A word of Torah:    
        After tricking his way to receive his father’s blessing, Jacob leaves his estranged family behind and travels to Haran. Jacob comes upon a place (va-yifga ba-makom) and decides to stay there for the night as the sun sets.
         It must have been the darkest night of his life. Jacob is traveling weighed down by the consequences of his actions. Stripped of all his relationships, he can finally see the truth of how in his life of deception he has deceived himself most of all. He surely doesn’t feel blessed.  
        Like Jacob, too much of the time we live in our story like it’s a twisted fairy tale where we never get the princess/prince or discover the treasure. Yet, that version of life is no more real than Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It’s hard to find anything that is just right. Whether you are stealing someone’s soup or selling it to steal a birthright, your sense of self is only “confirmed” by the exterior world. You can’t find a way to affirm it from your own interior sense of self. You can’t find your blessing.
        And he dreamt. In his dream, Jacob saw a ladder set on the ground and reaching up to heaven. There were angels going up and down the ladder. Jacob awakens and says: “Surely God is present in this place and I did not know it…How awesome is this place/mah nora ha-makom ha-zeh. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gateway to heaven.” (Gen. 28:16-17). This is a place of insight and gratitude. This is a place of connection to that which is beyond himself. This makom-place is none other than a gateway to that which is beyond.
        Was there something special about that place? I think not. The point is any place has the potential to be a special, even awesome, place. It is simply a matter of being vulnerable and open to the truth. The holy is found in the unexpected and in the ordinary. Judaism maintains that we are not alone on our journey. Holiness and the Holy One can be found anywhere.
        Too often, religions proclaim that a particular space is holy and imply that other places are not. Or more broadly that Godliness can be defined in one way and only that way is true and correct. Here we are told anywhere you stop for the night can be nothing less than a gateway to heaven. This week's stop it is also a place for Thanksgiving.