Vayeitze 5769

Angelology – Part II

And (Jacob) dreamed, and behold! A ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold angels of God ascending and descending on it (Beresheit 28:12).

Rashi: Ascending and descending: They ascend at first and others descend. Angels who accompany him in the land (of Israel) don’t go outside the land, and ascend to heaven. And angels descend outside the land to accompany him.

Rashbam: Ascending and descending: Understand it according to the plain sense. There is no need to fuss over who ascended or descended first, inasmuch as it is customary to mention ascent before descent.

Keter Jonathan: The two angels who had departed from the destruction of Sodom wandered from there to discover the secrets of the Master of the Universe. They wandered until Jacob left his father’s house. They accompanied him to Beit-El, and then ascended to Heaven. There they reported that they had seen Jacob the Chassid, and described him as the very image of the Throne of Glory. Thereupon God’s remaining holy angels desired to descend and observe him as well.

These commentaries deal with a difficulty in the text: If angels are heavenly beings, why does the Torah state that Jacob dreams of angels first ascending to heaven, and then descending to earth? All three commentators seek to explain how this may be so.

Rashi, based on Beresheit Rabbah 68:12, argues that angels change shifts at the border of Israel. There the Israeli angels ascend to heaven and the Canaanite angels descend take their place.

Rashbam scolds his grandfather Rashi for quibbling about word order. Of course angels start in heaven and return there from earth! The Torah is merely observing the derekh eretz (accepted practice) of mentioning ascent before descent. You don’t say “there and here”, or “that and this”, do you?

Keter Jonathan brings a midrash about two of the three angels who appeared to Abraham in Parashat Vayera (recall the first angel disappears after informing Sarah that she will have a baby.) It must be these two who climb the ladder in Jacob’s dream.

But what if the Torah said exactly what it meant? Jacob may have dreamed of heavenly angels walking on the earth, climbing to heaven via a ladder, and others climbing down afterwards! The Torah may be teaching that angels walked among the patriarchs, guiding them along the way to fulfilling the Divine plan.

And what about today: Do angels walk among us? Modern teachings, Jewish and non-Jewish, answer in the affirmative. Chassidic masters wrote of angels carrying our prayers up to heaven and preparing them to be presented before God. Filmmaker Wim Wenders imagined angels reading over our shoulders in libraries.

On the chance that the Chassidic masters were right, let’s pray for the wisdom to know an angel when we see one.