by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on November 11, 2021
Yaakov is the first person in the Torah who articulates the idea of a house of God. “This is nothing other,” he says upon waking up, “than the house of God and this is the gate to heaven” (Gen. 28:17). The Rabbis point out the power of that concept of a house of God and its association with Yaakov.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on March 25, 2011
In connection with the recent posting on Parshat Shmini and the sin of Nadav and Avihu, I present these sources which speak to both sides of the tension between religious passion and boundaries, between the physicality of the Mikdash and religious experience and the temptation of idolatry.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on November 12, 2010
Yaakov runs away from his brother, falls asleep, has a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder, and God appears to him and promises to watch over him. He then wakes up and declares: “This is none other than the house of the Lord and this is the gate of heaven,” on which the Rabbis comment, “Not like Avraham that called [God’s place] a mountain, nor like Yitzchak that called it a field, but like Yaakov that called it a house” (Pesachim 88a). …