“Was the ladder—Hebrew sulam— which our father Jacob dreamed about dramatically
an elevator or an escalator?” asked my grandson to my son, a rabbi-mohel, Zak.
I answered: “It’s irrelevant! Both elevations work today quite automatically,
requiring no divine help to take angels down to earth, and after this to heaven back.
I’ll share this weird escalatorogical discussion with some Scottish liquor at
my Shabbos kiddush where I tell my friends hiddushim with which I attempt to school ‘em,
but won’t inform them what my son, but not my grandson, knows. The ladder was a ziggurat,
but it would waste all people’s time—and mine! — to fool ’em with the truth about the sulam.
