Rabbi Simon A. Dolgin

SINAI: A Ladder For All

"And behold a ladder, set upon the earth, and the top of it reaching to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." -Bereshit 28.12

"Bar Kapra teaches: "Every dream has its meaning." Our Rabbis interpret this dream in terms of its parallels to Sinai. "Set ipin the earth" parallels "And they stood at the foot of the mountain." "And the top of it reaching to the heart of the heaven." -Yalkut Shimoni 70)

The ladder, of which Jacob dreamed as he fled Esau, serves as a complete and encompassing metaphor for man's being. For what unites the poles of man's existence more than a ladder that has its foundations on earth, yet reaches into the heavens? And what better represents man's rise and fall than a ladder upon which angels go up and down?

In order for us to fully appreciate the significance of the ladder that Jacob envisioned in Beth-El, the ladder that paves the road from man's earthly domain to God's heavenly domain, we must look at what the Midrash tells us: "Every dream has its meaning." Our Rabbis interpret this dream in terms of its parallels to Sinai. "Set upon the earth" parallels "And they stood at the foot of the mountain." "And the top of it reaching to heaven" parallels "And the mountain was ablaze with fire reaching to the heart of the heaven." Our Sages teach us that, "Events of fathers are signs for the future of their children."

The ladder in Jacob's dream was later experienced by his descendants as they stood at Mt. Sinai. As the Children of Israel accepted the Almighty in the desert, Sinai symbolizes a fiery ladder bridging the foot of the mountain, where they stood to God's heaven.

For all generations, Sinai and the acceptance of God's word serves to bridge earth and heaven.ladder

The Ba'al Haturim notes that the Hebrew word for ladder, "SULAM" and the Hebrew word for "Sinai" share the same numeric value (130.)

With regard to who may gain access to the ladder linking man and God, the Ba'al Haturim offers an additional computation - the word SULAM is numerically equivalent to the words MAMUN, (wealth) and to the word ONI (poverty).

Our bride to the Almighty, as embodied in the Torah from Sinai, is available to us, and it is essential that we experience it, whether from positions of our own strength and power, or from the depths of our weakness and need.