Yaakov's Dream, Shabbos, and His Hidden Greatness

1a“And he lay down in that place … And he dreamed … And behold, Hashem stood over him” [Bereishis 28:11–13]. My father and teacher, R' Yechiel of Alexander, zt"l, said: The holy Torah is eternal. It is a teaching meant to benefit the Jewish people as a whole and each individual Jew, in every generation and at every time, and “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children.” So when a Jew goes to sleep out of teshuvah and good deeds and out of Torah studied lishmah, for its own sake, after confessing all his deeds and seeing himself as if “this very day he is leaving the world,” then all his dreams are settled and his sleep is sweet [cf. Mishlei 3:24]. Even as he sleeps, in his dream, he will picture and remember that angels of Hashem stand beside him to guard him from all harm, and that the Shechinah rests over his head, as we say at bedtime. That is “and behold, Hashem stood over him.” When he sleeps well, he wakes in mercy. The moment he wakes he is filled with awe, and he keeps before his eyes the verse “I have set Hashem before me always” [Tehillim 16:8]. So the Rema explains at the very start of his holy words on Orach Chaim (1:1), in the name of the Rambam, and R' Shneur Zalman explains his words well in his own Shulchan Aruch. This is the fear of Hashem: that it be always before a person's eyes, in his heart and in his mind, that Hashem stands over him at every moment: when he walks, when he lies down, when he rises and when he sits, in every movement he makes. “The eyes of Hashem roam everywhere” [cf. Zechariah 4:10].

1bIf a person guards himself and lives this way through all six workdays, it is a good preparation for receiving the holiness of Shabbos. This is the idea of remembering Shabbos “from the first day of the week” (Mechilta, on Shemos 20:8), as explained in the Reishis Chochmah¹ and in the holy books. Then, when the light of Shabbos's holiness flows onto him, the letters of Bereishis turn into yarei Shabbos, “one who fears Shabbos” [Tikkunei Zohar, Tikkun 1]. He longs very, very deeply, and his soul thirsts for Hashem, to merit awe of Hashem's exaltedness and love of Hashem. This is the meaning of the Shabbos zemer [Azamer Bishvachin]: “May He send us His beauty.” At that time we pray to merit the fear of Heaven of Yaakov Avinu, and that is “the beauty of Yaakov,” which resembled the beauty of Adam HaRishon (Bava Metzia 84a). “And we will behold His glory”: we will see that “the whole earth is full of His glory” (Yeshayahu 6:3), which the Targum renders, “the whole earth is full of the radiance of His glory.” There is no place empty of Him [Tikkunei Zohar 57]; He fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds, present within all of creation and beyond it. “And may He show us His secrets”: may we merit the inner meaning and the secrets that Yaakov Avinu received in his dream, “which are spoken in a whisper.”

1c“May He reveal to us the reasons of the twelve loaves”: the secret of the twelve challos, which allude to the twelve tribes. “They are a letter in His Name”: the tribes are inscribed with the letters of the holy Name: yud, heh, yud at the beginning of their names and heh at the end². How do we merit all this? Through “the bundle on high,” that is, by cleaving to Hashem always, “in Whom all live,” and by knowing that this is the whole holy life-force of every Jew. In this way we grow and add in holiness. That is “May its strength grow and rise up to the head”: may we merit to cleave to Hashem. When a Jew's thoughts are always bound to Hashem, he reaches the level of Yaakov's image engraved on the Throne of Glory [cf. Chullin 91b]. One merits all this through Torah studied lishmah, in holiness, purity and joy. Through all this, as a matter of course, he rises from level to level, learning Torah and praying as Hashem wishes. He feels the “honeycomb of pleasant words” [Mishlei 16:24] hidden in the holy words and letters, and merits the joy of the Torah, which “gladdens the heart” [Tehillim 19:9]. That is “Rejoice, harvesters of the field”: these are the talmidei chachamim who engage in Torah and tefillah. “With speech” is Torah; “and with voice” is tefillah. Here end his holy words.

