We live in an era of perfect navigation. We plug a destination into Waze or Google Maps, and we are told exactly where to turn, how long it will take, and where the traffic jams are. It is convenient, but it breeds a certain passivity. We stop looking at the road signs; we stop trusting our internal sense of direction.

In the spiritual realm, we often crave this kind of clarity. We wish for prophecy. We wish Hashem would simply hand us the roadmap of our lives—or of Jewish history—and say, “Turn here, then turn there.”

But the Sages teach us that there is something deeper than being told where to go. There is the ability to navigate the “field” of life using one’s own internal wisdom. When we study the dreams of Yaakov Avinu versus the journey of Yosef HaTzaddik, we see a profound shift: a move from the terrifying clarity of Prophecy to the holy grit of Wisdom.

We learn that we should be thankful for good directions—not necessarily the ones that show us the entire future, but the small, quiet nudges that appear only after we have started walking on our own.

Yaakov Avinu is the master of the prophetic dream. At Beis El, he is shown the ultimate spiritual GPS: the Ladder. But as the Midrash in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer reveals, seeing the entire map is not a comfort; it is a burden.
> רַבִּי לֵוִי אוֹמֵר: בְּאוֹתָהּ הַלַּיְלָה הֶרְאָה לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת כָּל הָאוֹתוֹת… וְהֶרְאָהוּ שַׂר מַלְכוּת אֱדוֹם עוֹלֶה וְאֵינוֹ יוֹרֵד… אָמַר לוֹ יַעֲקֹב: ״אַךְ אֶל שְׁאוֹל תּוּרַד אֶל יַרְכְּתֵי בוֹר״
> Rabbi Levi said: In that night the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him all the signs… He showed him the prince of the kingdom of Edom ascending, and he was not descending… Jacob replied to him: “Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol…” (Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 35:6)
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Yaakov is shown the rise and fall of empires—Babylon, Media, Greece. But then he sees Edom (Rome, the long Exile). He sees the angel climbing higher and higher, refusing to come down. Yaakov is seized with terror. He sees the “traffic jam” of history—the long, dark stretch of exile—and he fears it will never........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)