Should we DREAM big or just be REAL?

a person who's not happy with where they are now spiritually they either regret something they've done or they want more they want to what do they effectively want they want something different they want a different reality than what they have now and to do that you have to dream to do that you have to Envision something else and believe that that something else is possible okay friends The Story begins we're diving into tractate BR 14a and our topic today is dreams the importance of Dreams the value of Dreams what is a dream should we be dreaming about our preferred reality should we be focused on the reality at hand we're going to unpack this uh unusual statement in the talmud I'll read it in the Hebrew and then I'll translate it um you guys are welcome to follow on along in the English or look at the Hebrew as wellar rabar RAB RAB said in the name of RAB anybody who sleeps for seven days so seven days go by if this person sleeping and he doesn't have a dream this person is called bad or evil bad is probably more accurate in English over here they translate as evil somebody go and sleeps a sday period and does not have a dream in those seven days he's called badar as the verse says and he quotes from The Book of Proverbs y whoever is sated when they sleep they won't be visited by Evil Al rather than reading it as sa which means satiated you could read it CH seven seven days go by of sleeping and you have a dream you're not going to be visited by bad this is what the tal says the next paragraph says the son of the son of ab said this is what said in the name of so all these people are quoting the sage anybody who satiates themselves from words of Torah and then goes to sleep he won't have bad news announced he won't be visited by evil the same verse that we had quoted from Proverbs in the previous paragraph he who is satiated Yin will sleep he satiated when he sleeps meaning being satiated with Torah bad will not or evil will not visit him so we have two statements from the talud the first one if you go by seven days of sleeping and you don't have a dream that's that's a bad thing that person that prototype is called bad and anybody who satiates themselves with words of Torah they're not going to be visited by bad means maybe they'll have a dream let's start with the first statement over here that that's a bit of a shocking statement for two reasons number one what is so bad about not having a dream or conversely what is so good about having a dream if you have a dream that's apparently a good thing and if you don't have a dream that's apparently a bad thing thing um that's number one number two how many of you decided last night that you're having a dream right it it it seems like to some degree it's out of our control although we do have influence on our dreams right but to to an extent it kind of seems like it's a bit out of our control the most basic interpretation of this talmud we're going to run through four or five different interpretations which are going to give us different perspectives on what dreams are and how frankly how we approach life based on these perspectives but the most basic perspective is that a dream has some element of Prophecy to it it has some element of truth to it that doesn't mean every dream you have is true and even if it was true that doesn't mean we know how to interpret it um properly or accurately but a dream is some level of communication and it actually we know this from the Tanya from chapter 29 of Tanya says that when it quotes the famous statement in the tal that when one sleeps their soul Rises to Heaven a portion of their soul and draws from heaven and that's that that that that is uh revealed in dreams because when we're having positive sacred holy dreams that means our soul is drawing from the right place in heaven and recharging properly and if not it means it's not charging properly so having a dream is some sort of Prophecy and that's a good thing because if you have a good dream that means you're being charged properly and if you have a bad dream at least you know that you're drawing from the wrong Source that's the most basic interpretation one of the commentaries known as the mid explains that when it says seven days go by and you don't have a dream it doesn't mean you don't have any dream it the talmud he the way he interprets this talmud is that it's referring to a dream of substance somebody who has the 7day period go by and does not have a dream of substance a dream that's meaningful that considered to be bad that's a bad indication why is that a bad indication because we have a lot more influence on our dreams than we think we we do because a dream is very much reflective of what we were thinking about in the daytime throughout our day so if a person does not have any dream of substance for an entire 7day period that means that a person is not investing themselves enough in in thinking about things that are of substance um and and here's the interesting thing a person that doesn't mean that a person didn't do anything of value for those sday period or didn't even think anything substantial but they weren't deep enough in thought of something that might be substantial a person could have been doing and learning and doing Mitzvah and and engaging in what they should have been engaging yet didn't have a stream of substance that means that what they were doing was not good enough until uh at that point in other words see a good dream as a barometer and a positive dream a holy dream as a barometer of your engagement in in spirituality if a 7-Day period goes by that me and we don't have any positive dreams that that means doesn't mean we weren't engaged it means we weren't engaged enough which is why the second paragraph that we had read today says anybody who satiates themselves with words of Torah won't be visited by Bad by bad dreams and conversely will have good it doesn't say anybody who studies Torah it says it's an interesting statement anybody who satiates themselves with Torah in English I see over here anybody who fills himself with matters of Tor in the Hebrew on that second paragraph it's the third line means to satiate to literally fill yourself up you know you eat and you just feel you don't