When Jacob woke from his ladder-dream, he was shaken. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 28:17 spells out what exactly had shaken him.
How dreadful and glorious is this place. The Aramaic sharpens the phrase. This place is not common — not ordinary, not interchangeable with other places. It is the sanctuary of the Name of the Lord, the proper spot for prayer, set before the gate of heaven and founded beneath the throne of glory.
Three architectural layers stacked in a single sentence. Above Jacob: the gate of heaven, through which his prayer had just passed. Above the gate: the throne of glory, where his own face was inlaid. Beneath his head: the foundation stone of the sanctuary that will one day carry the Holy of Holies.
The Targum is mapping the Temple Mount vertically as a cosmic column. The Even Shetiyah, the Foundation Stone, sits at the base. The gate of heaven hovers directly above it. The throne of glory rests above the gate. Prayer offered at Bethel / Moriah does not merely rise — it rises along a pre-built corridor.
This is why Jewish prayer, three times a day, still orients toward Jerusalem (Daniel 6:10). Not because the city is pretty. Because the column is still standing. The Temple is destroyed, but the gate of heaven above it remains aligned, and prayers from every direction still find their way up the same stairwell Jacob saw.
The takeaway: some places on earth are plumbed directly into heaven. Jacob fell asleep on the only one where the ladder is permanent.