Why Yaakov Chose to Stop Dreaming - a Relationship Lesson [Parshas Vayeitzei]

Okay friends, the story begins paras vet paras vet teaches us of a very important life transformation. A life transformation that Jacob had gone through and what we're going to uncover and unpack in the next couple of minutes is a transformation we can all go through. One of the big things about Yakov is he dreamed. And we have a lot of dreams throughout the Torah. Pharaoh dreamed. Nvadar dreamed. The story of Daniel. Yseph dreamed. The dreams weren't always clear and they required interpretation. Yakov dreamed and he was somehow comfortable taking his dream for face value. The message was clear. He ran with it. He did something with it. But I want to analyze the text for a moment because I I came across this uh what I think is a fascinating observation. Yakov is at this point in the param running away from his brother Asov who wants to kill him because Yakov had stolen the bra. He had stolen the birthright blessing fair and square. He's going to Karan. He's going to live with his brother Lavan. Sorry, his uncle Lavan, his wife's brother Lavan. And he it suddenly gets dark and he makes a pit stop at this place. The Torah says Maki encounters this place. And we know from the sages that this place was the same place that his father was bound and was offered as a sacrifice 150 years prior. This is Jerusalem. This is the region of Benjamin where the altar was. He encounters this place. He falls asleep. He has a dream. In his dream, angels are going up and down the ladder. God communicates in this dream that even though you're just running away and your life seems to be about survival, at this point, you will be blessed. you will spread forth throughout the world and you're going to be protected. Dream is over. Yakov wakes up. He's all excited. He goes on his way. He goes to the well. The whole story of him unrolling the stone. Um that was apparently too heavy for one person, but he figured out how to do it. He then meets his future father-in-law, marries his wives, establishes the 12 tribes. Then at the end of the parha, 20 years later and 12 children later and four wives later, it's now time to go back home because maybe Asa finally calmed down. And as he's leaving, and I'll just just let's look at the text at the end of the parha as well. As he's leaving, it says Yakov went on his way. Jacob goes on his way and he encounters that same word as before. He encounters he encounters angels of God. You see the difference? On his way in to escaping the land of Israel where his brother wanted to kill him, he dreams of angels and God reassures him. On his way back to Israel, the Torah says he encounters angels, angels of God. But not in a dream. In real life, the first time he dreamed about angels, 20 years later, 12 children later, four wives later, he's no longer dreaming of angels, but they're real. Rashi makes a point to to iterate that it were the same angels. Um the first time there's angels going down and up the ladder was the angels of Israel uh that escorted them there him there and because he's leaving the land of Israel now different angels are coming. Rashi says those same angels are coming back. So it's literally the same angels but they're not appearing in a dream. They're appearing in real life. If you look at the beginning of next week's para where Yakov is on his journey back to the land of Israel, back to his father's home and again he sends angels to to Asov. He sends like messengers and spies. He wants to figure out what the deal is. You he finds out Asov is coming with 400 men. Asov wants to kill him. That whole story. But if you look at the text, it says sent angels and Rashi says literal angels, real angels. So there's like three stages in his life. He went from dreaming of angels to experiencing them in person to being able to tell them what to do, to being able to command them, to being in charge of them. And what I see here is a maturation a spiritual maturation because the Rambam by monities points out not in this context but in a different context that there's different levels of prophecy. There's different types of prophets. There's prophets and there's prophets. Um, my monities has what's called the 13 principles of of Jewish faith. 13 fundamental Jewish beliefs. One of which is the belief in prophecy. The belief that God is relevant and communicates his relevance to people. God isn't just stuck in heaven, but he actually talks with us. The belief in prophecy is fundamental. The mymonities the Rambam also says that the belief that Moshe is Moses is the ultimate prophet is also fundamental. So what's the difference between Moses's prophecy and other levels of prophecy? He says a lower level prophet dreams of messages and has to interpret it. A higher level prophet like Moses has a very vivid clear experience. Commentaries point out that Yakov had gone through these three stages through this miteration. He started off dreaming of angels and then he went to experiencing them and then even furthermore commanding them. And our question today is what was this shift in Yakov's life? Maybe it wasn't just one shift, but what put him on the journey toward making this big shift to take theoretical spirituality and but when I say theoretical, I mean perceptually theoretical. He was just dreaming about it. It was it was