Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe discusses the significance of dreams, premonitions, and coincidences at a Feb. 13 talk at the Union County Torah Center. Photo by Elaine Durbach
February 21, 2008
A few years back, a young yeshiva student came to Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe in a state of great distress about a terrible nightmare he’d had. What, he asked the rabbi, did the disturbing dream signify?
Yaffe reminded the student that, after living in a small town where it was difficult to keep kosher, the boy had recently come to New York, with its abundance of kosher food, including kosher fast food.
“I told him, ‘Not withstanding your youth, it’s probably not such a good idea to have a whole pizza before going to bed.’”
For Yaffe, who spoke at the Union County Torah Center in Westfield Feb. 13, the story suggests that while some dreams can be predictive or provide special insights, most dreams have no such significance.
“The fact that we dream and the entire reality of why we dream is much more significant than what we dream,” said Yaffe, rabbi of Congregation Agudas Achim in West Hartford, Conn.
His talk on Dreams, Coincidences, and Insight, part of UCTC’s Jewish Literacy Program, drew an audience of 35, enough to fill every chair in the room and to prove the center’s leader, Rabbi Levi Block, right when he said it was a topic with strong appeal.
And while Yaffe was determined to keep the discussion firmly grounded, he suggested that everything that takes place in the psychological or social realm has a spiritual origin. Drawing on kabalistic teachings about sleep, he explored the idea that dreams offer a glimpse of what the soul perceives, reaching beyond what the conscious mind registers to connect with the divine essence.
He offered some comfort for those troubled by that dual awareness. “If you feel you have two personalities, you’re normal,” he said. “If you have no such conflict, then you have a profound problem.”
Turning to predictive dreams and premonitions, Yaffe said that the soul “can sense things that don’t yet exist in physical form,” and across geographic distance. Usually, he said, such dreams are about people to whom we are related and with whom we are — or have been — intensely involved, though they might not have been in our thoughts recently.
He asked the audience how many of them had had dreams or premonitions about someone whom they hadn’t been concerned about.
Three people raised their hands, and a few other hands fluttered hesitantly and were lowered.
Yaffe looked around and said, “Yes, it’s always like this. In every audience, between 10 and 60 percent have had such experiences.” There are so many amazing stories of this kind, it would make a fascinating study, he said, and he was puzzled that he hasn’t come across one like that.
People might be baffled by the insights that come through dreams, or the meaning of wakeful premonitions and strange coincidences, Yaffe said, but if they choose to make the effort, they can uncover meaning and purpose and see them as opportunities to do mitzvot. He suggested that those out-of-the-ordinary moments are flashes of warmth offered by the soul to melt the cold, sharp edges of our usual isolation and bring us closer to the infinite.
The lecture was sponsored by Mark and Laura Schachman in memory of Solomon Jacob Schachman. For more information about the upcoming lectures in the UCTC Jewish Literacy Program, or call 908-789-5252.
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