Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses the halacha that one may not use material for the altar or sacrificial service from substances that were already used for personal, secular purposes.

This is expressed in modern-day halacha in that it is forbidden to take a used article of clothing and turn it into a cover for a Torah scroll (Shulchan Aruch, O.C. 153:21; Rama ibid. 157:1). Chavos Yair (161) argues that if it is changed in form, then it is permitted. Magen Avrohom (ibid. 157:5) brings proof for this idea from the Midrash that the women used their mirrors to donate copper for the Kiyor (wash basin) in the Mishkan.

The Tur Ha’Aruch (Bereishis 28:18) raises a question: how could Yaakov use the stones for an altar if he had slept on them earlier (ibid. 11)? The Tur answers that a private altar (bama) is not subject to those restrictions. The Minchas Chinuch (Kometz HaMincha 40) asks on the Tur that according to Zevachim (116b), it is forbidden to use secular materials even for a private altar. The Minchas Chinuch answers that these stones were already used for an altar by Avraham and even Adam HaRishon, and therefore were used for sacred purposes first and permitted for an altar.

However, this begs a different question. If these stones were sacred, how could Yaakov sleep on them? Pardes Yosef (ibid.) offers a number of answers. The idea of placing the stones around his head to protect him was not the same as placing his head directly on them. In this case, he was preventing damage rather than deriving a direct benefit, which would be permitted. Another answer is based on the Midrash is that in the morning, Yaakov found all the stones he placed around his head merged into one. Since they changed form, they should be permitted, based on the Magen Avrohom cited earlier.

However, I have a difficulty with the Midrash cited. In Rashi (ibid. 28:11), it seems they turned into one stone while he was sleeping. However, from the Ramban’s (28:17) version of the narrative, one could read that the stones became one after he awoke, before he made the altar. Therefore, this answer would only work according to Ramban. A careful reading of Midrash Tehillim (91:5) shows the following language: “Yaakov woke up in great fright and found the stones merged into one.” If the stones transformed themselves while he was sleeping, that means Yaakov slept on them when they were still originally altar stones—so how could he do this? Even if they transformed while he was sleeping, he initiated the act before the transformation occurred.

The simplest answer, which also fits Rashi and the narrative of the scripture and Midrash, is that this was part of Yaakov’s fear and distress. After his dream, he realized it was a holy site and was distressed that he had slept in such an “awesome place” (ibid. 28:16). Had he known it was a holy site, he would not have gone to sleep there. He also did not know at the time that the stones were holy.

We might ask: why did God want him to make this accidental trespass? Generally speaking, we hold (Chulin 7a) that God does not allow the righteous to sin even inadvertently. We must say that there was some message in this process that made it worthwhile. I believe it was a message of comfort to Yaakov that even though he was leaving his family, God would take care of him like a parent. A parent does not mind if a child sleeps in their bed, so to speak. This is similar to the Midrash (Rashi, Devarim 32:11) that God acts like a mother eagle protecting its young from arrows while carrying them—so too the Clouds of Glory protected the Jews from Egyptian arrows. There are times when God’s love, like parental love, transcends the boundaries of what is normally considered appropriate or respectful.

I will conclude with an even more powerful statement of how God’s love for the Jewish people transcends prohibitions. There is a prohibition for a man to take back a divorced wife, and the Jewish people are compared in Yirmiyahu (3:1) to a wife who was unfaithful and subsequently divorced. The Gemara (Yoma 86b) remarks:

“Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Great is repentance, as it overrides even a prohibition of the Torah. How so? As it is stated that God said: “…Saying: If a man sends away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, may he return to her again? Will not that land be greatly polluted? But you have committed adultery with many lovers; and would you yet return to Me, said the Lord” (Jeremiah 3:1). Indeed, the Torah states: “Her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she has been made impure” (Deuteronomy 24:4). The relationship between the Jewish people and the Holy One, Blessed be He, is compared to that between a husband and wife. Just as it is prohibited for an adulterous wife to return to her husband, it should be prohibited for the Jewish people to return to God from their sins, yet repentance overrides this prohibition.”