Monday, November 19, 2007

Up and down the ladder

I know that this portion is over and we're on to the next thing, but perhaps since my travels overlapped with it a little, I can squeeze just a little more juice out of it this week before I put it away.

It's nothing profound really, just that this week I find myself ba'aretz. Usually, I suppose, we must identify ourselves with Yakov, but unlike Yakov, I already knew that God was in this place; I did not need to dream to see the angels, nor to understand that God protects us in all our travels to Jerusalem, and of course, that as Rebbe Nachman said, that wherever I travel, I travel to Jerusalem.
But this time, perhaps I feel a bit more like the angels going up and down on that ladder. I have a purpose for being here, and I pray that as a servant of the HKBH, I will be able to fullfil it, but only God can ensure that end, ultimately.
And I have been the angel going up the ladder, and soon I will be the angel going down. And perhaps it is well to remember that even if I am unlike the angels in that I spend more time at the foot of the ladder, than its top, that in order to carry out one's mission, one has to go down. And that one can love even places that one goes to carry out, rather than those to which one will return.

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