2aWe have already offered an explanation of the verses of this parshah. On “and I did not know” [Bereishis 28:16], the holy Zohar asks: “Is it any wonder that he did not know?” [Zohar I:150b]. The commentators on the Torah raise other well-known difficulties as well. There are three dimensions, known as olam, shanah and nefesh: place, time and soul [Sefer Yetzirah]. Sometimes even a simple person prays as he should and reaches a fear of Heaven above his own level. This happens because the place is holy, or because of the time: Shabbosos and Yamim Tovim, the “holy convocations” [Vayikra 23:2]. When Yaakov Avinu saw such holy things in his dream and then woke, “he was afraid” [Bereishis 28:17]. He imagined that he himself had not reached such wondrous refinement that such wonders should be revealed to him. “Great awe — this is the revelation of the Shechinah” [Pesach Haggadah]. Contemplating this wonder, he came to a higher knowledge and rose to a higher fear. That is “He was afraid and said … this is none other than the house of God” [Bereishis 28:17]. Only the place, he thought, caused such a wondrous light to be revealed to me, because this is the site of the Beis HaMikdash, and Mount Moriah was uprooted and came here [Chullin 91b; Rashi on Bereishis 28:17]. “And this is the gate of heaven”: the Yerushalayim above stands directly opposite the Yerushalayim below [cf. Taanis 5a]. But “I,” the dimension of nefesh, the soul, “did not know”: on my own I had not come to such high understanding.

2bIn truth, though, Yaakov Avinu was refined with great refinement and sanctified with every kind of holiness. It all happened as “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children,” so that every Jew could strengthen himself. He may truly feel in his soul that he is not set right and not refined, and, Heaven forbid, even the opposite. We also live on impure soil, in exile. Even so, let him never tell himself, “It is hopeless” [cf. Yirmiyahu 2:25], Heaven forbid. For Hashem plans His children's help, “so that no one banished be cast away from Him” [Shmuel II 14:14]. He gave us “holy convocations,” and first among them is Shabbos, which Hashem gave His people as rest “in His holiness”: His own holiness, specifically. Shabbos rises even without any awakening from below; the day itself is holy. On it “it is good to give thanks to Hashem” [Tehillim 92:2], “and therefore all His creatures will glorify and bless Him” [Shabbos morning prayers], whoever they may be.

3According to what we have said, this was the vow Yaakov made: “If God will be with me and guard me on this way” [Bereishis 28:20], from every kind of stumbling block, from Esav and from Lavan, “and I return in peace to my father's house” [Bereishis 28:21]. There the place will be holy: the “four cubits of halachah” [Berachos 8a] in which Yitzchak Avinu learned and prayed in holiness and purity. “Then Hashem will be for me” — for my soul — “as God.” The holy sefer Ohev Yisrael (Chanukah) explains this as the unification of Havayah and Elokim, two of Hashem's Names: a person takes upon himself to do every act and every movement for Hashem alone. In other words, Yaakov felt that his soul was not yet whole enough for this revelation, which had come only because of the place. So he vowed that if Hashem helped him return in peace to his father's house, his soul too would become holy with every kind of holiness. He would make no movement except for Hashem alone. He would be a throne for the Shechinah to rest upon, and he would unite Havayah and Elokim.

4aThis is what we pray for on Shabbos, when Hashem shines forth in His glory: “May He send us His beauty,” the beauty of Yaakov Avinu. As the Gemara says (Bava Metzia 84a), Yaakov's beauty resembled that of Adam HaRishon. On the side of our own souls, we are truly not fit for the light of holiness to rest upon us. But at least through the holiness of time (the dimension of shanah, the very essence of the day of Shabbos), we will merit the great fear called yarei Shabbos. “And we will behold His glory”: we will see that “the whole earth is full of His glory,” which the Targum renders, “the whole earth is full of the radiance of His glory” (Yeshayahu 6:3).

4b“And may He show us His secrets, which are spoken in a whisper”: may He show us the secret of why Yaakov Avinu's own holy level was hidden from him, both in the dream and when he woke, so that he thought this was above his level. Why did all this happen? Only for our sake, so that we too can strengthen ourselves while we live on impure soil, where there is no water to remove impurity³. We may merit holiness and fear of Heaven, even a tiny fraction of our father Yaakov's fear in his dream, and bind our souls to the light of life through the sweetness and delight of Shabbos's holiness, which is “the bundle on high.” Then we too will be able to rejoice in the joy of the holy Torah. That is “Rejoice, harvesters of the field”: “with speech” is Torah, “and with voice” is tefillah. “And speak a word sweet as honey”: even our prayers, which could not rise on our own account, will, through the holiness of the day, sweeten everything for the good. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)