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At the Dawn of Pilgrimage
Marie Madeleine Yung
It is moving to find the constituitive elements of every pilgrimage already in that primitive pilgrimage to Bethel which is described in Genesis 28:10-21 and 35:1-15. The theophany that forms the basis for further meeting with God occurs within a precise historical context, standing as it does within time as well as space. Jacob fled from his brother Esau who would have slain him had he remained. He also went in order to find a wife in a distant kinswoman at Haran. Here we see the betrayed and hunted man who had to flee both his home itself and his homeland. It is significant that the Lord manifested himself for the first time directly to Jacob-Israel on the threshold of exile, on his departure for the galut. He was therefore in a situation of distress, where his only hope could be help from the Most High. Is this not the situation of many a modern pilgrim who sets off in search of an Elsewhere, where he or she may find courage to face up to the real challenges of life?
'He came to a certain place..? (Gen. 28:11). The Hebrew for place — makom — is at the same time both very vague and charged with sacred resonance in Judaism. It is first of all a spot on the earth which is very concrete and which will lead to a spiritual elevation. A place ... What place? Is it the Bethel of today, among the austere hills of Samaria, strewn with grey stones? Is this the historical place of the event? Or is it perhaps the symbolic place of rabbinic tradition? Rashi connects the Bethel of our pilgrimage with the `place seen afar off' by Abraham, on the occasion of the sacrifice or the binding of Isaac —Mount Moriah. This mount where the holocaust was offered, then rejected, yet was pleasing to God, was identified later (in 2 Chron. 3:1) with the hill of Sion, "the place which the Lord your God will choose . . . to put his name-. (Deut. 12:5) The term `makom' even became one of the names of God in later Judaism. Where Jacob halted, then, was the site of the future sanctuary. This concept causes the geographical aspect to yield place to the mystical understanding of the event, bringing out for us the singularly rich notion that every pilgrimage, to wherever it may be, has its basis, its substratum, in that place in Jerusalem which is the place par excellence of God's meeting with each and every person.
Jacob was exhausted when he reached that place. The sun had just set and night in the stony desert has something terrible about it. There was light neither from without nor from within, and he had but one thing to do: to take refuge in God. This is why the Talmud attributes to Jacob (Bet. 26b) the institution of the evening prayer such as it occurs in Jewish liturgy. Jacob went to sleep in complete abandonment to God: `Taking one of the stones of the place he put it under his head (Gen. 28:11). A haggadah tells us that all the stones of the land of Israel were contained in that one stone.
"I lay upon the soil of my fatherland
wearied in body.
I slept upon the ground
and the earth was asleep beneath me
in a long sleep of love, interspersed with dreams, which mounted to heaven."
For Jacob dreamed . . . and in this dream the Lord revealed himself to him. This was what he had been looking for, after all, as he wandered on his way: he sought what each one of us searches — the means of reaching God. The abyss between the Creator and his creature seems to be impassable and so God must build a bridge across the chasm, throw over a ladder. The ladder took then shape between heaven and earth and so a communication was established, forming the link between the heart of God and that of his creature. Jacob, according to rabbinic tradition, was praying on the site of the future Temple, whence Israel's praise was to rise. Among the manifold interpretations of the mysterious ladder, Maimonides shows us that knowledge begins from the sensory world, thence climbs towards the world of saints and higher beings. The kabbalah sees four successive degrees, corresponding to the four worlds through which prayer should rise: the world of material phenomena, the world of the formation of the human race, the world of powers and the world of ideas, thus enabling one to reach the top of the ladder where the transcendent God is to be found: "And behold, the Lord stood above it." (Gen. 28:13)
Angels bearing intercessions ascend this ladder of prayer, angels bearing blessings descend it; angels climb towards God and angels come down towards men and women in a continuous coming and going of grace.
Following Phi/o, certain Fathers of the Church saw this ladder as an image of Providence exercized through the ministry of angels. Others see in it the incarnation of the Word who links heaven and earth. Saint John alludes to it in his Gospel: "you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (Jn. 1:51). This is the primary discovery that each pilgrim must make in the secrecy of his or her heart: our life ought to be a ceaseless ascent towards the Father who invites us and awaits us above.
