A Moment of Awakening

Sforno on Genesis 28:16

Surely the Eternal is in this place, There is no doubt that this place is established for prophecy, after having seen a vision such as this without intending to prophecy, for indeed the prophet must prepare their intellectual faculties, according to the variations of place and atmosphere, as they say: "The atmosphere in the land of Israel brings wisdom."

But I did not know, For had I known, I would have prepared myself for prophecy, but I did not.

Knowing to be awake to the present moment, the now.

Torah Journeys: Vayetze by Rabbi Shefa Gold

Jacob's journey is blessed at its outset with a dream and with a moment of awakening. In the dream God shows Jacob the stairway that connects the realms of Heaven and Earth and then gives him a promise. Through this blessing, we ourselves become that stairway, that connection, with our feet planted in the foundation of Earth and our crowns open to the expanse of Heaven. Through us the Divine flow pours down into the earthly realms. Through us the pleasure and miseries of earthly experience are offered up to The Divine Expanse.

When I become available to this flow, I am awakened to the most awesome and transformative truth. God was here all along and I didn't know it. THIS is none other than the House of God. THIS is the Gate of Heaven. This very moment and this place here where I stand is at once God's home and the doorway to all realms.

Our journey brings us the blessing of zeh - "This." In becoming fully present to this moment - Here and Now - the Presence of God is revealed.

• What are the barriers to our enjoying the blessing of zeh - ​Here and Now?

Knowing that the darkness contains new possibility

The Murmuring Deep by Aviva Zornberg

The night at Bethel is the heart of his journey, the dream interim between Be'er Sheva and Haran. There, he dreams and wakens with the words, "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 evening prayer] - 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.

Knowing that we need to be aware of the role our egos play

God Was In This Place & I, i Did Not Know by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

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.