Two Minute Torah Podcast

Vayetze 5769 by Ethan Witkovsky

Hello my name is Ethan Witkovsky and I am a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Welcome to KOACH’s Two Minute Torah, a project of the united Synagogue of Conservative Judaism:

God is in this place and I did not know it.

In the laughter of a friend in the smile of a stranger in a good TV show:

God is in this place and I did not know it.

In the exploration of the moon, in the eating of an apple, in the election of a president:

God is in this place and I did not know it.

Rabbi Heschel tells us "A life without wonder is not worth living" and this verse is an exhortation to wonder. To stand before the big and the small, the moving and the mundane and find a radical amazement in the world around us. To see the humanity and the heavenly in the world and say:

God is in this place and I did not know it.

When we see suffering around us, when we see unmitigated hatred, when we cannot understand even our own souls, when we fail:

God is in this place and I did not know it.

It is not about getting lemons and making lemonade. It is about getting lemons and realizing the beauty of the lemon; its smell its taste, the purpose it serves in the world.

God is in this place and I did not know it.

A young man forced to flee from his home. Leaving his mother and father and everything he knows because his own brother seeks to kill him. He stops in the desert and sleeps on a rock because he is too depressed to care. In his darkest hour in his deepest despair he is given a dream of angels going up and down a ladder. Up AND down. Because holiness can be found in ascent, in striving to be better and seeking God. But holiness can also be found in descent; in running from heaven running from ourselves and seeking to escape in the material world around us. Jacob wakes up and despite his confusion and sadness and regardless of the path he is going to choose, he finds the strength to see.

God is in this place and I did not know it.

May we all try in the next week to look at the world around us with Jacob’s eyes and say:

God is in this place and I did not know it.