I have a dream – Mikketz
The drama of the story of Joseph is bound up with dreams at almost every point.
True, dreams and their interpretation play a role in many of e narratives of the Torah. Dreams are crucial in the lives of Abraham (Genesis 16), Avimelech (Gen. 20) and Lavan (Gen. 31).
But Joseph is the dreamer – the ba’al hachalomot, as his brothers mockingly call him. With him, dreams accompany almost every significant event in his story.
No wonder then that when the butler and baker have dreams, Joseph is able to explain them, and that even Pharaoh calls upon the expertise of the Hebrew youth to interpret the royal dreams.
But Joseph lays no claim to any personal credit. He says to the butler and baker, “Do not interpretations belong to God?” He tells the king, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace”.
All his own dreaming and reflection on his dreams has made him sure that this is one of the ways in which God reveals His mind and message.
Pharaoh’s servants do not see things on that level. For them the question is what their dreams say about their career paths. For the king too it is material considerations that matter: what do his dreams say about the economy of the palace and the kingdom?
Hence the professional astrologers and soothsayers, knowing what side their bread is buttered on, offer the interpretations that they think the king wants to hear. And when the services of Joseph are requisitioned, it may be that the king has no higher purpose than to see whether to add Joseph to the palace staff of interpreters-in-waiting.
Joseph, however, looks at the prophetic element in dreams and realises that everything is part of the unfolding purposes of God. Dreams lead a person or a people forward to their destiny. Nothing is trivial, nothing is insignificant.
Not that all the sages of the Talmudic period agreed. Rabbi Meir said that dreams are of no consequence. A thousand years later, the Sefer Chassidim warned, “Depend not on dreams”. But probably more normative Jewish thinking is the belief that dreams are a sixtieth portion of prophetic revelation, and they should not be brushed aside or derided.
Halachah recognises that some dreams can make a person frightened and recommends fasting after a bad dream; indeed, a fast of this kind is the only private fast permitted on Shabbat.
The liturgy contains a prayer for protection from the evil consequences of a bad dream. Other sources advise a person who has had a disturbing dream to give charity. Clearly, whatever makes one feel upset and uncomfortable must be taken into account.
Jewish history thus takes night-time dreams and nightmares seriously. It also sees the significance of day-dreams. Like the dreams you have during sleep, they have an element of the unreal about them, but they often take the form or compelling visions of great purposes and possibilities.
Martin Luther King’s famous speech about a dream altered the course of American history. Jews were not surprised. They were well aware of the magnificent dreams of the Biblical prophets which were always our pillar of cloud and fire leading us through the wilderness of history and beckoning us forward to the messianic redemption.
When a people dreams dreams and see visions, they are no longer totally earth-bound but are capable of being heaven-bent.
