Miketz
Genesis 41:1–44:17
Numbers 7:48–53
Zechariah 2:14–4:7
It has been nearly 30 years, and I am not sure that I have yet lived down an answer I gave while playing Trivial Pursuit with my older sister. I landed on the space to get my final wedge in the board game. When my sister saw my question, she said it
wasn’t fair I got such an easy one: “Who was it in history that declared, ‘I have a dream!’?” My enthusiastic answer as a good Jewish schoolboy: “Joseph!”
It took her quite a while to stop laughing.
While I missed the reference to Dr. King, I wasn’t completely off the mark. Individuals with dreams abound in the Torah portions around this time of year. Last week, we read of Joseph’s dreams and how they sparked the jealousy of his brothers, landing him as the first Jewish slave in Egypt. He met Pharaoh’s former wine steward and baker in prison and explained the meaning of their dreams.
This week, it is Pharaoh’s turn. The Egyptian monarch is disturbed upon awakening from visions of plump cows consumed by skinny ones and healthy stalks of grain swallowed by blighted sheaves. In his desperation, he reaches out to Joseph the Hebrew in hope of appropriate interpretation. Joseph obliges.
But Joseph seems to overreach, as well. Suggesting that the images shown to Pharaoh in the night were in fact prophetic insights into the future trends of the Egyptian economy, Joseph goes on to offer advice and a game plan. He tells Pharaoh what he should do to prepare for those years and what kind of personnel will be needed.
“It is as I have told Pharaoh — God has told Pharaoh what He is about to do … Now Pharaoh must seek out a man with insight and wisdom, and place him in charge of Egypt … A rationing system will have to be set up … The food can then be held in reserve for the land when the seven famine years come to Egypt” (41:28–36).
What? Joseph is a slave who was called in to interpret a pair of dreams. Who asked him to serve as some sort of self-appointed finance minister?
The entire subject of dream interpretation is further complicated by the Talmud’s assertion (Sanhedrin 30A) that “the words of dreams neither elevate nor cause to descend” — dreams don’t mean anything. Similarly, verses in Zechariah and Kohelet also indicate that dreams are full of fiction and falsehoods produced by an overactive or anxious imagination. Yet it is clear in our story that the dreams of Joseph, Pharaoh and others are treated as much more than that. If dreams mean nothing, what does one make of this whole narrative?
In full disclosure, I note that there are a series of further talmudic and later legal sources indicating that dreams can indeed be meaningful. One stands out: The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 220) makes a practical suggestion that one who has a seemingly bad dream and is upset by it should gather three friends and tell them the dream. Then the friends should do what is called a “hatavat chalom,” finding a creative way to interpret the dream positively and putting a sweet spin on the vision that was seen.
The Talmud (Berachot 56A) recounts that a man by the name of Bar Haniah interpreted dreams nicely if you paid him, and badly if you didn’t. The leading scholars Rava and Abayei had the same dream, based on upsetting passages in the Torah, and he offered opposite interpretations for Abayei, who paid him, and Rava, who did not.
One garners from the halachah as well as from this episode that dreams follow their interpretation, and not the other way around. They themselves do not necessarily hold weight; it is what we make of them that is important. Thus, Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams and automatically shifts into preparing a game plan for what good can be made of them. So, too, a person who is troubled does a “hatavat chalom” so that his or her friends will interpret it well.
The message extends beyond what we see at night to our waking daydreams. When our minds wander, when we aspire to something much more, what is it? What do those dreams look like? Far more importantly, beyond what we dream, how do we interpret those dreams into practice? Shabbat Shalom, and sweet dreams.