DreamSpace as a Doorway to Divinity
by Emunah Woolf
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In this week’s parasha, we’re allowed a glimpse into Jacob’s DreamSpace.
The book of Bereshit has many dreams running through it. This theme begins before this parasha, and follows through to Joseph’s dreams, the dreams of those he is incarcerated with, and Pharaoh’s dreams.
Dreams are something I think a lot about. I’m curious as to what people dream - the kinds we have while sleeping and the kinds we have while awake. I loathe how daydreaming is seen as a waste of time that should be used on something more “productive”, when the spaces we allow ourselves to dream are the source of some of the most revolutionary ideas.
I learned a lot about the power of dreaming from a field known as futurology, something I explored in graduate school a few years ago. Built from a lineage of Black, Indigenous, Queer, Feminist, and Disabled activists and scholars, Critical Future Studies expands the possibilities of imagining something beyond what we have been led to believe is our destiny. Scholars of this discipline are particularly interested in futures “representing a departure from current social trajectories” (Goode & Godhe, 2017, p.108), imagining otherwise.
In a world that tells us that our value comes from how much and how quickly we can produce, stopping to dream is radical. Allowing ourselves to think of and hope for as-yet undreamed of possibilities creates the chance that they will become possible. We can’t work towards a world we cannot imagine.
One of the key components of being able to access radical and creative dream states is the ability to rest. When we remain stuck in an activated, constantly moving, hypervigilant state, our brains can't slow down long enough to focus on anything other than the present.
Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, popularized her Rest is Resistance framework online, a way of conceptualizing rest as a social justice issue. She writes: “Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy… We believe rest is a spiritual practice, a racial justice issue and a social justice issue.”. One of the four tenants of The Nap Ministry is that “Our dream space has been stolen, and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest” (Meraji, 2022). Hersey explains what she means by “DreamSpace” as follows:
I go into a DreamSpace—a space of invention and imagination, free from White supremacy and capitalism. A place to work things out that can’t be accessed in an awake state, a place to tap into the wisdom our bodies and Spirits want to desperately share. (Hersey, 2022)
For me, having a Shabbat practice is a beautifully reliable way of helping my bodymind access DreamSpace. Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser writes that Shabbat is “a commitment to building and dreaming a different way of being... a world that values us for who we are, not just for all that we have done” (Watts Belser, 2024). I try and cultivate this energy each week as the sun goes down on Friday, and figure out how to bring it with me into the rest of my week once the stars appear on Saturday.
At the beginning of Parashat Vayetzei, Jacob stops for rest in the middle of his journey from Beer-Sheva to Haran, fleeing his brother’s wrath. He lies down on the ground and dreams of a סֻלָּם sulam - often translated as ladder (The Koren Jerusalem Bible), stairway (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006), or ramp (The Schocken Bible, Everett Fox, 1995, alternate translation to “ladder”) - reaching from the ground to the sky, with messengers of God ascending and descending. God Godself was beside the sulam, and spoke directly to Jacob, blessing him.
Interestingly, the word sulam is what’s known as a hapax legomenon, meaning that it is a word that is only used once in the entire TaNaKh. Words like this are somewhat more flexible in their translation, since we have only a single point of context to work with. Later in this chapter, Jacob wakes up and exclaims זֶה שַׁעַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם, this is the gate of heaven! I wonder what this sulam was like in Jacob’s dream: Was it a sturdy, wooden ladder? Was it a gate, maybe just like one from his childhood home? Was it one of those strange dream-objects that look like one thing while you know they are another?
For me, as a disabled Jew, the sulam offers a multitude of possibilities for what an accessible connection to God might look like. What if the sulam was a ramp? An elevator? A portal requiring no physical effort to traverse? Modern Hebrew sometimes translates sulam as a musical scale - could the angels have been ascending and descending a song that granted them passage between the physical and spiritual worlds? I dream of a sulam that shifts with the needs of each person aiming to reach a spiritual space of connection with the Divine. I dream of a sulam that can be translated differently, person to person, and day to day.
When Jacob wakes up from his dream, he says:
Achen yesh Adonai bammakom hazzeh veanochí lo yada'etí. Vayyíra vayyomar mah-nora hammakom hazzeh ẹn zeh kí im-bẹt Elohím vezeh sha'ar hashamayim.
אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יְהֹוָ֔ה בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי׃ וַיִּירָא֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר מַה־נּוֹרָ֖א הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה אֵ֣ין זֶ֗ה כִּ֚י אִם־בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְזֶ֖ה שַׁ֥עַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃
Surely God is in this place and I did not know it! And he was fearful and he said: How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.
While most readings of these verses understand “this place” that Jacob is referring to as Bethel, the physical place that Jacob rested and had this dream, I’d like to propose that “this place” could be DreamSpace - any place of radical rest. Tapping into DreamSpace allows us to access this radical connection to ourselves, to Divinity, to ancestry. We’ve built it into our methods of Jewish timekeeping because we’ve always known how essential this is. Even our God, almighty and everpresent, needed a rest after six hard days of creation. And so, maybe this gateway to divinity is not a place at all, but rather a time. Shabbat.
While some may have a six-to-one ratio of work to rest as depicted in the Creation Story, disabled and chronically ill folks might have a six-to-two ratio, or one-to-one, or even a one-to-six ratio. But one thing we all have is a need for rest, a need to pause and reconnect, a need for DreamSpace.
Hersey asks us: “How do we dream about a future we want to see? … How can you begin to welcome yourself into a DreamSpace that is waiting for you to tap into?” I find part of my answer in Berachot 55a, where Rabbi Yoḥanan says in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai:
Shem sheí efshar levar belo teven, kach í efshar laḥalom belo devarím betelím.
שֵׁם שֶׁאִי אֶפְשָׁר לְבַר בְּלאֹ תֶּבֶן, כָּךְ אִי אֶפְשָׁר לַחֲלוֹם בְּלאֹ דְּבָרִים בְּטֵלִים.
Just as it is impossible for the grain to grow without straw, so too it is impossible to dream without idle matters.
I love Shabbat for its celebration of idleness. I’ve always felt particularly drawn to this verse of Mah Yedidut, a song commonly sung at Shabbat tables:
Hilluchach tehe venaḥat, oneg kera lashabbat, vehashenah meshubbaḥat, kedat nefesh meshívat… Me'ẹn olam habba, yom shabbat menuḥah
.הִלּוּכָךְ תְּהֵא בְנַֽחַת, עֹֽנֶג קְרָא לַשַּׁבָּת, וְהַשֵּׁנָה מְשֻׁבַּֽחַת, כְּדָת נֶֽפֶשׁ מְשִׁיבַת… מֵעֵין עוֹלָם הַבָּא, יוֹם שַׁבָּת מְנוּחָה
Your pace should be relaxed, proclaiming Shabbat a pleasure. Sleep is praiseworthy - it restores the soul… Shabbat, day of rest, is a taste of the World to Come.
I encourage you, whatever your Shabbat practice may be, to explore what DreamSpace looks like for you and find your own version of Jacob’s makom hazzeh, your own sha'ar hashamayim, your own taste of olam habba. Allow yourself unrestricted, unproductive time to truly and deeply rest, to daydream, to fantasize. Imagine a world where your work-rest cycle was not only accepted, but truly valued. Create possible futures by dreaming them into existence, even if you can’t begin living them quite yet.
I’m wishing you all a Shabbat shalom u’manoaḥ, a peaceful and restful Shabbat.
Emunah Woolf (they/them) is a community worker, artist, scholar, and educator. They teach disability studies at McMaster University and run programming at their local JCC that they wish existed when they were younger, focused on community building with other LGBTQ+, Sepharadi/Mizrahi, and/or disabled folks. Emunah is passionate about co-creating environments where nobody has to leave any parts of themself at the door. Outside of work, you can find Emunah creating art, reading books, hosting Shabbat meals, and hanging out with their pet lizard, Larry.
Sources:
Goode, L. & Godhe, M. (2017). Beyond Capitalist Realism – Why We Need Critical Future Studies. Culture Unbound, 9(1).
Hersey, T. (2016). About. The Nap Ministry. Retrieved from https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/about/
Hersey, T. (2022). To Transform Work, We Must Rest [Web Article]. Retrieved from https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/work/2022/08/16/transform-work-rest
Meraji, S. M. (2022). How to think about rest as a form of resistance. NPR: All Things Considered. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2022/12/27/1145716272/how-to-think-about-rest-as-a-form-of-resistance
Watts Belser, J. (2024). Shabbat and the Radical Practice of Rest. Lilith Magazine. Retrieved from https://lilith.org/articles/shabbat-and-the-radical-practice-of-rest/
