Vayeitzei is the Torah’s seventh parashah and “all sevenths are endeared.” It begins with a description of Jacob’s dream, the dream of the ladder: “He dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven....” Later in the parashah, Jacob has another dream, the dream of the sheep: “I saw in a dream, and behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringed, speckled, and with streaks. And the angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying....”
THE TORAH’S TEN DREAMS
After Jacob’s two dreams, at the end of the portion, God reveals Himself to Laban in a dream at night and warns him: “Take heed not to speak to Jacob either good or evil.” In the next parashah, Vayeishev, we read of Joseph’s two dreams and the two dreams of Pharoah’s chief butler and chief baker. In the parashah after that, Mikeitz (whose name also means to awaken—from a dream), the Torah relates two dreams dreamt by Pharaoh.
Altogether then, we have in the span of these three Torah portions 9 of the 10 dreams described in the Pentateuch. There is only one more dream in the Torah and it appears in parashat Vayeira. That first dream described in the Torah is dreamt by Avimelech and in it God warns him not to touch Sarah). This is a good example of the principle, “disorder precedes order” (ןּוּקִתְם לֶדֹ קּהוֹּת), which states that quite often, when a new concept or phenomenon is introduced in the Torah, it first appears in the context of something that is disordered or impure and only later appears in a positive and holy context. Although Avimelech’s dream was a true one, it is still a dream of someone who does not belong to holiness; he is, after all, Avimelech, king of the Philistines.
After this initial dream, dreams appear in a holy context with Jacob and Joseph’s dreams—Joseph representing the highest level of dreams. But after Joseph, the dreams deteriorate again and are given to Pharaoh’s ministers and then even to Pharaoh himself. Still, all four of these dreams were all for the purpose of helping Joseph and making him into the viceroy of Egypt. In that sense these final 4 dreams are like a stage of sweetening.
Altogether then, there are 10 dreams in the Torah, all in the Book of Genesis, dreamt by seven dreamers, three of whom have two dreams each. The correspondence to the ten sefirot is as follows:
- Crown and kingdom: Pharaoh’s 2 dreams. Pharaoh’s name, according to the Zohar, means “the place from which all lights are distributed” and thus corresponds to both the sefirah of crown and the sefirah of kingdom, which is usually called, “the crown of kingdom” (תּכוְלַר מֶתֶכּ).
- Wisdom and Beauty: Jacob’s 2 dreams. Jacob is the archetype of beauty (tiferet). But he is also related to wisdom through the idiom, “What is his name and what is his son’s name,” where “his son’s name” corresponds to beauty and “his name” corresponds to wisdom.
- Understanding and Foundation: Joseph’s 2 dreams. This relationship between Understanding and Foundation is captured in the Primordial King whose name was Saul (alluding to foundation), from the expanses of the river (alluding to understanding).
- Loving-kindness: Laban’s dream since Laban is “white” in Hebrew, which refers to loving-kindness.
- Victory and Acknowledgment: correspond to Pharaoh’s two ministers. The chief butler corresponds with victory as he was ultimately restored to his position and was victorious, while the chief baker met with failure, which is alluded to by acknowledgment.
- Might: corresponds to Avimelech’s dream, since “sovereignty is built out of might.”
DREAMING IN KISLEV
The majority of the Torah’s dreams appear in portions that are read during the month of Kislev. Even the first reading of Mikeitz, which includes Pharaoh’s dreams, is read in the Shabbat Vayeishev’s Minchah service. Moreover, according to the Book of Formation, the soul-sense associated with the month of Kislev is sleep, which alludes to the sense of dreaming. Kislev is the month of dreams. The literal meaning of Kislev (וֵלְסִכּ) is “trust” (לֶסֶכּ). Dreams strengthen trust which is likened to the force of life as in the verse, “All life has trust,” and this life force is exactly what dreams can give as alluded to in the verse, “You have restored me to health and revived me,” where the word for “restored me to health” (יֵנֵימִלֲחַתְו) stems from the same root as “dream” (םֹלוֲח).
(From a lecture given on the 6th of Kislev, 5781)
