Footnotes
He came to [b]a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. Genesis 28:11 NASB
A certain place– Do you read the footnotes? Or do you think, “Well, those are just references or something and they will just slow me down, and after all, well, I know this story, so I’ll just keep going and maybe look at those little letters later.” Which usually means, “Never.” I’ve kept the footnote the NASB supplies for “a certain place” so you can see why there is a footnote. Oh, by the way, the footnote isn’t about “certain place.” It’s about the fact that the NASB translators have changed the Hebrew text from “the” to “a.” Here’s the footnote: Genesis 28:11 Lit the place. Now this is very strange. Why would the translators bother to change the article, ignoring the fact that Hebrew actually designates this as a particular place, i.e., the place? The answer is obvious. If we read the story of Jacob’s flight from Esau, we know that he is going to his uncle Laban in Mesopotamia, and he’s never been there before, so this place that he comes to is just another place along the way. It’s no particular place. Therefore, it’s a place, not the place.
But you see, this isn’t what the Hebrew author wrote. Now it’s up to us to figure out why the Hebrew text views this place as some particular place. Avivah Zornberg offers an answer. This is the place, that same place where Jacob’s father, Isaac, experienced that traumatic event that altered the course of the rest of his life, the place of the Akedah. We arrive at this conclusion by first paying closer attention to the verb. Jacob didn’t just “come” to this place. He was thrust to it.
“A faithful translation of the Hebrew would yield, inelegantly, ‘He crashed into, collided with the place.’ What place is indicated in this way, with the definite article? Rashi writes: ‘This refers to that place mentioned elsewhere—that is, Mount Moriah, of which it is said, “He saw the place from afar”’ (22:4).”[1]
The point is that Jacob arrives at the same place where his father, Isaac, confronted the traumatic abandonment of his father, Abraham, and where Isaac experienced the trauma that set the course for the rest of his life. Jacob now comes back to the place where Isaac believed God was not present. No wonder Jacob says that he did not know God was in this place. Everything he knows about his father’s experience would indicate just the opposite.
“To let his mind dwell on his father’s experience as he lay bound to the altar—this is the unbearable possibility that he bypasses. That place has become the focus of a lifelong avoidance.”[2]
“In his [Jacob’s] mind, he characterizes his father’s God as Pachad Yitzhak—Isaac’s Fear. Significantly, he [Jacob] invokes the ‘God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac’ (Gen. 31:42)—identifying Abraham as his father. In his imagination, Isaac, engulfed in the terror of the Akedah, has become unapproachable. In other words, the Akedah has, in a sense, left Jacob fatherless. The father he adopts is Abraham . . . for Jacob, the Akedah is the unreachable place.”[3]
And now he is back there. If there were ever an example in the Tanakh of the experiences of the father being passed to the son, this is it. Jacob’s understanding of who God is has been determined by Isaac’s experience of Abraham’s God. The son inherits the father’s avoidance. But God isn’t going to allow this to continue, although this encounter leads to a long hiatus before Jacob returns to confront his avoidance at the brook. Here the process of inner reconciliation begins. Here, in this place, Jacob is asked to touch his father’s trauma and begin the healing process.
The translators wish us to read a different story, a story built around Western drama. The hero leaves home, journeys to a far land, becomes a success, returns as triumphant and establishes the tribes of the new nation. The Hebrew texts wants us to read something else—something about abandonment, trauma, fatherhood, fear, avoidance and emotional healing. In the Hebrew story, the hero is also the scapegoat.
But, then, truth is stranger than fiction, isn’t it? Which reading do you suppose is closer to the way life really proceeds?
Topical Index: Akedah, trauma, Pachad Yitzhak, the place, Jacob, Genesis 28:11
[1]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, p. 270.
A RESPONSE TO THE COMMUNITY
Thank you all. There were many, many messages of hope and comfort for Rosanne and me. Too many to answer each one, but know that each one was important to us. What a great group you are!
Profound ….Sad to admit I rarely check the footnotes….thanks skip that you do!
How YHWH deals with us is extraordinary.
Revisiting trauma then healing – I’m right there.
Condolences to Roseanne, you and family. May the good memories be what abides.
Christine
Skip, with all due respect to Avivah Zornberg, Beth-el (or, Luz) was another mountain entirely, from Moriah; from all accounts I have seen, anyway. The Israelites, because they revered Bethel so much, made a place of idolatry (Jeroboam, specifically): subsequently YHVH cursed Beth-el. Surely the contemporary Hebrews of that time did not confuse the two sites; right? That site could not have also been the site of Isaac’s sacrifice, as that is most often said to be at the mountain that Jerusalem was later built upon, which was actually about ten miles away from Bethel. I am questioning how Zornberg can amalgamate two very different sites that the ancient Israelites so clearly designated? I guess I am asking for the references Zornberg uses to come to that conclusion.
Other than that, I think I am following you, except that there has to be respect, I think, for the tremendous speculation we have to practice to think we can tap the subconscious of anybody, especially those who are not around for us to ask. (I am not trying to downplay any possible personal trauma in this family, however; I am just saying I am personally uncomfortable with too much speculation about things that folks have not said about themselves.)
