Sermons
Parashah Miketz
Shabbat AM, December 23, 2006
by Jane Rosen
This year marks the 20th anniversary of my conversion to Judaism. In
November of 1985, I began taking classes in basic Judaism, learning Hebrew,
attending services, and making Jewish friends. From the beginning, Judaism made
sense to me. I discovered a deep well of spiritual yearning that could be
nurtured and cultivated through a regular practice of prayer, study, life in the
Jewish community, and service to the synagogue.
Looking back on those early experiences in the synagogue, Joseph is a central character in my memories. I had learned the Joseph story as a child, but had never fully appreciated the high drama of the story line, the complexity of the dysfunctional family dynamics, and the social, political, and historical significance of Joseph’s journey.
I remember sitting in the synagogue alone, feeling “I am Joseph.” I was very familiar with the bottom of the pit, separated from my family of origin, surviving as a stranger in a strange land, living by my wits to establish my standing in a new community.
How could it be that I had such a strong identification with this figure from antiquity? I have learned that one of the basic tenets of Torah study is that time does not limit events. In Torah, there is a unity of past, present, and future.
At some times in Joseph’s journey, he surely felt – “I am Abraham,” compelled to go out of the land of his birth and travel to distant and unfamiliar lands. In fact, during a time of famine, Abram brought his wife Sarai to Egypt to take shelter in the very palace of Pharaoh where Joseph later stood. Joseph clearly understood his great-grandfather’s idol-smashing persona and strongly identified with this spiritual legacy.
Joseph surely felt, “I am Isaac,” sacrificed by his father Jacob who sent him to meet his brothers, knowing the danger that lay there. Jacob must have known about the jealousies and rage the brothers felt and their fear of having their birthright taken from them.
And surely he felt, “I am Jacob,” forced to leave his home and arrive destitute in a foreign land, forced to labor as a slave to earn his place in the world.
In this context, it made perfect sense for me to feel that “I am Joseph” and to use the story of Joseph to learn more about myself and the past, present and future of my journey. In this way, Torah study became very personal for me.
In dreams, we find this same unity of past, present, and future. Images and events from all realms of time mix and mingle in our dreams. It is common for a dream to reveal in advance an event that in fact occurs at a later time. Just as common is the reappearance of events and people from the past in our dreams.
Jews believe in dreams. Through the study of the story of Joseph, we as Jews honor the power of dreams and dreaming, the force of prophecy delivered in dreams, and the action that is derived and inspired by dreams. It is through Joseph’s dreams and his responses and relationships to them, that we learn about his life.
Dreams have fascinated scientific researchers since the discovery in 1953 of the phenomenon of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, during which dreams are known to occur. Since then, a total of 84 sleep disorders have been identified, diagnosed, and treated. Before the discovery of REM sleep, scientists believed that the brain was quiet during sleep. Now it is clear that the brain is very active, although much about that activity is still unknown. In 1960, Bill Dement of Stanford University began to identify the effects of interrupting REM sleep, thereby interrupting dreams. The effects include weight gain, poor balance, feelings of emptiness and hallucinations. Clearly, dreaming has profound importance and the deprivation of dreams has very serious consequences.
The amount of sleep and dreams we get affects how we think, feel, look and act. Getting the sleep we need can improve our mood, creativity, memory, relationships with those around us, and our performance in everything from school to work to sports and other activities.
My husband Alex directed me to the extensive dream research of his former colleague Rosalind Cartwright from the University of Illinois at Chicago, now at Rush University Medical School. She writes of the poetic nature of the communication that comes to us in dreams – much more imagistic, sensory, condensed, and symbolic than the linear, logical, and verbal communication we’re used to in our waking hours. Dr. Cartwright believes that dreams are the mechanism whereby the brain consolidates memories, solves problems and deals with emotions.
Everyone dreams 5 to 7 times each night. Remembering any or all of our dreams is another matter, actually a skill that can be developed with practice.
The poetic and metaphorical nature of thought in dreams calls attention to the relationship between dreaming and creativity. Artists, writers, musicians, and other creative people draw heavily on their dream content for specific inspiration, images, ideas, even language.
In a more spiritual sense, dreams present the possibility that God and God’s angels are speaking to us through our dreams, to direct our actions, to protect us from danger, to reveal information useful in our waking lives.
Consider the experience of Joseph, well known throughout his life as The Dreamer, as he comes before Pharaoh who has demanded an interpretation of a pair of highly symbolic episodic dreams. Joseph knows that his very life is on the line, that his release from prison and the entire course of his remaining life depends on pleasing Pharaoh with his interpretation. As we know, Joseph delivers a prophetic interpretation, along with specific advice on how to use the information of the dream to benefit Pharaoh economically and politically.
Pharaoh’s dream has already been interpreted by all the magicians and wise men of the land, and he has not been satisfied. Yet when he hears Joseph’s interpretation, he immediately recognizes it as the right one. How does he know?
Ramban explains that Pharaoh not only dreamt his dreams, but also their interpretation. When Joseph recounts the meaning of the dreams, Pharaoh recognizes it as the meaning he dreamed. Joseph denies his own ability to interpret dreams and gives all the credit unreservedly to God by repeating God’s name to Pharaoh four times.
In Genesis 41:16, Joseph says, “It is not in me: God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.” The Hertz translation renders it, “God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” Twice in verses 25 and 28, Joseph repeats, “God has told Pharaoh what he is about to do.” And finally in verse 32, he adds, “…the matter has been determined by God and God will soon carry it out.”
