(16) Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely Ad-nay is in this place, and I did not know it!”
(טז) ואנכי לא ידעתי שֶׁאִם יָדַעְתִּי, לֹא יָשַׁנְתִּי בְּמָקוֹם קָדוֹש כָּזֶה:
(16) AND I DID NOT KNOW — IF I had known it I would not have slept in such a holy place as this.
(טז) ואנכי לא ידעתי שאלו ידעתי הייתי מכין עצמי לנבואה ולא כן עשיתי:
(16) I DID NOT KNOW - if I had known I would have prepared myself for receiving these Divine insights, but I didn't.
(טז) אכן יש ה׳ במקום הזה ואנכי לא ידעתי. כמצטער על שישן באותו מקום שהיה שם התגלות שכינה. וטוב היה יותר להרבות באותה שעה שם בתפלה ובקשה בהקיץ:
Surely there is Hashem in this place and I did not know. He regretted that he slept in that place, in which there was a revelation of the Presence of God. And it would have been better in that same moment to have prayed deeply, and made requests, while awake.
(טז) יש ה': השגחת ה' היא גם במקום הזה. ואנכי לא ידעתי: מְעַנֶה עצמו על שהצטער על בריחתו ועל שהוצרך לשכב על הדרך, ולא בטח בה' ואולי מתוך צערו קלל את המקום ההוא.
There is Hashem: that the interest that God has in human beings is also present in this place. And I did not know: he tortures himself over his regret regarding his fleeing and that he needed to sleep on the way, and he did not trust God and that maybe under his stress he would have cursed this place.
אך שאין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו, שבוודאי שכב על האבן ויצק עליו שמן כמו שמבואר בכתוב, רק שרמז יעקב במחשבתו וכוון על דבר אחר על אבן הרוחני היא ראשית המחשבה הוא פינת יסוד העולם להיות מקושר אל המעשה בכל ענפיו ופרטיו להיות בנין מפואר מחדרים ומפלטרין שממנו כמה וכמה צדיקים ולומדי תורה זה היה עבודת יעקב והסתכל באחדות של כנסת ישראל עד סוף כל הדורות ואחר כך ראה יעקב ברוח קדשו הירוס של כנסת ישראל וחורבן בית המקדש וגודל החרון אף והדינים שעברו על ישראל:
According to the plain text there is no question that Yaakov placed his head on a real stone, which he later selected as fundamental by pouring oil over it. But while lying with these rocks as his pillow, he thought of matters far beyond his immediate concerns - and this is the beginning of Thinking, to be connected to Creation in all its limbs and details, knowing that from him many righteous people and learners of Torah would come. And this was Yaakov's spiritual work - to look at the Jewish people in unity until all the ends of all generaitons. And so he also saw in prophecy the destruction of the Jewish People and of the Temple, and the great anger and judgments that would happen to Israel.
ועל זה ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע, רצה לומר שיצא מאותו הסתכלות של היחוד עליון אשר משם נובע שפע לכל העולמות לכל שבע המדות המכונה בשם באר שבע. וילך חרנה, והסתכל באותו החרון אשר יעברו על כנסת ישראל והיה לו צער גדול מאוד בהרגישו צער גודל הצרות אשר יסבלו זרעו בגלות ויהיה להם ירידה חס ושלום. וזהו שכתוב ויפגע במקום, רצה לומר לבד מזה הצער של זרעו הרגיש ופגע בצערו של מקום כביכול מקומו של עולם אשר בכל צרתם לו צר
And according to this, the words: ויצא יעקב, is his leaving the domain of Higher Unity from which goodness is dispensed to all the worlds, to all the seven lower spheres, which are called by the name Be'er Sheva. "And he went towards Charan" - he saw the anger that would happen over the Jewish People, and he suffered greatly because he was able to feel the greatness of the suffering of his decendants in Exile, and their falling, God forbid. And this is "he happened upon the place"- not only he felt the suffering of his descendants but also the suffering of the Place, as it were. After all, God is the Place of the universe, and of whom we say "in all their sufferings He suffers"...
"Surely, God is in this place. And I did not know." He wakens, that is, with the deep conviction that he did not know. He has brushed against a knowledge that could only arise from the way of ignorance. In such profound shifts of experience, the revelation is the not-knowing; the sense of previous darkness itself intimates a dawning light. In a startled moment, Jacob recognizes the shape of his own ignorance: "Surely, God is in this place." Why is it so unexpected that God should be in this place? What strange beauty has just touched him?...
Mount Moriah becomes...a place in Jacob's mind, uncannily overwhelming him, just as the sudden sunset becomes his personal syncope, a kind of blackout, which moves him to a new genre of prayer - arvit - the prayer in darkness. This is the place he unwittingly bypassed on his journey: "How could I have forgotten to pray?"...
I suggest that, for Jacob, the Akedah is the unreachable place. His prayers cannot find inspiration in the thought of that terror. But, having unwittingly traveled past Mount Moriah, guilt assails him: "How could I have passed by the place where my fathers prayed, without praying there?" He sets himself to return, and finds himself abrasively hurtling against that place, that darkness. A new prayer is born: arvit, which represents an unimaginable possibility - that divine light can be revealed in the dark. The world of darkness, of sleep and dream, of loss of consciousness, vulnerability, passivity - all this is associated with the Akedah and his father's helplessness from which he has long recoiled.
Aviva Zornberg - The Murmuring Deep, p. 267-273
- For Zornberg, Yaakov will have a physically easy fatherhood but “before he can become a father in the fullest sense, he has much to undergo” (p. 267, just before these pieces). How does the journey begin, according to her?
God Was In This Place & I, i Did Not Know by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, p. 49-50
The verse literally reads, "Surely God was in this place and I, i did not know." The sense is "...and me, I didn't know." But the "I" (in Hebrew, Anochi, אנוכי) seems to be redundant. Unless, of course, you assume, as Jews have done for millennia, that God does not waste words.
The simple "extra I" (which the school of Kotzk identifies as ego or conceit) leads Pinchas Horowitz...to an important insight. "It is only possible for a person to attain that high run of being able to say, 'Surely God is in this place,' when he or she has utterly eradicated all trace of ego from his or her personality, from his or her sense of self, and from his or her being. The phrase, 'I, i did not know,' must mean, 'my I - i did not know.'"
The beginning of true piety is not so easy," whispered the Kotzker. "You must subdue your ego and call yourself a liar. It could make you lonely and a little crazy. A crazy man about God. You understand me?"
"Yes, I think so. God was here all along, and the reason I didn't know it is because I was too busy paying attention to myself."
Religious life demands constant vigilance against the schemes of our egos (the little is) to supplant the Divine.