feel hangry afterwards you don't feel hungry afterwards you just after you eat after being hungry it's like I needed that imagine we learned to was such a thirst and such of Interest we were so inspired and we felt like my soul needed that I needed that if we could get ourselves to that point that's going to have an incredible impact on our dreams over the past couple of years you guys know this I I've had this semi Obsession maybe interest in Reading reading letters penned by the personal respons the rebes the volume of volumes of letters that that the reab had written to people addressing personal issues and I had recently come across a letter where the reab was addressing somebody who had some sort of dream issue was disturbed by their dreams and the reab was encouraging this person to do something different think about something else during the day study Torah and study immensely because that eventually if we satiate ourselves with that if we really ingest it not just do it we have to learn Torah but sometimes we just do it sometimes we show up which is good it's always good just to show up but if we can really ingest it it becomes part of the way we think and the greatest indication that we've ingested it properly is that it becomes part of the way we even dream there's an commentary on the anakov the anakov are like the selections of tud such as what we're studying now that are more the aad parts of T not the Hala parts of tud more the metaphoric or philosophical parts of the talmud not as much as the discussion and there's a commentary on the anakov called the iakov the iakov explains that what a dream means in this context somebody goes by seven days and doesn't have a dream it's called bad a dream means a thought of tshua a reflection because what is tshua tsha is a desire for something different something else than what we have now a person who's not happy with where they are now spiritually right they either regret something they've done or they want more they want to not repent it's more than repent shua is more than repent they want to return they want to what do they effectively want they want something different they want a different reality than what they have now and to do that you have to dream to do that you have to Envision something else and believe that that something else is possible and somebody who goes seven days and has no thought of tsha that's problematic because they're too comfortable complacency every seven days we which might be the significance of seven by the way because shabas is like the seventh day and shabas we'll talk about the shabas is associated with TBA but that's what a dream is a dream is I'm envisioning and imagining something different and if I don't Envision or imagine something different even in my sleep I'm not thinking hard enough these are serious statements by the way because they really put a lot of responsibility on us to take responsibility for you know you think like okay the day is over I'm taking a break you know I'm uh I'm done for the night and it's not true there's no such thing there's no such thing because we're in a relationship with God and we have a mission we have a purpose and we're trying to reflect that purpose every single moment of Our Lives to some degree even while we're sleeping I remember when I was in Yeshiva years ago um first day the head Rabbi was giving an orientation it's old school Rabbi very old school like he was one of these Europeans you know walks I've told you about he walks in the room and he's you know long black coat white beard and you feel his presence he gets up at the podium and he says here is and it's yiva where we had dormed we're dorming at right so we're kind of in this immersive environment and he says here is the schedule for you for a day at yiva 24 hours a day we're like what uh I mean effectively we started at 7:30 in the morning and ended at 10 o'clock at night why 20 24 hours a day like were we sleeping in here like what he said within that 24hour period there's going to be a lot of time where you're going to be learning there's going to be a lot of time where you'll be eating there'll be time where you're sleeping there'll be time where you might be exercising or doing other discretionary things that are necessary there's times that are within the mandated schedule there's times that are outside of the mandated schedule and it's all one 24-hour period where you're learning how to serve God the best which was a powerful he meant it right that that's what we're saying here that our we're responsible for our dreams we're not off at night but it takes planning ahead of time to be more intentional and more deep about what we choose to think about investing in the day the 1700s in Vila there was a famous Rabbi known as the the is an acronym gim the is an acronym for he known as the means a prodigy or a genius and he was the prodigy or the genius of VNA he lived around the same time maybe a generation earlier than the alter the author of The Tanya and he has a lot of interesting insights on talm on on the book of mish by the way the Book of Proverbs where these verses are quoted from there's a lot of interesting cabalistic insights and he says that this dream at night that you would be having you go seven days without a dream that's called bad right so he says what is this really talking about he says night is a euphemism night is euphemistic for Exile and if we go seven nights we're traveling through Exile an entire week of Exile and we don't realize that this Exile is a dream we take it too seriously that is problematic that's a bad thing that's what the girl says that's a bad thing because the truth is Galos Exile is a dream which which by the way I I that may sound very insensitive and I don't mean to sound insensitive and I apologize if anybody's listening to this and says well that's because Exile is very difficult gullos is very difficult and we know that we know how difficult gas and Exile is and I'm we're not minimizing it by any means uh pain is real people have really difficult situations I mean we since October 7th I think we've really been able to internalize globally as a people how difficult Exile is how badly we need Redemption but we associate dreams with things that