{"id":38145,"date":"2018-08-19T11:26:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T08:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=38145"},"modified":"2022-03-14T13:33:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T11:33:49","slug":"jacobs-ladder-on-the-ramp-in-auschwitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jacobs-ladder-on-the-ramp-in-auschwitz\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob\u2019s Ladder on the Ramp in Auschwitz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jacob, the child, is sleeping. Jacob, the child, is dreaming. And there is no ramp in his dream to which the soldiers and murderers push him. In the dream of the child Jacob, his father and mother appear, from whom he is torn, and they whisper to him: “Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go” (Genesis 28:15).<\/span><\/p>\n

The child Jacob – perhaps he was nicknamed Jacob\u2019ele or Yankele – does not want to open his eyes and wake up to the nightmare in which he will find out, “How full of awe\/fear is this place!” (28:17).<\/span><\/p>\n

And the child Jacob\u2019s ladder\/stairway, there are no angels ascending or descending, neither in that order nor in any other order.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to one explanation, the word \u201cladder\/stairway\u201d derives from the Hebrew root s\u2019l\u2019l, whose meaning is a ramp. \u00a0On the ramp in Auschwitz, people of flesh and blood degraded the child Jacob to the lowest level of “not being human” whereas on the ladder of Jacob our forefather, the angels ascended, and only afterwards did they descend.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dream meets our patriarch Jacob while he wallows in fear due to his retreat into exile when Esau threatened his life. The night vision, when his head is resting on a stone instead of a pillow, is God’s way of assuring Rebecca and Isaac\u2019s son that He will protect him until he returns to the land He promised him.<\/span><\/p>\n

When he awakens, our patriarch Jacob announces that this is the gate to heaven. \u00a0My mother who survived Auschwitz will never forget the chimneys that opened up in the direction of heaven. Up to her last day, that smell of horror, not angels, will accompany her. She did not dream anything there, and if she dreamed, she forgot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like our father Jacob, she, too, made the long journey to the land that was established for her. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Midrash Tanchuma, God suggested to our patriarch Jacob to ascend the ladder\/stairway. \u00a0However, Jacob, afraid, refused. When he awoke, he took the stone that was under his head and turned it into a monument. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One brave boy, whose name was not Jacob but Hanus Hachenburg from the Terezin ghetto, left behind his dream for us to remember forever, before he was exterminated in 1944:<\/span><\/p>\n

But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today,<\/span>
\n<\/span>That I\u2019ll wake up, a child again, and start to laugh and play.<\/span>
\n<\/span>I\u2019ll go back to childhood sweet like a briar rose,<\/span>
\n<\/span>Like a bell which wakes us from a dream,<\/span>
\n<\/span>Like a mother with an ailing child<\/span>
\n<\/span>Loves him with woman\u2019s love.<\/span><\/p>\n

From: <\/span>\u201c<\/span><\/i>I never saw another butterfly\u2026 Children\u2019s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944<\/span><\/em>.\u201d<\/em> McGraw-Hill, New York, 1971. Printed in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).<\/span><\/p>\n

The above essay is dedicated to the late Naphtali Lau-Lavie, an Israeli journalist, author, and diplomat. Lavie’s entire family was murdered during the Holocaust, with the exception of his brother, Yisrael, who would later become the Chief Rabbi of Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":38147,"id":38147,"title":"auschwitz-jacob","filename":"auschwitz-jacob.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/auschwitz-jacob.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jacobs-ladder-on-the-ramp-in-auschwitz\/auschwitz-jacob\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"auschwitz-jacob","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":38145,"date":"2018-08-19 08:28:20","modified":"2022-03-14 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