Kislev: The Dreams Beyond Darkness
More than any other month, Kislev speaks of dreams. Yaakov sees a ladder reaching towards heaven, with angels ascending and descending. Yosef dreams of sheaves bowing before his own, followed by the sun, moon and eleven stars bowing before him. Then Pharaoh dreams of seven healthy cows swallowed by seven lean ones, and seven full ears of grain consumed by seven thin ones.
These are no ordinary dreams. They foretell events that will shape lives and alter the course of history, although their meaning will only emerge with time.
Every night, we close our eyes and surrender ourselves to sleep. The world around us fades, yet another world begins to unfold. People we have not seen for years return, places we have never visited become strangely familiar, and sometimes a dream remains with us long after we have awakened.
We spend almost a third of our lives asleep, yet dreams remain something of a mystery. Sefer Yetzirah associates Kislev with the sense of sleep and the Hebrew letter samekh (ס).
Unlike most Hebrew letters, samekh forms a complete circle. Its name comes from a root meaning to support or uphold. Day follows night, sleep follows waking, and the seasons turn. Whatever the darkness holds, we are held within the circle.
Yosef’s dreams speak of greatness, yet his path leads first into a pit, slavery and imprisonment. Years pass before his brothers stand before him in Egypt, bowing without recognising the man they once sold. His dreams unfold through the very circumstances that seemed to place their fulfilment beyond reach.
Some dreams arise from the body, others from the imagination and experiences of our waking lives. Yet during sleep, aspects of the soul may also encounter spiritual influences, occasionally giving rise to dreams carrying a message, as Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the Ramchal, explains in Derech Hashem.
The Sages caution that even a meaningful dream contains elements without significance, just as grain is accompanied by straw (Berakhot 55a). Not every dream is a prophecy. Yet the Gemara teaches that sleep is one-sixtieth of death, while a dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy (Berakhot 57b) — a number echoed in the numerical value of Kislev’s letter, samekh, which is sixty.
In Chassidic thought, darkness and concealment are not the same as absence. The Tanya describes a world in which the light of Hashem remains hidden from ordinary perception. What lies beyond our sight is not necessarily beyond existence.
As dreams carry us beyond the familiar world of waking life, the long winter nights of Kislev are met by the growing light of Chanukah. We begin with a single flame, adding another each evening until eight lights shine together. The Chanukah lights illuminate the world before our eyes, while dreams may offer glimpses of what lies beyond it.
Night gives way to morning, sleep to waking, and dreams to the light of a new day.
חֹדֶשׁ טוֹב
