Genesis 28:10-14 (JPS translation) reads as follows:

Jacob left Beer-Sheba, and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it. And the L-RD was standing beside him and He said, “I am the L-RD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will give to you and your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. (The translation of sulam as stairway differs from other translations: ramp or the most common one of ladder. The Rambam in The Guide of the Perplexed I:15 translates And the L-RD was standing on the ladder [and not “standing beside him(Jacob)] ).

The meaning of the dream of Jacob is one that has elicited numerous interpretations over the years. For his part, the Rambam offered at least three different interpretations of the episode. Rambam understood that Jacob’s dream represented a prophecy. The elements of the dream constitute an allegory that has to be reinterpreted. What is most particularly fascinating is that in this case, Rambam utilized a Midrash on the dream for his own purposes. [Over twenty years ago, in a Hebrew article in Bar Ilan: Annual of Bar Ilan University: Studies in Judaica and the Humanities, Vol. XXII-XXIII (1987), pp. 329-49, Professor Sara Klein-Braslavy discussed the various interpretations that the Rambam offered to the narrative, and my presentation is largely based upon her article. One of the points she makes is that according to the Rambam, a prophetic dream can have multiple meanings, and, if one takes the different interpretations of the Rambam of the dream in their entirety, that is exactly what we have here.]

The first interpretation of Rambam is given in his halakhic magnum opus, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesode Ha-Torah 3:7. The 2^nd one can be found in his philosophic magnum opus The Guide of the Perplexed 1:15, and the 3^rd is further along in the same book, 2:10. In Mishneh Torah, the point of the dream of the ladder is the revelation of the future history of the children of Israel.  In both expositions in The Guide, however, the subject of the dream is Sitrei Torah: the mysteries of the Torah. According to the first interpretations of that book, the subject of the dream deals with the physics of the sublunary world and the world of the celestial spheres, and human apprehension of the universe and the image of the prophet as the ideal leader. According to the second interpretation found in the Guide, the point is simpler: it only concerns the nature of the sublunary universe. (One should remember that Rambam understood physics as such to be the referent of the Talmudic phrase ma‘aseh bereshit, the esoteric discipline that along with ma‘aseh merkavah (in the Maimonidean scheme, metaphysics) composes the subject matter of sitrei Torah)  (It should be noted that there may even be a fourth interpretation  by the Rambam, one cited in his letter to R. Hasdai Ha-Levi, but, as Prof. Klein-Braslavy notes, there are problems with assuming that it is indeed a separate Maimonidean explanation., most notably because many scholars reject the authenticity of this letter.)

      In his interpretation of the dream in Mishneh Torah, Rambam does not write that he is “homiletically” interpreting the dream but rather is presenting the plain meaning or “peshat.” The rungs of the ladder symbolize the oppression with which various kingdoms will oppress the Jewish people. This idea was already stated in various Midrashim, such as Pesikta de-Rab Kahana, and Midrash Tanhuma. According to this explanation, the ladder represents the ladder of time. The angels represent kingdoms. This fits quite nicely with the Maimonidean interpretation of angel as messenger. The four kingdoms were the messengers of God Who acted to fulfill His plans for the Jewish people. In his Iggeret Teman as well, Rambam refers to God’s promise to Jacob that the nations who would oppress the Israelite would eventually vanish from the scene.

In Guide of the Perplexed 2:10, Rambam develops his thesis that the number 4 plays an important role in the structure of sublunary physics. There are four basic elements (earth, air fire and water). There are four essential forms of being on the earth (minerals, plants, animals and humans. There are four subdivisions among the celestial bodies that cause effects on the sublunary sphere: the sphere of the moon itself, the sphere of the sun, the sphere of the planets, and the sphere of the fixed stars (Rambam, of course, was operating within the pre-Copernican, Ptolemaic worldview). Then, in a remarkable move, Rambam quotes the Midrash Tanhuma that claims that there were four rungs on the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream. (Rambam admits that were other texts of the Midrash that claimed that a different number of rungs existed.) Moreover, Rambam maintained that there were precisely four angels, and that they were all on the same rung of the ladder.  Two were “going up” and two were “going down.” Thus, what is represented by the angels? The four elements (fire, air, earth and water) Thus, the dream expresses the basic tenets of Aristotelian physics! The four elements are “all on the same rung,” they are the four elements of this world of generation and corruption, as opposed to the fifth element which constitutes the nature of the heavenly bodies.

Thus, the sitrei Torah that Jacob saw in his dream expressed the tenets of Aristotelian physics!

The most complex interpretation of the Rambm is that offered in the first part of the Guide. (I: 15) Rambam begins with the assertion that one cannot interpret passages that use the word nitzav (to stand erect) with reference to  
“God in a literal sense. Thus, one cannot interpret the verse “And behold, the L-RD stood upon it (the ladder) literally.” Rather, it has the meaning of something stable and constant. God is “stable” above the ladder, of which one end is upon the world of generation and corruption, the earth, and the other end in the heaven. What do the angels represent? The prophets. How does ascending and descending pertain to prophets? The prophet ascends intellectually, and receives prophetic inspiration from God. Then he descends to the people, with the decree of the prophecy, and teaches the people the contents of that decree. According to this explanation, the moral point of the dream was to teach the lesson that man should strive to become a prophet, which allows him to most perfectly engage in the act of Imitatio Dei, the Imitation of God, by guiding the religious community.

Remarkably, the three different interpretations of the Rambam all use different aspects of the Midrashic literature on the parable of the ladder. This case serves as an example of the point that Rambam did not simply abandon previous literature when propounding his own ideas. On the contrary, he worked the insights of various Midrashim into his own worldview.