This week’s torah portion, Vayetzey, opens with Jacob running away from his brother Esaw who wants to kill him for taking his firstborn blessing.  Jacob is going to his uncle Laban’s ranch on the eastern side of the Jordan River in Haran.  The Torah writes: “Jacob left Beer-Sheva, and set out toward Haran. He bumped into the place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set.”  Rashi comments: ““And he bumped into the place (Mount Moriah)” – Our Rabbis interpreted “bumping into” in the sense of “praying”…Thus we may learn that Jacob originated the custom of Arvit, the daily evening Prayer (since this happened at night). The Torah purposely changed the usual word for “praying” to “bumping into,” in order to teach us that the ground shrunk before him (the journey was miraculously shortened) as it is explained in the Talmud (Chullin 91b).”

On the surface the Talmud seems to be teaching two unconnected things, first that Jacob prayed at Mount Moriah and second that the word used is Va’yifga, “He bumped into,” in order to teach us that the ground was miraculously shortened for Jacob so he came to the place much faster than he expected.  Since the Talmud puts both of these ideas together, his prayer and the path being foreshorted, they must in some conceptual way be connected.   

The Sefat Emet, the great Hasidic Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger explained in a talk on this parsha in 1874 that we have the ability via our individual will to reveal the holiness in places (and situations). Jacob was distant from the holiness of Mount Moriah but wanted to be there, and so it came to him unexpectedly.  

This sense of desire for God when the holiness seems far is the idea of Arvit, the evening prayer. Arvit is prayed at night which symbolizes the dark, hiddenness of God, but prayer represents the idea of connecting to the Divine Light. If the idea of night and darkness symbolizes the spiritual hiddenness of God, how can we pray at night, since prayer is an act of doing the opposite, of connecting to the Divine light? 

This antinomie, says Rabbi Altar, is precisely the notion of the Arvit prayer. It is seemingly impossible to find God (light) when we are in a state of hiddenness from God (darkness). But we can do it via our will and desire.  Since it seems impossible, when we do this it will appear to us like something miraculous, akin to “bumping into” the mountain which seemed so far away. 

In fact, as opposed to what we usually think, the distance and the darkness itself, arouses within us a greater will for Light. Through this powerful desire for the Divine we find God where God is most hidden.   The Talmud is teaching us by juxtaposing these ideas of Jacob’s prayer and the shortening of the way, that there is no place so dark that we can not connect to our inner Light…”