Upon waking from his dream, Jacob delights: 

אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יְהֹוָ֔ה בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי׃ 

Surely God is present in this place, and I did not know!

In his book titled “God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know,” Rabbi Lawrence Kushner points out that earlier on in Jacob’s dream, before he is addressed by God, he sees angels “olim v'yordim – going up and coming down” on a ladder between heaven and earth. But Kushner wonders, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Angels live in heaven, not on earth! Shouldn’t they be coming down (from heaven) and then going (back) up once they have done their work here on earth? Instead, it seems like these angels in our parsha are going up to heaven from earth, sneaking a quick peek at the divine while up On High, and making their way back down to earth. 

Perhaps these angels, Kushner suggests, aren’t really angels at all. Maybe these “angels” (make air quotes) are just ordinary human beings, in the way that we might call an especially kind nurse caring for us in the hospital or a peaceful baby dozing off to sleep an “angel”. 

When Jacob wakes from a dream where humans are behaving in angelic ways, he recognizes that, though perhaps not immediately apparent to him, God is present for us when people care for and love each other.

May we all be reminded that God can be brought to every place where we bring care and loving relationship to one another.