Dreams have the power to change us.
They can reveal truths and anxieties we didn’t know we had. Even when they are just a mess of wild images, there is something about their presence in our minds that can sort things out.
This is what happened to Jacob this week in Parashat Vayetzei, as he stopped on his travels to Haran.
And Jacob left Beer sheva and set out for Haran. He encountered a certain place and lodged there for the night, for the sun had set. And he took from the stones of that place and placed it under his head and lay down in that place.
And he dreamt: and behold a ladder was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and messengers of God were going up and down on it. (Genesis 28:10-12)
In this dream, God reveals God’s relationship to Jacob’s ancestors and promises Jacob a legacy, companionship, and protection.
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely, Adonai is in this place, and I did not know!” Awe-filled, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17)
I imagine Jacob, with his eyes overly open, panting, covered in sweat, as he looks up at the newly bright sky and realizes he had just experienced something profound.
But, what did Jacob dream exactly?
Or maybe this was just a dream?
The Or HaChaim says no, this was not just a dream. He explains that the verses repeatedly use the word הנה, hinei, behold, so we, and Jacob, would know this dream is prophecy itself.
If we put aside what God said in the dream and focus on just the imagery, the Torah tells us only a few details:
The ladder (סלם, sulam) was set up on the ground.
The top of the ladder (with the word ראש, rosh, meaning head) reached the sky.
Messengers, or angels, of God were going up and down the ladder.
Why is this profound imagery?
Here’s what the Talmud in Hullin 91b has to say:
It was taught: How wide was the ladder? It was eight thousand parasangs [parsaot], as it is written: “And behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” The word “ascending [olim],” written in plural, indicates that there were two angels ascending simultaneously. Likewise, the term “and descending [veyordim],” also in the plural, indicates that two angels were descending simultaneously. And when they met one another they were a total of four in one place, so the ladder must have been wide enough to accommodate four angels.
The Talmud asks the question, how wide is the ladder? This is in part because when the rabbis see plural nouns in the Torah, they presume it means the noun is doubled (unless it is likely to be more than two). As a result, when they read angels were going up and down, they calculate that it is a pair rising and falling.
As most of us have used a ladder before, it is quite difficult to have folks going up and down simultaneously (not to mention two at a time), and generally, we assume people will take turns. But not the Talmud:
Since they are going up and down, it means each pair is going at the same time, meaning four angels must be traveling simultaneously. Since they are climbing together, as opposed to after one another, according to the Talmud, there must be a moment in which four are there at the same time. Therefore, the ladder must be wide enough for all four.
This leads us to the question, how wide is an angel?
The text above suggests four of them are eight thousand parsangs wide. This calculation comes from the next paragraph in the Talmud:
And it is written in a verse with regard to an angel: “His body was like Tarshish” (Daniel 10:6). And it is learned as a tradition that the city of Tarshish was two thousand parasangs.
In the book of Daniel, he finds himself standing in front of a man whose body was כתרשיש, k’tarshish, like Tarshish. Tarshish is simultaneously the name of a gold-colored stone as well as a city (most notably from the Book of Jonah). The rabbis understand it, in this context, to mean the city.
This city, according to “tradition,” was 2,000 parsangs wide, representing a single angel.
So how long is a parsang?
A parsing is equivalent to about 3 to 3.5 miles.
This means the city of Tarshish would be 6,000 to 7,000 miles wide, and the ladder and the angels would have to be 24,000 to 28,000 miles wide.
Yup. That’s big. Really, really big. How big?
Well, for comparison, the circumference of the Earth is just under 25,000 miles. (This measurement was known for at least 400 years by the time the rabbis were putting together the Talmud.)
The ladder is the whole world.
The ladder of Jacob’s dream represents the entirety of existence. This is what Jacob saw and internalized.
When he woke up, he was shaken by the enormity of the presence he’d experienced. Sleeping under the sky and looking up at the stars, it can be easy to recognize the grandeur of creation.
The Rambam, in his explanation of the Foundations of Torah writes:
All the stars and spheres possess a soul, knowledge, and intellect. They are alive and stand in recognition of the One who spoke and [thus brought] the world into being. According to their size and level, each one praises and glorifies their Creator as the angels do. Just as they are aware of the Holy One, blessed be God, they are also aware of themselves and of the angels which surpass them. The knowledge of the stars and the spheres is less than the knowledge of the angels, but greater than that of humans.
The Rambam imagines the celestial bodies are alive with awareness and relationship with the Divine. How might we understand ourselves, God, and the universe with this in mind?
Jacob’s dream teaches us to recognize everything is connected and that holiness and presence can be found everywhere.
Instead of an unfeeling, uncaring universe, we find ourselves in one that is aware, thinks, and feels. Creation can sing praises as we do.
It only seems reasonable to jolt awake and exclaim, “Surely, Adonai is in this place, and I did not know!”
What’s new?
✈️ I’m coming to Cleveland Dec 16th-18th!
I’m incredibly excited to be coming to B’nai Jeshurun Congregation as a scholar-in-residence, and I invite you to join me there! I’ll be teaching a number of times with three core sessions, a sermon, and a parashah study.