"Jacob departed from Be'er-Sheva and went toward Haran. He came to that place and spent the night there because the sun had set." (Gen. 28:10-11)

Rabbi Chiya opened [his discourse], explaining [the parallel between our verse and the verse] "The sun rises and the sun sets; to the place where it hastens, there it rises again" (Ecclesiastes 1:5). This verse has been explained.

Jacob, whose light is symbolized by the sun, emanated the light of the sefira of chochma….

The Sages teach that this verse refers to events which transpired with Jacob: The sun set early so that Jacob would have to sleep in Beth-El on his way to Haran, and it rose early for him in order to heal him on his return from Haran as he passed Penuel (see Gen. 32:32). But this correspondence is problematic, for the verse in Ecclesiastes should then have stated, "The sun sets," on Jacob's outward journey, and "and the sun rises" upon his return, following the actual sequence of events. (Sanhedrin 95b)

However [the Kabbalistic explanation is this:] "The sun rises" refers to Jacob when he was in Be'er-Sheva [prior to his journey to Haran].

There, Jacob, whose light is symbolized by the sun, emanated the light of the sefira of chochma,1 and Be'er-Sheva is the sefira of bina,2 the well (in Hebrew, be'er) into which the light of chochma flows, and from whence are drawn the seven (in Hebrew, sheva) sefirot from chesed to malchut (see Zohar I, 203b). Thus "the sun rises" indicates that Jacob's light had already illuminated bina and was now bursting forth to the other six sefirot of the world of Atzilut ("Jacob departed from Be'er-Sheva") on the way to illuminating Haran, which is malchut, the seventh sefira, counting from chesed.

And the sun sets, refers to when he [was on his way] to Haran, as it is written, "…He spent the night there because the sun had set."

[The final words of the verse:] …to the place where it hastens, there it rises again.

Jacob was on his way to Haran to extract the sparks of holiness….

This indicates that the ultimate intention of the Divine is for malchut to be illuminated. When this is achieved, an additional burst of light suffuses malchut directly from chochma. (Biurei HaZohar, Rabbi Dovber p. 17b)

…Rabbi Shimon said: He left the [spiritual] realm of the Land of Israel, [as the verse states,] "Jacob departed from Be'er-Sheva and went…" to another domain [i.e. an unholy realm where divine severity and wrath are manifested, see Yalkut Shimoni, Bereishit 28:119], as is written, "and went toward Haran."

Here, Rabbi Shimon disagrees with the above interpretation. Rabbi Shimon explains that Jacob's going out does not signify illumination, but the opposite - descent into the realm of the unholy. Furthermore, he understands Be'er-Sheva as the sefira of malchut and Haran as the three impure kelipot that reside outside of the borders of holiness, and therefore outside of the Holy Land. Jacob was on his way to Haran to extract the sparks of holiness from the kelipot and eventually restore them to their former place, in the Holy Land. (See Damesek Eliezer; Tiferet Levi Yitzchak, p. 144-5.)

[Zohar I, p. 146b-147a; translation & commentary by Moshe Miller]