[Avodah] Life on earth can be "G-d's house"

[Yitzchok Levine]

There is a tendency in some circles to disassociate spirituality from 
participation in the material world.

The following is from the new translation of RSRH's commentary on the Chumash.

28: 17 And he [Ya'akov] was afraid and said: How awesome is this 
place! This is none other than the house of God! and this is a gate to heaven!

Vayera. This new awareness and the new demands that it brought with
it are what inspired in him the feeling of awe and fear: "How awesome
is this place!" What has been shown to me here is none other than the
house of God, a gate to heaven. Life on earth can be "God's house," a
house in which God takes up residence. When the angels ascend and seek
God in heaven, they have to descend to find Him on earth among men.
Every house that is home to such a life is "a gate to heaven," a gate
through which man enters to cleave to the Shechinah; it represents a
perfect union of the earthly and the heavenly. 
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