Welcome to the week called Vayetze and the month of Sagittarius! The stories in the Torah for each week are placed intentionally in the Hebrew calendar, and the reading of Vayetze often occurs at the beginning of the month of Sagittarius.
Vayetze is marked by a famous dream where Jacob sees angels traveling up and down. It is one of the first times the miraculous, joyful energy of dreams and angels are explicitly revealed in the scriptures. The ancient astrology text, Sefer Yetzira, attributes the letter of this month (samech) to different energies, and it says it rules over sleep. No wonder the portions of the month of Sagittarius are full of stories that talk about dreams!
However, when we speak about the act of being asleep, we are also referring to living life without noticing the spiritual reality, that is, the 99% or unseen energies and miracles that accompany us everyday. This is something we need to awaken in our lives because Sagittarius is considered the month of miracles. The amount of new miracles we can attract depends on how well we are able to see the existing ones.
The month and week begin with two important planets changing signs: Mercury just moved to Scorpio, and Venus moves to Capricorn. Mercury in Scorpio placed next to Mars in Scorpio can open our eyes to the higher spiritual dimension. We can begin to notice the synchronicity around every event in our lives.
Jupiter is the planet of joy, and this month allows us to gain deeper joy by simply noticing how wonderful everything around us is. The work of angels exists in every single moment.
There is a song we sing each Friday night called Lecha Dodi that was written many years ago by a kabbalist in Spain called Rabbi Shlomo Elkabetz. The third verse seems to perfectly represent this positive period we are heading towards as the letter samech awakens us from our sleep:
"O'Awake, awake! Your light is here,
Arise, shine out light bold and clear.
Wake up! Wake up! Sing verse to hear:
Through you the presence of God comes alive."
