Our parsha opens with the intriguing account of Yaakov Avinu’s dream.
“He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and messengers of G-d were going up and down on it.”
The details of the dream are fascinating within themselves, but to ask an even more fundamental question, what was the significance of Yaakov sleeping to begin with? Why was it necessary that on his way out to Galus, it began with sleep and a dream? And what do dreams mean from a spiritual perspective anyway?
I believe a powerful insight can be learned from all of this, starting with the comment of the Komarno Rav in his commentary on Megilas Esther. He describes that Geulah and Galus are much more than geographic or political realities. Real Geulah is Mochin D’Gadlus, an expanded consciousness and mature, integrated emunah-living with the reality that Hashem is with you no matter what is going on in the outside world.
On the flip side, Galus is the falling of our daas, the loss of this inner knowledge and the manifestation of Mochin D’Katnus, small minded thinking, where we might pay lip service to faith and religious observance, but our inner reality feels distant and removed.
This might explain the comment of the Gemara in Nedarim 41a which describes that if one has daas, he is lacking nothing. That doesn’t mean that one with daas does not experience struggle and hardship in life. It means that going through difficulties with this Mochin D’Gadlus allows the person to realize it is all from Hashem, see the light at the end of the tunnel, recognize his challenges are all part of the process and feel Hashem’s love for him at every stage of the process. If you have that, you are truly lacking nothing.
The Arizal, in Shaar Pesukim on Parshas Vayeshev takes this idea even further and applies it to sleep and dreams. He describes this reality of full Mochin D’Gadlus emunah as being awake and the reality of Galus minded Mochin D’Katnus as being asleep. But what does that have to do with dreams?
The Arizal continues to describe how truly, every Jew at their core is connected to Mochin D’Gadlus. We all achieved it at Har Sinai. When Hashem came down and every neshama experienced that spiritual clarity of Anochi Hashem Elokecha, the light of truth shone so brightly there was zero room for doubt and confusion.
And this, says the Arizal, has everything to do with sleep and dreams. Sleep is the spiritual sense of Galus, disconnection and loss of emunah. But dreams are those parts of the depth of the mind that are constantly bursting forth in the deepest stage of sleep that remind the person that in the core of their subconscious are the hints of Mochin D’Gadlus. The connection to Geulah stays alive even in the dark night of Galus.
And this could help explain the famous passuk in Shir Hashirim 5:2:
אֲנִי יְשֵׁנָה וְלִבִּי עֵר
I sleep, but my heart is awake.
Even in my state of confusion, darkness and disconnection, there is the deepest part of my soul that resonates with Mochin D’Gadlus. One can be spiritually sleeping but the dreams of Geulah remain active and awake.
With this in mind, we can also help understand the Passuk in Isaiah 27:13:
וְהָיָה בַּוֹם הַהוּא יִתָּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל
And on that day, a great ram’s horn shall be sounded…
The Radak and other commentaries describe that there won’t be a physical shofar being blown, rather it will be an internal calling for the ingathering of the exiles.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe in Likutei Sichos takes it a step further:
…but in the future redemption, the desire to leave exile and go to Jerusalem will arise from the will of the Jewish people themselves, while the revelation from Above (the great shofar) will merely be the cause through which their own inner desire is revealed. Their service will then be from within themselves.
Again, this echoes the idea of the dreaming within the sleep of Galus awakens us to the reality of Geulah.
I see this concept from a clinical standpoint as well. Rav Kook in Oros Hakodesh describes that spiritually sensitive people can have such powerful dreams, inner yearnings and tension, it can actually disturb their sleep. I call this spiritual insomnia. The goal is not to squash or suppress that inner longing for perfection and greatness. Rather it’s to channel it and find that balance between striving for Gadlus while at the same time living with menuchas hanefesh in our current state of Galus.
This is the depth of why Yaakov Avinu went to sleep and dreamed on his journey into Galus. He was setting up the spiritual paradigm that just like we need biological sleep to awaken refreshed in the morning, the Jewish people will have to go through the sleep of Galus to ultimately awaken to the light of the morning of Eretz Yisrael, Mochin D’Gadlus and Geulah.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 60.
