Vayeitze: Jacon Finds His Rock, I Found My Soul Clock

Vayeitze: Jacon Finds His Rock, I Found My Soul Clock
Rabbi Angela W. Buchdahl

This past Elul, as the Jewish world was preparing to go into Rosh Hashanah,
a member emailed about a gift she was sending me.
She said it was “Feldspar and slate with crystals.”
It had been gifted to her and she wanted me to have it
as a new year’s gift for 5785.”

I didn’t quite know what to expect.
I had to Google what Feldspar was:
which is a group of minerals that make up more than 50% of the earth’s crust.
I pictured getting a pretty little rock I could put in a dish
or in my pocket like a lucky charm.

The next day, this arrived. (place big rock on bima).
It was a little too heavy for my pocket.
Suffice to say, I had never gotten a gift like this before.
But I couldn’t believe the timing.
Because just a week earlier,
as I was preparing for my Rosh Hashanah sermon on grief,
I came across this story in Francis Weller’s book the Wild Edge of Grief
which I highlighted, describing an encounter with the Jungian analyst,
Clarke Berry: “Our first meeting, over thirty years ago, was unforgettable.
When we sat down, Clarke reached to his left,
placed his hand on a large rock lying on a table, and said,
‘This is my clock. I operate at geologic speed.
And if you are going to work with the soul, you need to learn this rhythm, because this is how the soul moves.’”

I realized, this member, this angel, had just gifted me a soul clock.
Souls, like Feldspars, move at geologic speed.
They are not impressed with how efficiently you use every minute,
nor tied to the urgent news cycle of everyday,
but rather to the leisurely pace of shifting tectonic plates,
the growth of the oak forest, the rhythm of ocean waves.

I looked at this rock, which now sits on my desk, and realized how
too often I am out of time with the tempo of soul work,
preoccupied with the urgent work right now –
with efficiency, productivity, output.
This was epitomized by my daily walk to work through Central park,
which I took at the cadence of a professional speedwalker,
while listening to the spiritual podcast called “On Being” at 1.5 speed!

My soul clock reminded me that getting my exercise,
and cramming my head with spiritual “ideas” was nice,
but I was missing the birdsong,
and the turning of the leaves
and the noticing of my own heartbeat and breath.
It reminded me to slow down my walk,
take out the headphones, and just listen.
More information does not equal more wisdom.
And when we lose touch with the original cadence of our souls,
we disconnect from the things in our lives which are most lasting.

It seems that our ancestor Jacob needed a little reminder of this himself.
We met Jacob in last week’s Torah portion, and were not given
a lot of evidence as to why he would become a great patriarch,
and the namesake of our people.
Instead, we read stories of how he manipulates his twin brother
to sell off his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup,
and tricks his old, blind father into giving him his brother’s blessing.
Jacob is cunning, self-serving and dishonest.
He has accumulated birthrights and blessings, but in reality,
he has nothing – no self-knowledge, no real relationships,
and when we meet him at the beginning of this week’s portion,
he is utterly alone and on the run.

And then something miraculous happens, out in the middle of the desert, somewhere between Beersheva and Haran.
As the sun was going down, Jacob stopped for the night,
found a rock, put it under his head like a pillow and slept.
Jacob, comes across his soul clock.
He then dreamed of a ladder, reaching up to heaven,
with angels ascending and descending upon it.
It was his first transformative spiritual encounter.
He wakes up and declares:
God was in this place, and I, I did not know!

What was that rock?
Well there’s at least a 50% chance it was Feldspar –
since it’s more than 50% of the earth’s crust!
The rabbis believed this was no ordinary rock.
In the Hebrew it says he chose may’avnei ha-Makom,
“from the stones of the place.”
But Makom is also one of the names for God.
So it also reads: He chose from a Stone of God.
But I would argue that EVERY STONE is a stone of God.
ANY of them can facilitate a spiritual encounter,
as long as you hear its invitation to tune into the cadence of the soul.

This feels like a very important message for us in this moment.
I saw a Reddit post from a 20-something recently that made me so sad:
“The demands of today are so much and so overbearing but at the same time, they expect everything to be done in an instant… [I have ]the feeling the days are running by like fast clouds that I eventually miss, and not to mention the huge amount of information overload that the world has right now, I constantly feel irritated, annoyed, frustrated and completely powerless and anxious at the same time.”

Can you relate?
This is what it feels like to be ruled by clock time.
To live a life governed by productivity. Instant responsiveness. Accumulation.
In this kind of time, our success and identity come from our status, output, possessions, likes.

But Judaism calls us to look at time differently–
with the long view, not just for this day, or the next year,
but for the next generation, l’olam va’ed, forever and ever.
When we get in touch with our soul clock,
we attune to the things that are enduring and transcendent:
to creating connections and relationships, gaining wisdom,
seeking beauty, creating holiness.
The things that can never be taken from us, that endure beyond us.
That connect us here on earth, as if on a ladder, to the heavens.

Jacob is transformed by putting his head on that rock.
He becomes a changed person–one who prioritizes people over things.
Only after his encounter with the stone, can he become Yisrael,
the one who wrestles with the biggest questions of life and God.
Only then does he become the namesake of our people,
and teach us how to be Israel.