Today our students studied Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28:10-22). It includes this amazing dream scene in a makom, which is usually translated simply as “place”, though there is a whole lot that isn’t captured by that one word translation.
Jacob is on his way to find a spouse in the land of Canaan, but he stops in a makom (place) to rest on his journey. He finds a rock, sets it by his head (or maybe under his head) and begins to sleep.
He dreams of angels climbing up and down a ladder that connects the shamayim (heavens) and aretz (earth). Then, he hears God’s voice remind him that he is included in the Brit (two-way promise) with Abraham and Isaac, and that includes:
- His descendents being as many as the grains of sand
- He will be the source of blessing for all the clans of the earth
- God will guard him wherever he goes
- He will be brought back to this makom
Jacob wakes up shocked and says aloud, “God is in this makom, and I did not know it! How awe-inspiring is this place?!”
First we had an amazing conversation about what makes a blessing (stay tuned for next week’s blog post about those conversations).
Then we set our minds to figuring out what makes a makom not just any place…
The students reflected back on the story Jacob’s dream and message and we noticed a few things.
- The makom was holy, and Jacob noticed that holiness.
- Jacob shaped the makom by moving the stone and setting up space for himself.
- Jacob learned something very important about who he is when he was in that place. He arose changed after being in that makom.
Looking at that amazing assessment of what made this a makom, our 5-8 year old students then mapped on which of those experiences they had at Makom Community in the last 8 months. Our takeaways:
- We collaborated and created our own brit to help us notice holy moments. Do we always notice them? No, but that’s something we can work together to be better about.
- Is it always holy here? Probably not, but we could make it happen a bit more if we work on it. Holy takes work!
- Our students are aware of some ways they have changed in the last months– learned a lot, gotten more patient with each other, no more babysitter, higher math scores, better at challah braiding… the list goes on.
- We shape this space and experience! On today’s half-day camp, our students needed snack sooner than we planned. So we moved snack earlier. And all they had to do was voice their needs. We all get to move the rock to the place where it belongs and include our community in doing that, too.
After 8 months of coming together every afternoon as Makom Community, it was really exciting to begin to unpack one of the amazing Jewish texts that helped us choose our name and will continue to help drive us as we build this community.