For Friday Night

The dream of the ladder in our Parshah is something that has captivated people's imaginations for thousands of years...

Jacob's sleep was an amazing event. In the words of the Sages, G-d "folded up the whole of the Land of Israel and placed it under Jacob, in order that it should be easy for his descendants to conquer..."

We are taught that Jacob embodied the quality of Torah study; yet the Torah recounts at length how much of his time was taken up by business dealings raising his family

The relationship of the individual with other people often demands a special skill: keeping one's balance. There are my needs and the needs of others. There are personal points of stringency; and there are universal imperatives. This point is brought out in the discussion by the Sages of an intriguing feature of this week's Parshah...

The border between Jacob and Laban is seen as the divide between the sacred and the profane. This distinction is important. One has to know clearly what represents the Jewish dimension of holiness, and what does not.