aren't real and things that we would like prefer to happen you know but but don't actually believe it could happen it's a dream right so should we be dreaming for the Final Redemption should we be dreaming for messiah no that's not a dream that's reality Exiles the dream the alter the author of The Tanya writes he doesn't write this in the tong he writes this in one of his other works that why is exile called a dream by the way this is this is from the book of tum The Book of Psalms we say in the right before benching that when M comes we're going to be like we're going to realize that we were like dreamers this whole time we lived in this Exile that was like an illusion it wasn't real it's not to say that we don't actually feel pain and that people are going through a hard time but it wasn't real but is it like a dream it's it's anal it's an analogy the analogy chosen to describe Exile as a dream and here's the reason why what is a dream a dream in a dream you could have two you could have this like dichotomy of reality that makes no sense right you can be I don't know you open the the door to the White House and you walk into Six Flag I don't know dreams don't need to make sense dreams don't make sense dreams aren't expected to make sense and there are certain realities that take place in Exile that just don't make sense that are unexplainable sometimes there are Global atrocities and we ask the question why and it's nobody dare answer that question right because how could I justify such an evil thing um but let's save it spiritually in our own personal lives there's things that seem to be dichotomous in our lives we go to sh we doin we're inspired and if you were to Define that as me you look at me in a certain light and we leave sh and maybe at work I'm not inspired to the same degree I'm not invested or as power of my Judaism to the same degree and if you were to isolate that portion of my life you might look at me in a different light so you have I'm giving an example of two opposite extremes where a person could do in and go to SCH and learn and be inspired and be on fire and in the same moment can turn around and is like who is this person in in contemporary psychology they call this versioning there's different versions of people and a person can have more than one version I mean we're used to calling this the animal soul and the Divine Soul Duality I'll give you an example you have a story in the Tom tractate of oara this is of oara 18 believe 18b where there's the famous Sage tardon who's visiting his colleague rabi who's on his deathbed and RAB is an incredible scholar he's an incredible he's he has committed his life to torist he's committed his life to teaching Torah to other Jewish people and lifting up other Jewish people even in situations uh even under circumstances where it was I don't want to just say difficult but but un illegal under the Roman Empire he was one of the 10 Martyrs that we read about onum Kipper and he was killed for not only practicing ing his values publicly but sharing them with other Jewish people who are less fortunate to have it and before dying he says am I going to be going TOA am I going to be going to the world to come am I going to be going to Paradise am I going to be going to heaven and he says well tell me what you've done what' you what you what did you do with your life what he says I'll tell you what I've done I was collecting for a porm meal porm sud was collecting I had funds collect collecting for porm those funds got mixed up with charity and I knew I was able to be on top of the numbers I knew what the numbers were so it wasn't a big deal right you have a pile of cash for this fund you have a pile of cash for this fun don't mix them but if you do mix them you know your numbers you're good right but he said I just gave it all charity because I didn't want anybody to suspect me I wanted to be sensitive to skeptical skeptical people is an irony over there but okay he said you're going to the world to come you're good you're going to heaven and the commentaries asked like what is this story why is he so unconfident inconfidentes the guy committed his life to Torah he literally walked to death for the sake of God to inspire Jewish people and he has to come up with reasons why he might be going to heaven because of this whole charity incident so one of the explanations is that he thought that maybe I'm engaged in Torah so passionately not because it's Torah and because it's sacred and because it's divine and because it's God because it's interesting he says maybe I'm not that spiritual maybe I'm just an academic and maybe I find it to be interesting you can have philosophers and secular Scholars who are just as committed to their causes but the greatest indication that he's committed that he's living a Redemption life and not a gullos Exile life is the consistency not the dichotomy is that he's commed not only in areas of Interest such as the academics but even areas of Charity two very different areas two very different prototypes who would normally be engaged in both of these things two different personalities yet he's engaged both there's consistency there he didn't have the Exile mindset he had the gullas Redemption mindset conversely our default setting and we have to work on this and this is a work in progress is we have the Exile mindset which is like a dream where there's dichotomies where one moment I might be inspired about this and another moment I might be passionate about something that is antithetical to what I was inspired about before and the g says if we go seven days and we don't realize that this is just a dream don't beat myself up this isn't the reality the reality is God's presence in this world the reality is the spiritual consistency that's not the dream that's the reality the Exile is the dream we don't realize that that's not a good thing that's how the G explains this we have to choose the version of reality that is true not just the one that is obvious the version of reality that's obvious is the Exile version where one moment we're inspired the next moment we Fallen flat on her face and then feel guilty for falling flat on her face because I hey I thought I was so inspired that must be which one is the real me right