Last night, I dreamed I had a baby. No one was more surprised than I was, but the doctor (who resembled a coworker) insisted I was expecting, and seconds later I found myself the proud mother of a fourth child, a little girl I was thinking of naming Estelle or Phoebe. I took her into my arms, astonished at the adult proportions of her facial features but delighted by her tiny body and cute fingers, and we were instantly transported to my living room, where I left her in the care of a dog I don’t own so that I could drive to the store and purchase some diapers and pacifiers. Right before I woke, the baby looked me in the eyes, smiled, and said, “What makes you think I need a pacifier? I’m calmer than you are!”
Did this dream mean anything? Dear God, I hope not! Let’s hope it was nothing more than the befuddled nonsense that often springs forth from my subconscious mind. While I might spend a minute or two musing at the hilarity of the inconsistencies of my brain’s fan fiction, my dreams are usually forgotten by midday, lost in the influx of actual obligations and all-too-real dilemmas, and I am guessing I’m not alone in this. While some dreams lead to more serious analysis, perhaps a feeling that our subconscious is trying to tell us something or that someone we lost has paid a visit, my guess is that few of us structure our days or our life choices around the insights shared in the psyche’s late-night experimental theater. Who has time for that?
Famously, this week’s parashah, Vayeitzei, presents us with a dream that refuses to be filed away or quickly forgotten. Jacob, exhausted and alone in the wilderness, lays his head on a stone and slips into a vision so striking that it becomes one of the defining spiritual images of our tradition: a ladder rooted on earth yet reaching toward heaven, with angels ascending and descending its rungs. Above the ladder, Jacob perceives God, who delivers a blessing not unlike the one given to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham. God promises comfort, assuring him that the land he is on will be given to him and his descendants, who will be numerous and will bless all the “families of the earth.” Moreover, God reassures him: “Here I am with you: I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this soil. I will not let go of you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Unlike my dream, which I hope will be forgotten by this time tomorrow, Jacob’s dream is anything but forgettable. To the contrary, it has obsessed us for millennia! Countless artists have depicted his ladder, capturing different images of this powerful story of presence and connection, often with a sleeping Jacob cradling a rock in the foreground. William Blake transformed the ladder into a stairway to heaven, African spirituals used it as a symbol of liberation and resistance, Bruce Springsteen revived their call to climb every rung on the ladder together, as brothers and sisters—even Rush borrowed the image in a song that invited us to “follow men’s eyes as they look to the skies.”
So why is this particular dream so powerful? Perhaps it speaks to us on a personal level, as God spoke to Jacob. Just as the dream interrupts Jacob at a pivotal moment in his story, it might stop us in our tracks, reminding us of God’s presence and providing comfort. Perhaps we are drawn to its transcendence, as we too aspire to recognize divine presence when we see it, to feel guided at each turning point in our lives, and to have reassurance of what lies ahead. Perhaps we long to hear God echo back to us that human cry repeated throughout the Torah: “ הִנֵּנִי. Hineni.” Here I am.
Perhaps that is the part of Jacob’s story that speaks to us most: he awakens to find meaning in the experience. He doesn’t dismiss it as nighttime absurdity, instead realizing that he has stumbled into a moment of profound encounter: “Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.” His dream becomes an invitation to pay attention—not necessarily because the symbols are obvious, but because the experience calls him to reflect on his fears, his future, and the Presence he had overlooked.
Not every dream contains divine messaging or hidden prophecy, but we harbor the hope that, in the midst of confusion, uncertainty, or even the ridiculous inner improvisations of our minds, there may be moments that ask us to pause, to notice, and to consider where our own ladders might be. We are reminded in this story that even the places and moments that feel barren or chaotic can hold unexpected insight. Sometimes, meaning does not arrive when we expect it. Perhaps the sacred can hide in the very places we would never think to look—waiting, as God does in Jacob’s dream, to reach out to us and say, “Here I am.”
Shabbat Shalom –
Rebecca Abbate
