By Lily Sieradzki

This week's parasha was Parashat Vayetze, which is an important and well-known parasha. Lots of things happen - Jacob leaves Be'er Sheva for Charan, and on the way he has a crazy dream of angels ascending to heaven on a ladder. During this dream, God promises Jacob that land on which he lies to himm and his descendants. When he wakes up, he erects the stone that he used for a pillow as an altar, and pledges that it will be made into a temple, or a "house of God."

Later on, the parasha describes the shebang of Jacob meeting his uncle Laban and being tricked into working 7 years to marry Leah, and another 7 to marry Rachel. But instead of talking about systemic patriarchy and seeing women as objects, or the alienated labor that Jacob has to do for 14 years, I want to explore the stone that Jacob uses as his pillow.

Last week, I got to lead a siyur of the Old City of Jerusalem for Workshnat 66. It was a really educational and amazing experience for me, and one of the things I learned about was something called the "Foundation Stone," which is supposedly located on the Temple Mount. It's a stone where a whole bunch of holy stuff happened, according to many different stories. Not only is it the stone that Jacob used as his pillow, but it's also where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, where sacrifices were offered in the First and Second Temple, and where the prophet Muhammad rose to heaven to bring back the five pillars of Islam.

Some of the questions that came up during the siyur were: how do we know if this stone, or if any of the places that we care about, are authentic? Does it matter if this is the site where these things actually happened? How do we assign meaning to certain locations or objects? How do different narratives or meanings for different peoples (for example, holy sites for both Judaism and Islam) complement each other and/or clash?

In a lot of ways, I think that we need

physical spaces to hold a lot of emotional or spiritual importance that comes from our history. We know intimately how much emotion the physical space of machaneh holds for us. It doesn't necessarily matter if this stone was the actual place Jacob slept - what is much more resonant is the surrounding story, that he pledged that the stone would become a holy place, and it remains one today. These questions are also relevant to Israel itself as a space, and the Jewish people's historical, religious, and spiritual ties to this one little piece of land. If we say these things matter, do they really matter? For me, I think the answer lies in how Jewish I feel when I'm walking in the streets of Jerusalem. It's such a complicated city that holds so many layers of meaning - it's the center for so many people. It's pretty incredible that I, as a Jewish individual, can feel connected to something so ancient, difficult, and beautiful.