real, but he experienced it only in his head. Something almost like philosophical. It was a dream. Dreams by definition are are things that are you dream of them, right? But somehow it became real. What changed in Yakov's life that made spirituality, that made a relationship with God, that made a relationship with with seeing life from a very different pair of lenses uh real? And I think this is a question we all kind of want to figure out. I think this is like the million-dollar question. Can I experience truth, not just believe in it, not just dream of it? Can I make a relationship that seems theoretical practical? I'll share with you a story, one of my favorite stories. Rabbi Shalom Dober of Labavich known as the Reb Rashab was once heading on vacation from the town of Labavich to a resort town. His doctor ordered him to go on vacation to heal to go to some sort of healing resort. He he had a lot of health issues and he's in this is like in the 18 mid 1800s or maybe late 1800s. He's in this horse and buggy and he's actually carpulling from the town of Labavish resort town. He's carpulling together with what's called the mascul which was basically a heretic. There's a group of masculim. They called themselves masculim the intellectuals and they used to try to textually prove that Judaism isn't true. Uh and and they made a whole religion out of it. Um and there was a lot of tension between them and and the traditional Jewish world and they ended up dying out. But they're carpulling together. So you have the Reb, you have the Reban, he's carpulling together with a heretic, which you got to believe is going to lead to interesting conversation. They get into debate. They're debating the validity of prophecy. They're debating the validity of angels, the validity of a spiritual reality that our eyes don't see. And of course, the Reb Rashab's position was in line with the fundamental principles of of Jewish faith that the that there is a deeper reality beyond what meets the eye. And the Moscow was arguing that that's not the case that we have to go by the obser what the observable naked eye could see. And finally, the Moscow blurts out, "Do you see angels? Come on. Like what are we debating here already? I don't see any angels. I don't see any spiritual worlds in deeper reality. I don't see the names of God that creates. I don't see communication with God with with with the world and people. You see this stuff? So the rebab told him that there are three characters that are with us right now. There is you and I riding in the horse and buggy to the resort town. There is the horse and wagon driver. The horse and buggy driver. Is he a driver or or rider or whatever it is? Conductor. I don't know. And there is the horse. And were you to interview all three of us individually about the purpose for this trip, you'd get different answers. If you were to ask us, if somebody were to interview us and ask us what is the purpose of this trip, we would say to go on a to go to our resort and heal, rejuvenate, recuperate. If you were to ask the wagon driver, what is the purpose of this journey? I get paid. I don't He might not even know where they're going. He might know the address, obviously. He might not know where they're going and why they're going there. It's not relevant. It's a much more limited perspective. It's a much more narrow perspective on life. And then if you talk to the horse, that's a very narrow perspective on life. Because if you ask the horse, what's the purpose of this journey? It's I don't want to get whipped. I need some hay. So that Rashab told him effectively that you need to start looking at life like a human being understanding that there is deeper purpose going on even if you don't see it right now and not to look at life like a horse where it's just about hey it's just about getting not getting whipped because when we look at life that way you're not going to see anything. You're not going to see the resort. You're not going to see the journey. You're not even going to see the paycheck that the drivers get. you have a very limited narrow perspective and the Reb was encouraging him to expand his limits and in in some way Yakov in our para had really expanded his limits I think from dreaming about angels to experiencing them to ultimately commanding them which means God became very a very vivid real part of his life and this is the journey we go through and I think this is this is my humble opinion that the shift that got Yakov that helped Jacob scale in his relationship with God and I think this will help us scale in our relationship with God and by the way our relationship with people because it's the same with the soul sometimes we believe people have a soul like it's some sort of dream it's like I'm sure he does have a soul, but I haven't seen it yet type of thing, right? Um, but we could get ourselves to a point where we know people have a soul. Like, I've I've touched it. I've seen it. The shift, I think, goes back to Yakov's reaction to his original dream. To put things in perspective, let's just look at the text real quick. To put things in perspective, right before that dream, I mean, if we were to like psycho analyze Yakov's emotional state at this point, he was cornered by his mother to steal bra, steal blessings, steal a birthright from his brother, he didn't want that birthright. I