Miketz – Are you still dreaming?
Children have dreams and aspirations. Teenagers continue to dream and often with the impetuosity of youth they feel frustrated that their dreams are not immediately realised.
As adults we dream but then life gets in the way! We can easily become impeded by the administrative and mundane aspects of life that drag us down into the quagmire. For some this leads to giving up on their dreams and in the words of Henry David Thoreau (19th century philosopher, essayist and naturalist) “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. But does it have to be this way?
Our Torah believes very strongly in dreams.
The book of Genesis is filled with dreams.
- The dream of Jacob’s ladder with angels ascending and descending.
- Joseph’s dreams (1 the brothers sheaves of grain bowing to his and 2 the sun moon and stars bowing to him).
- Then we have the dream of the chief cupbearer to Pharoah interpreted by Joseph to mean the chief cupbearer will be restored to his position.
- and the dream of the Chief baker who ends up being executed.
- And in this weeks Parsha we have the two dreams of pharaoh (the 7 emaciated cows devouring the 7 fattened cows and the 7 thin ears of grain consuming the 7 fat ears of grain) which Joseph interprets and which propels him to become the viceroy of Egypt!
The Talmud has a lot to say on dreams and their meanings.
Here is just one example: from Tractate Brachot 56b
The Gemara relates a story with regard to a Sage who interpreted dreams, Rabbi Yishmael. Ben Dama, son of Rabbi Yishmael’s sister, asked his uncle, Rabbi Yishmael: I saw in a dream that my two cheeks fell off. What does my dream mean? Rabbi Yishmael said to him: Two Roman battalions spoke ill of you, and they died. Cheeks symbolize a mouth that speaks evil.
Some dreams are prophetic containing truth whilst others are a result of what we think about during the day and express themselves in nonsensical ways in the dream world.
But dreams are not just night-time events. If we would just pause for self reflection each day we would discover inside our souls a yearning to achieve our potential- this is our unique soul dream and the very reason we were born into this world.
One fascinating rule the Torah teaches about dreams is that the “dream goes after the interpretation” (lit the dream goes after the mouth”. This rule does not apply to prophetic dreams where there is no subjectivity. However for most of our dreams this rule is operative and contains a profound insight for us. Today with the modern insights of psychology we would call this idea reframing.
Our minds are constantly interpreting and filtering the reality around us producing ideas and perceptions that can lead to either positive or negative emotional states.But Hashem empowers us to interpret our own dreams!
We can’t always control the practical outcomes of our dreams but through a constant process of reinterpretation and reframing we are able to never give up on a dream.
Take an athlete as an example. He/She dreams to run marathons and win world records. Then disaster strikes and they are involved in a terrible road accident and become unable to compete. They look deep within themselves and identify what the essence of their dream was. Was it the glory or victory and the adulation of the media or was it about self development and overcoming physical limitations. They decide the latter and so begins a career in coaching and helping others overcome adversity. And so on.
This Chanukah let us challenge ourselves to revisit dreams we may have buried deep within our Psyche and start to find small steps to achieving them.
Its never too late.
Joseph is the Torah’s dreamer and dream interpreter par excellence. His story teaches us to never give up on our dreams. Joseph stays the course maintaining and even strengthening his holiness and connection to Hashem. This is the secret to his remarkable journey. No matter what was happening to him from the outside, his internal moral compass and connection to Hashem remained intact.
Shabbat Shalom