This week's portion: dream December 02, 2008 DREAM (VA-YETZEI) 1.Jacob saw a luminous escalator carrying prayers to the heavens and God stood beside him saying I am Adonai your mother's God your descendants will be scattered to lands you can't imagine and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you 2. Rest your head on local stone not a pillow or a saddle close your eyes and wait for a prophetic dream to come when you wake do you recognize the ceaseless presence thrumming do you send your morning angels of gratitude toward the skies? This week's portion, Va-yetzei, begins with the story of Jacob's dream about the ladder planted in the earth on which angels ascended and descended. After the dream, Jacob continues on to the household of his uncle Laban. He waters his uncle's flocks, kisses Rachel, and bursts into tears. He'll spend the next fourteen years of his life laboring to gain the hands of Laban's two daughters. On the morning after his first marriage, the midrash tells us, he was angry that he had been tricked into believing his new bride was his beloved Rachel -- and Leah responded, "did you not fool your father into believing that you were Esau?" Leah gives birth to four sons, and declares after the birth of each that now perhaps her husband will love her. It's a poignant and painful story. (Soferet Jen Taylor Friedman has an excellent post about that this week.) Maybe next year the saga of Leah and Rachel -- and handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah! -- will make it into my Torah poem. This year, that opening story about the dream of the ladder just wouldn't let me go. [dream.mp3] Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Torah, poetry, Bereshit.