Concerning the place of Isaac’s altar, however, didn’t Solomon dig the artificial valley between Golgotha and Jerusalem to build with the quarried stone? Golgotha may well have been on that ancient sacrificial site (as part of the original mountain). Now, that would make more sense; to me, anyway; but surely Jacob did not also have his ladder vision there?
Read Zornberg. There are plenty of footnotes. And I think maybe you missed the point here. The geography has almost nothing to do with the Rabbinic interpretation of the text since the text isn’t about physical geography. It’s about emotional geography. You will have to get past the idea that the text is written as if it were Western, in event sequence or topographical accuracy. You will need to read that text as stories of traumatic experience organized around human questions.
Maybe if you had a few examples of what this looks like and how it plays out in our/your life. I think it helps for us to have some kind of a testimony/story regarding our own journey that helps clarify and bring understanding to our own situations and circumstances. What does this story say to you and your life. How do you apply it ?
I know from my own life that God is involved in healing the whole man. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will take me back to a time in the past that I need to look at, that is affecting my present condition. I have never felt that he wants me to dig back into my past on my own but when I get stuck in the present sometimes it’s because of a past trauma, circumstance or situation. If God is transforming me, what caused me to be malformed in the first place? I feel like I am sort of out of my depth right here, but I wanted to understand and be able to apply this story to my own life. The fact that I grew up in a little town in Minnesota has little to do with what actually happened to me in that little town in Minnesota. Part of my personal history in a sense is back there. Does any of
that make any sense? I’m feeling vulnerable here.
I find the same thing in my life Larry, God brings a certain “issue” up in my life through a person or circumstance I find very uncomfortable. If I do the Jonah thing and run 180 degrees the other direction, I find myself running into the same door. The person, place and thing may be different, but the issue is the same. It would seem that God is in much more of a hurry for me to resolve it than I am. The interesting thing I find is that it’s hardly ever what I thought it was about. 🙂
Larry, man oh man, do I feel your vulnerableness as I share it reading this. My nephesh is excited to make this emotional connection as well.
Thank you, Skip, that’s all I needed. Thank you also for encouraging me to read Zornberg. I found a partial pdf and am enjoying it.
Being prompted by Laurita to understand the difference (or similarity) between, Beth-el, Moriah, (and Zion, Temple Mount, City of David, The Place, etc,) I did some searching and found this interesting.
I wonder if there may be more than one Beth-el because if Moriah means, “fear/terror/awe of God”, (see below), and especially if, Abraham’s God was the fear of Isaac, then it would make sense that the place his son Jacob calls, “Beth-el”, is the same place as Moriah, and, the same place Solomon built his Temple as the house of God.
In Gen 28 we find three connections to one place
17: how dreadful is this place
19: Jacob called the place Beth-el
22: (this place) shall be God’s house
From: abarim-publications dot com
Etymology of the name Moriah
The name Moriah consists of two elements, the final one being יה (Yah), which is an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh.
Where the first part comes from isn’t clear, and it may very well be that the meaning of this name is not restricted to one proper etymology but rather reflects the whole range of possibilities. Especially the spelling with the central ו (waw) may have reminded some of the noun מורה (moreh), which means both early rain and teacher, and is closely related to the familiar noun תורה (tora) or Torah. Or the highly similar noun מורה (mora), meaning terror or something awe-inspiring, from the verb ירא (yara’ I), meaning to fear or revere:
I’d like to “wander” further back than Zornberg did. The “first use”…
Gen 13:3-4 “So he went his way by stages from the Negev as far as Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been at the start, between Beth-el and Ai, 4 to the place of the altar that he had formerly made there. And there Abram called on the Name of YHVH.”
Selah
Brother-in- law.. robbed by name always told me that whenever reading the New Testament and Old Testament reference comes up… Read the entire story reference, Old Testament references are a window back to history not just a slight glance remembrance now and then. We can only understand the new with framework and Foundations of the old. Rob told the story a little boy and his father and grandfather. You learned who the little boy was by the history of his father and grandfather. What insight to impart every time I read scripture. Thanks Rob he’s now waiting for his Redeemer to wake him up. If you know what I mean. Thank you
Leslee, Nice wandering there, partner…. Very insightful to me!
My life has definitely been stranger than fiction. My story is not one of overt abuse but more subtle forms like unintentional abandonment. But I really don’t blame the way my life turned out on that. My story would not be all that exciting to hear and I don’t even know if it would even be believed today. I’ve decided that I really don’t know all the subtle ways my psyche was shaped by those closest to me as well as just the culture and messages that are so pervasive in our modern world. It doesn’t matter because today I choose to listen to the only One who matters. I’ve been listening to Richard Rohr talk about dualism and how it shaped the Church. And how extreme a form it took in the Protestant Reformation. Of course he is Catholic. 🙂 But I was interested in his comments on how the Eastern Orthodox Church retained more of the not needing to know. Can’t remember the word he used for that. But they also believed in Universal salvation as well. His talk made me wonder if our Tribe, Israel, is really just a metaphor for being the people of Yehovah.