Where are we? Really. Here Jacob, now on the run from his threatening brother, has come through Charan known as a place of wrath. He sets before him on top of rocks, connecting the depth with the heights, four sets of sacred stones suggesting the four directions. It is here where he will lie as the sun sets and it is here where he will have the ladder dream and when awake Jacob says “G-d was in this place and I; I didn’t know.” But now he knows. Hashem is everywhere in every direction and where we stand is in the middle of it all. This place is said to be where the Temple would be built. And those stones each became associated with the sons of Jacob who became Israel. The Zohar has various versions, and one suggests that the fallen angel Samuel wants continually to distract us from who and what and where we are by disguising itself, in this case as a harlot. May we not be deceived by short lived indulgences and rather have the will of Jacob to focus on what is true and what connects us to higher consciousness and contributive actions.