Parasha Insights

Sigmund Freud famously believed that a person’s dreams are crucial to understanding what makes that person tick. “The interpretation of dreams,” he wrote, “is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”

The business of dream interpretation, though, is difficult, because many dreams, or parts of a dream, are meaningless. And yet, certain Sages regularly provided interpretations to those who were plagued by their strange nighttime imaginings.

The Jerusalem Talmud tells several anecdotes of people, both Jews and Gentiles, who approached the 3rd-century Talmudic sage Rebbi Yishmael to ask him to unravel the meaning of their dreams.

One gentile came and said to him, “I saw in… Read More »

There was a teacher known for his constant preaching about the need to nurture children with warmth and love. One time he noticed some children who were playing in the freshly laid concrete outside his newly renovated home, their little feet leaving lasting impressions. He became irritated and started chastising the children.

A congregant asked, "How can you, a person who devoted his entire life to teaching warmth to children, speak this way?" To which the rabbi replied: "You must understand. I love children in the abstract, not the concrete."  

At last, the moment had arrived. For 40 years they had wandered together in a wilderness. Most of the older generation had already passed on. By now, the young nation… Read More »