“And behold, he saw God standing over him.” (Genesis 28:13)
Rashi (ibid.) explains: “God was standing over Jacob in order to protect him.”
We need to understand: Why wasn’t it sufficient for one of the angels who were going up and down the ladder (in Jacob’s dream) to guard him? Further on in the text of the dream we find again: “Behold, I am with you and I will protect you.” (Genesis 28:15) Why did Jacob need to be guarded in this place, while he was asleep?
It might be argued that first God promised to guard Jacob on his journey, and then afterwards He promised to guard him while asleep that night. Nevertheless, we still need to understand why guarding is mentioned twice, and not just once, to cover the entire period until Jacob’s return.
There is one well-known opinion (Genesis Rabbah 68:14) stating that the angels who were going up and down on the ladder in Jacob’s dream were lords representing the nations of the world, who rise and fall. When there is war between these lords, one rising and trying to push the other down and vice versa, then the Jew stands in the greatest need of the mercy of heaven. So we are told, “God stands over him to protect him.”
Angels have little patience, as it is written (Exodus 23:20–21), “Behold I send an angel before you to guard you on the road and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Be heedful of his face, and hearken to his voice, for he will not bear your sins . . .” whereas God, blessed be He, is boundlessly merciful. So when God says to Jacob in the dream, “I am the God of Abraham your father . . .” (Genesis 28:13) He means “I am still the God of Abraham your father even if, God forbid, you have no merits of your own. If I am unable to say to you ‘I am God your God,’ I will still be able to say, ‘I am the God of your father.’ ” And so in the merit of his father, “God stands over him to protect him.”
In these verses in which God speaks to Jacob in the dream, God first says, “I am God,” (Genesis 28:13) using the Hebrew word Ani for “I.” Then afterwards God says, “I am with you,” using the Hebrew word Anochi for “I,” Why does God use two different words, both meaning “I”? The difference between these two is the Hebrew letter kaf, which appears in Anochi but not in Ani. We learn in the Talmud (Shabbath 105a) that the Hebrew word Anochi is a notarigon, an aramaic acrostic meaning, “I Myself have written, have given.” The word Ani is lacking only the letter kaf, which in the acrostic refers to the word “written.” So the difference between Anochi and Ani is the difference between script and speech. In the word Anochi, God refers to having written and then given Himself, while Ani means only that God has spoken and given Himself. The obvious difference is that when something is written, it exists even after the action of writing is completed, while the spoken word exists only while it is being spoken.
This may well be the meaning of the dictum in the Talmud (Pesachim 50a) referring to the name of God, about which it says, “Not as I am written am I spoken.” Also in the Talmud (Sotah 38a), we learn that it was only in the Temple that the High Priests spoke God’s name as it was written, because they had achieved with their speech an active internal holiness that remained with them as though it had been written inside them. The High Priests spoke the name of God as it is written because their speech was comparable to the act of writing. However, this is not the case with us now. Our speech is not comparable to writing, for the impression of holiness has grown feeble, and so we must not pronounce the name of God as it is written.
In times of distress, when we are in pain because the lords of nations of the world rise and fall, and generally in times of suffering, while our hearts yield before God and we fear Him, we need to etch these things into our hearts. Only then will we be able to maintain our fear of God and subjugation to Him after He has saved us from all our troubles. So, when God helps us soon, and saves us from all our troubles, we will remain bonded to Him and truly worshipful of Him with love and fear. This is why at the beginning of the chapter on Jacob’s dream it is written, “I (Ani) am the God of your father,” and only afterwards it is written, “I (Anochi) am with you.” We must strive to attain the level of Anochi, which is “I am written into you.” God is saying, “Work to etch Me (Ani) indelibly within you, and then I (Anochi) will be with you always.”