Repeatedly, Joseph refuses to name himself as the source of meaning. As Nehama Leibowitz comments, “Joseph refers to God as the power behind the scenes, as the doer, the shower, the declarer, and the bringer to pass.”
Contrast this with Joseph’s two dreams, thirteen years earlier at age 17 in the last parashah, when his sheaf of wheat would remain upright while those of his brothers would bow low to his and where the sun, the moon and eleven stars would bow down to him in tribute. Jon Levenson notes, “There is no reference to God and therefore no reason to believe that Joseph’s two dreams of receiving obeisance express anything higher than his own ego.” In those dreams, Joseph shows deference to no one. All bow to him, and Joseph bows to no one.
Joseph’s experience with slavery and imprisonment has clearly humbled him and allowed him to step aside so that the power of God can shine through him into the palace of Pharaoh.
Through Joseph’s proclamation of the power of God, he has changed Pharaoh’s view of him, the situation, and the future of Egypt. Pharaoh first addressed Joseph as an expert in clairvoyance in Genesis 41:15, saying, “Now I have heard it said of you that for you to hear a dream is to tell its meaning.”
Pharaoh now recognizes Joseph as “a man in whom the spirit of God is,” just the sort of man he can trust to be put in charge of all the land of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh in power.
In Joseph’s plan of action, he provides the young Pharaoh with “an answer of peace.” I recommend to you Thomas Mann’s novel, Joseph and His Brothers, first published in German in the 30s and 40s, just last year reissued in a new English translation that is a real page turner, a masterpiece of storytelling. Mann devotes 66 pages to this one exchange between Joseph and Pharaoh, Joseph teetering on the brink between imprisonment and political power, and Pharaoh, the young Amenhotep, whose royal duties have until recently been performed by his mother, the regent. Mann portrays the young Pharaoh as a philosopher who has no taste for warfare. Contrary to all his political and military advisers, he does not wish to engage the lords of the outlying provinces in violent confrontation in order to insure the welfare of Egypt. He prefers to occupy himself with lofty thoughts of deep philosophical and religious questions. It is significant that the Torah repeats twice in Genesis 41:4 and 21 that “Pharaoh awoke.” He was very much in need of waking up and seeing the action that only he could authorize to secure his power and benefit his country.
Joseph’s advice for saving the produce of the fat years as a store for the lean years holds within it a peaceful solution to Pharaoh’s current political struggles. Joseph says to Pharaoh, and I’m quoting here to give you a sense of Mann’s version of Joseph: “Although I am from far away, I know this and that about the circumstances of the land, about the history of how things came to be and how its nomes became an empire and the new emerged from the old, whereby the old that once was still defiantly maintains certain remnants, inconsistent with the time’s passage. For Pharaoh’s fathers…who defeated the foreign kings and drove them out and made crown lands of the Black Earth, had to reward petty kings and lords of the nomes, who had helped them in that struggle, with gifts of land and lofty titles, so that even to this day some still call themselves kings concurrently with Pharaoh and sit insolently upon their estates, which despite time’s passage are not Pharaoh’s. Since these conditions and history are not unknown to me, I can easily prophesy how Pharaoh’s agent, as master of oversight and prices, will manage things and what use he will make of this opportunity. He will set prices for these lords of the nome and outdated local kings during the seven years of chaff, when they have neither bread nor seed, but he has an abundance of both – fancy prices that will bring tears to their eyes and strip the last garment from their backs, so that the land will at last fall to the crown, as is only proper, and those insolent petty kings will be made crofters.”
Of course, Pharaoh is elated with this stroke of social, political, and economic genius, an “answer of peace” that brings dominion in the land without warfare. He embraces Joseph the stranger, the slave, summoned from the dungeon, as his Prime Minister.
That takes care of Pharaoh’s problem, but in this scenario also lies a solution to Joseph’s problem, that of reconciling with his brothers. One of the most disturbing questions in all of Torah is why Joseph concealed his identity for so long, resorting to trickery and deception in dealing with his brothers. Ramban explains that Joseph acted in accordance with the path marked out for him by Providence in his early dreams. When Joseph noticed that Benjamin was absent at his first reunion with his brothers, he schemed to bring Benjamin along and thus bring about the realization of the first dream, where all eleven of his brothers would bow down to him. Rather than acting cruelly in prolonging the bereavement of his family for him and now for Simeon, he was the savior and leader of his family. After thirteen years, they could now be reunited and continue on as a unified people of Israel. This would not have been possible until the fullness of time and events brought the realization of Joseph’s dream.
We read this story each year during the holiday of Chanukah, partly because of an accident of the calendar, yet there are connections to be made.
Of all the biblical heroes, Joseph may be the easiest to relate to. All of us, for the most part, have English names, dress like our non-Jewish neighbors, and participate in the popular culture. Chanukah, on one level, is about balancing the tension between our Jewish inner life and the outside secular world we live in. Like Joseph, we all have to make choices about how to live a Jewish life in a non-Jewish environment.
The message of Chanukah is that in the spiritual darkness we light a candle. After this week of lighting our chanukiyahs, we bask in their illumination and enlightenment. May this be an opportunity for all of us to rededicate ourselves to divine service and spiritual consciousness, to keep the spirit of God in our lives and the flame of Judaism burning in our hearts, our homes, our communities, and in our dreams.
