Machshavot HaLev - Yeshivat Lev HaTorah

49
בלה תובשחמ
As we saw, Hashem reassures Ya’akov, as he leaves Eretz Yisrael, that he and the
children he will bear will, in good time, return to the Land and will serve as the
founding roots of the Jewish people. He reassures Yaakov, as well, that He will
protect him during his stay in Charan, where he will encounter both the trickery
of Lavan and a culture that supports such behavior. But before delivering these
assurances, the Rambam is teaching, Hashem illustrates in his dream-image the
mission that Ya’akov and his children will bear as the nation chosen to represent
Hashem in this world.
As the Rambam emphasizes in many places, perhaps most pointedly in his
description of Moshe’s ascent and descent from Har Sinai, the Torah does not
wish for a Jew to stay forever on top of a mountain – or a ladder – touching
the heavens. A Jew who merits to study Torah – certainly one who attains the
heights of prophecy – must not remain in his heavenly perch, but rather descend
back to this world. Here, the Rambam underscores a key message regarding the
distinction between the Torah’s vision of an ideal person and the philosopher
who remains in his ivory tower. From a mere human perspective, someone who
reaches great heights of understanding might imagine it best to remain aloof from
the masses, whose culture could harm the purity of the vision he has attained. But
Hashem instructs Ya’akov – and, with him, all of us reading his story – that the
Torah’s perspective differs: A person who merits to attain knowledge of Hashem
must descend with that knowledge to apply it to this world and to share it with
others.
May it be the will of Hashem that we, like Ya’akov, merit Hashem’s protection
in our own exile. But to earn this blessing, let us first dedicate ourselves to the
mission illustrated for us by the angels ascending and descending the ladder in
Ya’akov’s dream. Let us strive, firstly, to ascend the ladder to its very top, to attain
clear and true knowledge of Hashem and His Torah. And then let us strive, in
our descent from the ladder, to become a nation that can serve as a model of the
application of Divine wisdom to this world. In so doing, we will serve as a beacon
for Hashem’s message to all of humanity, “applying” as the Rambam teaches, “the
knowledge which was acquired in the ascent to the training and instruction of
mankind.”