is the version of me the one that fell in the face and the inspiration was the exception or was me being inspired the true version of me and me falling flat on my face which happens that's the exception we have to choose and realize we have to choose the reality that is true not just the one that's obvious it's more obvious or easy to choose the Exile reality as being true and saying Redemption is a dream one of those biblical prophecies never going to happen right that that requires a mindset shift we got to put on new glasses because that is the truth the world is capable of experiencing that truth the world has experienced that truth in the past the world experienced this at Mount Si the world experienced this at the splitting of the Red Sea the world experienced this prior to Adam and Eve's sin right God was comfortable in this world the world experienced this with God being present at the Bas of Mikes and there's little mhia moments we have where we know that God is real so the world is capable it's just taking that what seems like an exception like a dream and realizing that it's the Exile that's the Dream It's the Exile that's the exception it just happens to be a prevalent exception a prevailing exception and it's the G it's the Redemption that's real every sday period we have to have this moment where we realize Gallos is just Exile is Just a Dream It's not the reality I'm not saying that the pain is fake or that you don't feel it and that you shouldn't feel but it's not the reality and this it could be that it's associated with shabas the seventh day because the word chabas mean shabas the cists explain that chabas has the same letters as the word t which means to return toua in chabis we live on a higher plane we live on a higher level a deeper closer connection with God I'd like to share with you one more explanation one more interpretation from the mag of mesich where he says this night period where one might be sleeping is analogous to to laziness to lethargy there's times in our life where we feel demotivated we feel disinterested in spirituality we feel disinterested in engaging in our relationships engaging in our connection with God we feel like it's night time and he says you need at least every seven days the tud says you need to have a dream what is a dream so apparently the wordom that's the Hebrew word for dream has another meaning there's more than one meaning to that word and those who are well-versed in Biblical Hebrew grammar will know this better than I do but the wordom dream has another meaning you know what that is strength somebody who goes seven days hold I'm going back to the text here somebody goes seven days without a dream not dream without strength so it's night time and we're sleeping we're sleep we're lethargic we feel disinterested in our relationships we feel disinterested in our connection to God and the easy thing to do is just say do it anyways bro just just do it or don't do it but both of those are not good choices because don't do it means we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing just do it is you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing because you're supposed to be doing it with joy and with Sim and with passion with love so either of those are not good options so you what you need you need a the wordom means dream but the word also means strength we need strength where do we draw strength from the answer is seven because what is the significance of seven the seven faculties of the soul the seven emot faculties of the soul the seven emotional faculties of the soul that we learn about in and we learn about that elaborates on but we learn about in cabala which is Passion which is love which is reverence which is balance perseverance integrity and connection communication right that's the the the spiritual connection that we have the the capacity the emotional internal capacity we have to connect with God when we employ that when we try to trigger that and by the way that's literally what the Tanya is all about is how do I trigger my feelings how do I get my my heart to buy in I want my heart to buy in how do I get my heart to buy in and natanya provides numerous methodology for that that's the seven that takes strength and when we're strong because we make a decision that we're going to emotionally buy into what we actually believe in when we make that decision we're in a very good space in our life we're in a very good space in our life I I was reading a talk from the Reb by the way I I thought this was beautiful it was the Reb's Reb's address to the at the at the convention the convention of International Convention of in 1991 the Reb was addressing the and the truth is it's very obvious from this talk because it was edited made for public review that the Reb was really addressing everybody but he was highlighting the difference between a EV which means a servant and a a messenger are we Servants of God or or are we messengers of God and there's a profound difference between the two what is a servant of God does what he's supposed to do because that's what he's told what is a an emissary or messenger he has an opinion he does what he's supposed to do in his own way you can go to using kabad as an example but this is obviously globally relevant to every Jew but you go to any of the 6,000 there are out there and you're going to see the same message in 6,000 different you're going to see a lot of personality and the reason is because there's an opinion Ser we're not servants we're schim emissaries and the difference is the Emissary has bought in emotionally and engage this personality and doesn't just say I'm going to do this because that's what I'm told he says I'm going to do this because I believe in this and part of what I'm told to do is to believe in it not just do it he emotionally Buys in in that moment we emotionally buy into what we believe in we're no longer living in this Exile mindset this nighttime mindset but we don't go seven days without the dream without the strength the moment we emotionally Buy in like a not like a servant you know what happens our Judaism becomes attractive and radiates and illuminates the world around us illuminates our surroundings okay that's my story and I'm sticking to it