mean, he he wasn't planning on going for it. His mother urged him to do it. And the result is instead of blessings and and a life of that is plentiful, the result is he's getting killed by his brother and he has to run away. And he literally has nothing with him other than himself. And he's terrified. We know that he's terrified because before he went to sleep, what did he do? He took the 12 stones and put them around his head to protect himself. Now, why that's going to protect him is is a separate question. But but he wanted to protect himself. He was afraid. He was afraid of wild animals. He was afraid of the elements. It's not very clear where he's going at this point. It seems like his life is just about survival. It's literally what life is. Just not getting killed by Asov, not getting killed by wild animals. He goes to sleep. He has the dream with the ladders and and the angels going down and up. And God reassures him that he's going to be protected. He then wakes up and he's thankful to God. And what does what does he do? I'll read the text in Hebrew and I'll translate it into English because I I think this is the key. The Torah says, "Then raglav picked up his legs of then he went to the land eastward. ultimately found Rahul by the well, married Leia and Raul and uh built his family. But commentaries pick up on the interesting usage uh the interesting language here. Visa Yakov Raglav Yakov picked up his legs. What does that mean? He ran. So just say he ran. What does that mean? He picked up his legs. Rashi says that as soon as he heard the good news in the dream, he took it seriously. And because he took it seriously, I'll read it in Hebrew and then translate it because I think this is so significant. His heart carried his legs. That's what Rashi says. It became easy to go became he became very light on his feet as it were very swift because his heart carried him. If we can feel emotionally invested, our heart will be carried. If we can feel emotionally bought in, our heart is going to carry us even if it's difficult. Later in the para, he tells Lavan, "I want to marry your daughter. I'll work for you seven years prior." And the Torah literally says, "He loved Ra so much, those seven years felt like a day. It was hard work. It didn't matter cuz he wanted it." When we're emotionally bought in, the most difficult of tasks become light and they carry us. He carried his legs. It just became swift. He had a certain sim, a certain joy because he was emotionally invested. He somehow aligned himself to not just think gh life is about running away from Asa. He actually took his dreams seriously. It changed the way he felt about things. It changed his attitude. He later goes to the well and at that well there was three other people and he says, "What are you guys doing here?" He says, "We're waiting for the fourth guy because it takes four people to move this stone that's covering the well. We can't do it by ourselves." That was like their protection. Nobody can come by themselves and steal water. Yakob sees Rahul coming nearby, his future wife, and he starts flexing. He picks up the stone by himself to get her water. It's like, how did you do that? because he wasn't focused on how heavy the stone was. He was focused on Raul. He was focused on getting the water. He was focused on what needed to be done. When you when he was bought in, what seemed difficult becomes much easier because there's a reason. Like Victor Frankle says, when you have or uh when you have a why, you figure out the how. I I'll conclude with this story. Many years ago, there was a rabbi visiting from Bimra, France, visiting New York. He was spending um the tish holiday season, sukus season with among many other and right before the dancing in onra. There was a the dancing with the Torah. It was a small informal forb and gathering around the table washing each other getting into the spirit of things and this rabbi visiting had a lot of health issues. He couldn't participate in having alcohol which made it a very dry forban for him and but even worse he was not ambulatory. He was in a wheelchair and he couldn't walk. He requested from somebody nearby to get him a Tanya. Young student runs and gets him a Tanya. That's weird. Like pulling out books out of Bran. He opens up to chapter 33 where it talks about reigniting joy, especially when the soul needs it. He reads the first couple of lines and he was so inspired that he literally popped out of his wheelchair and started dancing. Like Rashi says, the heart carries the legs. It becomes swift and easy to go when we're fully bought in because he takes the dream seriously. Ribbalman Schnersonen took the Tanya seriously. Yakov took his dream seriously and eventually what seemed like a dream became a very vivid reality. And I I think this is true in our interpersonal relationships where we want to see the best in people. We want to see the best version of people. We want to see the soul of people, but it doesn't seem like a present reality. It doesn't seem like a dominant reality. It seems like a dream. Like, yeah, I'm sure this guy has a soul, but like when he's sleeping, you know what I'm saying? It's a that's when we dream. Um but we can shift. We can shift when we take it seriously. Then what seemed theoretical becomes vivid and real. Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to