tried to pass through, but the world became entirely like a wall in front of him.”  The darkness thick, palpable, unbreakable. 

But the word Makom is also a name for G-d. For G-d is the place of the universe. We are told three separate times that G-d is here in this moment with Jacob, even in this dark and momentary place. 

In the opening verses of Vayeitzei, not only are we introduced to the physical, geographic location where Jacob lays down to sleep for the night, we are reminded, perhaps even reassured, that G-d is there, too. 

The Midrash comments on our scene, explaining that G-d caused the sun to sink earlier than usual, in order to speak with Jacob privately. This, the Midrash tells us, can be likened to a king who has the lights extinguished, so that he may speak with his friend in private. 

There is something so intimate about this change in the natural order of things. G-d makes the sun go down earlier than usual, bringing the darkness perhaps a moment too soon, to be closer to Jacob, to communicate with Jacob. Under the cover of night, G-d can be fully present.

And in this darkness, we know that G-d does communicate with Jacob. After Jacob falls asleep, he dreams. In the foreground, that famous ladder, planted in the earth, its top, buried in the heavens, the ministering angels climbing up and down. And in this dream, G-d stands beside Jacob and makes a covenant. 

“I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Remember, I am with you. In the darkness, G-d makes a promise to Jacob. A promise of comfort, progeny, power, and protection. 

But Jacob’s experience of this darkness, and his reaction to it, matter. What happens in this darkness is crucial: A covenant is made and a prayer is born. 

The creation of the evening service, of Tefilat Arvit, is attributed to Jacob. Just like his father and grandfather before him, Jacob uses prayer to mark time. There is a hint of this in the Midrashic translation of the verb va-yifgah, and he prayed or he pleaded. 

Through the darkness, G-d extends an invitation with a covenant. Jacob accepts that invitation with his prayer. 

The Midrash continues, at evening: a person should say, “May it be Thy will, O Lord my G-d, that You bring me out of darkness into light.” 

Jacob is the first person to pray in the dark. To make holy that which is otherwise terrifying, paralyzing, and unknown. To lean into the darkness, embrace it, and follow G-d’s lead in transforming it into something new. 

In his unique experience, Jacob serves as a model for dealing with the variations of darkness in our own lives. And right now, in this moment of fear and uncertainty, we are all feeling those same ebbs and flows. We are scared, but perhaps we are also hopeful. Things feel so unfamiliar right now, but maybe, just maybe, our eyes will adjust. 

When my mom Ellen died almost two years, Coby, my Abba, and I were suddenly dropped into the untouchable void of grief. At first, the sorrow and pain so acute, my grief actually felt like a well or pit with smooth walls. We were all trapped at the bottom, unable to climb or claw our way out. And there were days, countless days, that no matter how hard we looked, no matter how many stones we overturned, we were still stuck. Alone, bereft, in the bottom of that well. But for all the sweetness that the darkness had previously given to my life, this was different. I felt suspended, like an atom, between the emotional and tangible shades of grief. Unable to walk around the wall, unable to climb over it. 

But then there were days when even from the very bottom of that pit, if we dared to look up, we could see just the smallest sliver of light. 

My grief has shifted and changed a lot in the last two years. Often, it feels that my grief has a personality, a mind of its own. I have moved through the denial, the anger, the bargaining, the depression, and the acceptance. And most days, I feel like I am carrying it all. Grief is not linear, it is perhaps the most fundamental, messy, and chaotic of human experiences. It comes in waves, sometimes all at once, sometimes not at all. 

But my grief has also given me many gifts, of this I am certain. In my grief, I have connected with my Imma in new ways that were unavailable to us before. I have been able to access her in her fullness, in her totality, in everything that she was. The joy, the hope, the laughter, but also the sorrow, the sadness, and the loss. It feels that in its own, strange way, we can be fully present with one another. On this side, we can just be. 

I think a lot about those nights I spent with my Imma on the front porch. Coby and my Abba inside, studying Parshat Vayetzei. The gift and the blessing that it was to sit in the safety of the nighttime, seeing each other in ways not spoiled by the bright light of day. 

Grief has taught me what is possible in the darkness, what can be transformed because of the darkness. And as I have worked hard to move through my grief, I have found that the darkness feels safe again. Just like when we were kids, I feel that the darkness holds something creative, something intimate, something hidden. 

In that dingy and unlit pit of grief, it can be impossible to trust that G-d is there. It feels like no covenant and no prayer are possible. But Jacob’s experience in that liminal place between Beer-Sheva and Haran gives us a way forward. Jacob teaches us how to reveal G-d even in the darkest of moments. And, as he stands before that great Midrashic wall created by the night, Jacob makes a choice. He chooses to pray, he chooses to reach out. He chooses to trust that there is life and Godliness after the grief. 

Remember, I am with you.