In this week’s parashah, Jacob stops for the night, places a stone under his head, and dreams one of the most famous dreams in our Torah: a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, with angels moving up and down. When he awakens, Jacob proclaims, “Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it!” (Gen. 28:16). His dream becomes a turning point, offering assurance, direction, and a sense of divine presence.

Dreams have fascinated our sages for millennia. The Talmud teaches that “a dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy”—a faint echo of something higher. Rambam compares dreams to unripe fruit: connected to prophecy but not fully formed. Other rabbis insist that some dreams are meaningless; just leftovers of our day. Other dreams, the ones emerging from the soul, however, carry significance.

Freud saw dreams as windows into suppressed desires; Jung viewed them as tools for restoring inner balance. Today’s scientists suggest that dreams help us process information and solve problems our waking minds cannot.

Our tradition and modern psychology invite us to treat dreams with curiosity. Not as fortune-telling, but as gentle invitations to notice what lies beneath the surface.

What might your dreams be whispering? And like Jacob, what truth might you discover when you wake and say: “God was in this place, and I did not know”?