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Orchard of Delights
treatment entailed Jacob educating Joseph differently than his other
sons – transmitting his deeper inner teachings to Joseph alone.
The Midrash further emphasizes the deep connection between
Jacob and Joseph by declaring that everything that happened to
Jacob also happened to Joseph (Bereishit Rabbah 84:6). In the midst
of enumerating a very long list of parallel events in their lives, the
Midrash mentions that both Jacob and Joseph rose to greatness
through dreams. Jacob was promised a glorious future and Divine
protection in his dream of the ladder, while Joseph’s ability to
interpret dreams guaranteed his rise to fame and fortune.
Interestingly, the Midrash makes no attempt to suggest that
Joseph’s talent at dream interpretation was inherited from Jacob,
even though there are a number of proofs that Jacob too had an
affinity for interpreting dreams. Firstly, when Joseph reports his
dreams to his family, Jacob rebukes him sharply for the second one:
“and his father rebuked him and said to him ‘What is this dream
that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers
bow down on the earth to you?’ And his brothers envied him but
his father guarded the matter” (Genesis 37:10-11). Jacob’s rebuke is
clearly based on his own interpretation of the dream – the heavenly
bodies bowing down are Joseph’s family. He clearly associates
himself with the sun, his wife Rachel with the moon, and the eleven
stars with Joseph’s eleven brothers.
Secondly, while the brothers’ enmity was amplified by the dream,
the Torah enigmatically states that Jacob “guarded the matter.”
Bolstering our claim that Jacob also possessed the talent to interpret
dreams, which he passed on to Joseph, Rashi explains that Jacob
understood that the dream was prophetic and would ultimately be
fulfilled, thus he metaphorically “guarded the matter,” anticipating
its realization.
Thirdly, our claim is bolstered by Jacob’s own innate ability to
relate to and fathom dreams, which is apparent from his reaction to
his own dream of the ladder. From Jacob’s reaction to his dream, it is
clear that he immediately recognized how significant and personally
relevant this dream was to him. When Jacob first awoke from his
dream, he said, “Surely God is in this place and I did not know”
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(Genesis 28:16). He did not say, “God was in this place (while I was
dreaming),” but “God is in this place.” In other words, he recognized
that his dream and reality exist on the same plane. In Jacob’s eyes,
his dream was not merely a fleeting vision, but God’s real promise to
be with him: a promise given in the real world, to be fulfilled in the
real world.
Furthermore, Jacob responds to the dream with a tremendous
amount of emotion: “And he became fearful and said: ‘How awesome
is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the
gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17). Rashi explains Jacob’s sudden fear
by his realization that the place where he stood – the future site of
the Temple Mount – was quite literally “the gate to heaven,” the
portal through which all prayer would ascend. Presumably, Jacob
arrived at this conclusion, by noting that in his dream the ladder had
been positioned in this very place. Parenthetically, Rashi further
elaborates on the awesomeness of this site by explaining that the
ladder connecting earth and heaven also symbolizes the heavenly
Temple situated directly above the earthly Temple in Jerusalem.
Upon awakening, “Jacob arose in the morning and he took the
stone he had placed around his head and set it up as a pillar; and he
poured oil on its head” (Genesis 28:18). His immediate response to
the dream also signals that he understood the dream as something he
needed to act upon and integrate into his very being. The Midrash
explains that when Jacob lay down he had taken “from the stones
of the place” to rest his head on (Genesis 28:11). When he awoke, 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 5 - A | 18-01-28 | 12:12:04 | SR:-- | Magenta #24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 5 - A | 18-01-28 | 12:12:04 | SR:-- | Yellow 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 5 - A |
he found the twelve stones (symbolizing the tribes he would later
give birth to) fused into one stone, the stone he consecrated with
oil. The Midrash explains that this miracle was an integral part of
God’s revelation to Jacob. Symbolically, the stones’ fusion might
also signify Jacob’s own ability to integrate the symbolism of the
dream until it became absolutely one with his consciousness.
Another remez, a subtle, yet beautiful, allusion to Jacob’s ability to
interpret the meaning of the symbols in his dream and to immediately
apply them to life rests on the parallel between the words used to
depict the dream and the words used to describe Jacob setting up
the stone as a pillar. The Hebrew word for “setting up” the pillar
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