“And he dreamed – and behold – a ladder standing on the ground, and its top reaching the heavens.” (Genesis 28:12)

Someone asked the Gerrer Rebbe what the ladder in Jacob’s dream was leaning on.

The Rebbe said: Actually, the ladder was not propped up by anything in the world. The world itself was propped up by the ladder!

There are three scenes that involve Jacob and stones. First, he places stones around his head, goes to sleep and dreams of a ladder going up to the heavens. Then, we he meets his future wife Rachel at the town well, there is a large stone covering the well, but he rolls it off. Finally, he sets up a stone as a monument as he makes a treaty with his father-in-law Lavan.

What is the significance of Jacob and stones?

Rav Shimshon Pinkus, zt”l says that Jacob was the last of the three patriarchs. These are called the Avos – literally ‘fathers’. Jacobs 12 sons become the ‘shevatim’ – the tribes. Jacob is the bridge between the Avos and the Shevatim.

The word stone in Hebrew is ‘even’, spelled aleph, bet, nun. If you take the first two letters, aleph and bet, it spells ‘av’, which means father. The last two letters, bet and nun, spell ‘ben’ – which means son.

So, in the one word ‘even’ (stone), you have both father and son. This is what Jacob was. He is the connection between the Avos (fathers,patriarchs) and the sons (the Shevatim/tribes! This is ‘even’ and this is Jacob!

Door Rabbijn Michael Skobac

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