Vayetze
Genesis 28:10-32:3
Hosea 12:13-14:10
Millennia before Sigmund Freud wrote “The Interpretation of Dreams,” our ancestor Jacob had a dream. Not only did he attach great personal significance to this dream, but his experience endures as the inception of a long and important tradition of dream interpretation in Jewish life.
Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching from the ground up to the heavens with angels ascending and descending it. God spoke to Jacob in the dream: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: The ground on which you are lying I will give to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen. 28:13-15).
This dream — which surfaced as Jacob struggled with his conscience — is often taken to be a divine confirmation that the blessing Isaac bestowed on Jacob instead of its rightful recipient, Esau, was genuinely Jacob’s. The dream granted Jacob a legitimacy that removed much of the guilt he must have felt for the deception.
Jacob awoke feeling sanctified by God, and said: “God was in this place and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16). However, the dream did more than just sanction Jacob’s behavior; it validated the importance and value of dreams themselves. It instructed Jacob’s descendants in the importance of dreams and on how they could be used as vessels for maintaining hope.
Thus it is no surprise that the prophets believed dreams were necessary for maintaining optimism and establishing goals for the future. The prophet Joel said: “Your old men shall dream dreams and your youth shall see visions” (Joel 3:1).
During the Roman occupation of ancient Israel, a midrash (Tanhuma on Vayetze, 2) based on Jacob’s dream was conceived to help maintain the hope that Rome’s terrible political oppression would one day end.
In the midrash, the angels of Babylon and Greece were depicted ascending Jacob’s heavenly ladder, only to be brought back down to Earth. Rome was also seen rising higher than all the ancient kingdoms, and then falling: Its fall was predicted by a voice declaring that Rome would sink lower than any previous kingdom.
The Joseph saga elevated the dream interpretation to an art form. Joseph attained his prominent position because of his ability to interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker (Gen. 40). He was ultimately summoned to interpret Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat and seven lean cows and seven plump and seven shriveled ears of corn. Such talent earned Joseph the sovereign’s confidence (Gen. 41).
Thus, from the earliest days of the Jewish people — and especially when the pain of exile seemed too much to bear — we dreamed of “next year in Jerusalem,” when we would be a free people in a land of our own, no matter how remote or preposterous that dream might have seemed.
Theodor Herzl, father of modern Zionism, understood the importance of transforming dreams into reality through action. His famous line, “If you will it, it is no dream,” became the keystone of the pioneer movement central to the rebuilding of Israel. Those words echoed in the hearts and minds of generations of Israel’s pioneers who did not rest until the dream was a reality.
Even today, Jacob’s ladder continues to provide Jews with a metaphor: A steady stream of individuals strive for the heavens while others stand only at the ladder’s earthbound base.
We may find ourselves on that ladder when we are summoned to translate dreams into a willingness to build. When that happens we must be willing to ascend to the very top of Jacob’s ladder along with all the generations of Jews that preceded us.