He is Master of individual and collective destinies; that is why he revealed to Jacob directly that he was the God of his lathers, a near and beneficent God who would comfort him in his mission by showing him its meaning and scope:
'And behold the Lord stood above it and said,
am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you'? (Gen. 28:13-15)
The one who speaks is a faithful God; he renews all the promises made to Abraham. Israel's posterity is no longer compared to the stars in the sky, but onlyto the dust of the earth, the earth which we trample underfoot, which we despise, but which is spread all over the earth and is a bearer of blessings. We might also note that whereas possession of the earth was bounded by certain frontiers in the earlier promises, the inheritance promised to Jacob is limitless, hence the universal character of the mission of Israel. The Lord also promised to go with him on his wayfaring, hence the Shekhinah accompanied his people along the paths of exile, through the perils of galut. He will not abandon his people until it can return to Sion.
Jacob awoke and immediately, with clear awareness, perceived the extent of the mystery that had surrounded him so far: 'Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it." (Gen. 28:16) How often does not the Lord's deep presence in our life remain hidden! That presence is there, in the depths of our daily lives, in an ordinary way, without any show.
Once the awareness of the Absolute Being with his radical exigencies was discovered, the majesty of the Wholly Other seemed terrifying to Jacob. One may not look on God without dying a death of some kind: -This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven" (Gen. 28:17).
We might describe his first reaction as follows: "God is found here, not only at the top of the ladder, but at the bottom also. He is wherever a just person rests and is at peace. The divine majesty also loves to dwell in a human life'.
Jacob was on his way to found a family of the line of Abraham, to build a dwelling of the children of Israel. At Bethel he was the frist to conceive the idea of a 'house of God' on earth. A dwelling had to be established here below where the Lord could find the family of his worshippers. He is in fact not only the creator of nature and the master of history, but is also the Father of a family living in a house, delighting to come down inside a dwelling built by his people. The Temple is said to have been raised on that same site and was really meant to constitute that "house of God' on the mount of Sion. But it would be an open house, its door giving access to the heights of heaven where the Most High dwells. To the notion of a divine habitation on earth is added the more spiritual one of a 'gate of heaven'. The God who is immanent and with us is also the transcendent God. On every pilgrimage, however modest, we are looking for a 'dwelling of God' in one form or another, one that will shelter us, as also a 'gate of heaven' that will liberate us.
To this day Bethel is recognized as the place of a theophany. Jacob willed to consecrate it as a place that would witness to the mercy of God. He raised up the stone upon which he had slept during his dream, anointing it with oil and transforming it into a sacred pillar. Is there not ever a need to raise a monument, 'to build a shrine', something that will be a tangible and enduring sign of what happened there? Jacob also made a vow that was to hold good for all Israel:
"If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall he my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that thou givest me I will give the tenth to thee? (Gen. 28:20-22)
The future pilgrimage has been established! The people of God will not forget this throughout its history, Israel thus keeping in its memory the intervention of the Lord.
After many years of living with Laban, Jacob returned, rich to overflowing, with his numerous family. Was he in danger, perhaps, through his joy at seeing his homeland again, of forgetting to be grateful? At all events, God reminded him of his promise:
"Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." (Gen. 35:1)
By recalling the theophany, the Lord consecrated the place. This time, however, Jacob did not go alone, no longer being the man of solitude: "He called together all his household and all who were with him" (Gen. 35:2) for this pilgrimage of thanksgiving. They saw nothing, but they believed in Jacob's vision. Likewise, all the children of Israel may not have crossed the Red Sea, but over the centuries they all considered themselves as having been saved from Egypt. Not all the children of Israel were on the mount of Sinai, but all of them have heard the voice of the Lord.
Before going up to Bethel, Jacob enjoined the pilgrims to cleanse themselves, to free themselves from idols: -Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments? (Gen. 35:3) There was question of preparing for pilgrimage through total transformation. One must be completely renewed to enter God's house:
"Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and there he built an altar, and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother." (Gen. 35:6,7)
Jacob-Israel at Bethel shows us the various aspects of a pilgrimage: meeting with God, worship, intercession, thanksgiving. His children would follow him and, very much later, at the time of Samuel, we find mention of three men who were -going up to God at Bethel'. (1 Sam. 10:3)
* Sr. Marie Madeleine Yung is a Religious of Bethany who has been living at Jerusalem for over ten years. She is the laundress of the "Association Oecumenique de la Jerusalem Invisible". This association is a kind of invisible monastery, (a network of prayer similar to that founded by the Abbe Couturier) whose aim is the peace and reconciliation of Jerusalem.
Together with Sr. Theresa-Imelda, Sr. M. Madeleine publishes "Lettres de Jerusalem". Information may be obtained from Communaute de l'Agneau, 16 rehov Coresh, 94114 Jerusalem.
