Library:D'vrei Torah

Shabbat Miketz
Dvar Torah, David Friedman
December 11, 2004

It’s been a quiet week in Canaan, my hometown… Joseph’s still in prison, the royal cupbearer’s been restored to his rightful position, and the Pharaoh is dreaming of cows and grain.

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

There’s certainly a lot of material to choose from in this week’s parashah. The subject I’d like to focus on is the development of Joseph’s moral character. What enabled him to go from a shepherd in Canaan, to be governor over all of Egypt? Who was he? And how did he get from there to here?

In last week’s parashah, while he was still in Canaan, we learned that Joseph would snitch on his older brothers. He would bring back bad reports to his father after he and his brothers had been off tending sheep. As a young man of seventeen, he also enjoyed special privileges. Not because he earned those privileges, but because his father liked him best. He’d strut around in his long colorful coat - flaunting his position as “favorite son”. And we also saw that Joseph was a dreamer. He had very vivid dreams that he was quick to share with others. We hear about Joseph’s first dream as he’s telling it to his brothers. “I dreamed that we were binding sheaves of wheat in the field. And my sheaf stood up straight, while yours formed a circle around mine and bowed down to my sheaf”. This didn’t go over well with his brothers. His brothers’ reaction was what you would expect: “You want to be our king? You intend to rule over us?” The result was that they hated him even more. Then Joseph has another dream, this one he shares not just with his brothers, but with his father as well. “I just had another dream”, he tells them. “The sun, the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me”. Even his father, when he hears this dream, scolds him – he can’t believe it. Jacob says, “What kind of dreams are you having? You want for me, your mother, and your brothers to all gather around you and worship at your feet!?”

So Joseph is not a very likeable character. On the contrary, we see Joseph as an arrogant little brat, strutting around in his long, multicolored coat, ratting on his older brothers and flaunting his favored position. He’s having the dreams of a megalomaniac, and he’s sharing those dreams with those less fortunate than he. Joseph has a real attitude problem. He may be bright, he may be gifted, but he’s not thinking very well. And consequently, things don’t go well for Joseph. When his brothers see him coming towards them in the field, they say, “Here comes the dreamer!” You can just hear the disdain in that phrase, “Here comes the dreamer!” Instead of being respected, even worshiped, he ends up being thrown down the well and sold as a slave to wandering Egyptians. He’s despised. In fact, if it wasn’t for his brother Reuben, who argued for just throwing him down the well, his brothers would have killed him on the spot. So it goes for the dreamer.

So Joseph’s luck has run out. Everything he has is taken away from him. Not just his physical possessions, but even his sense of well-being. He’s been sold to a band of Midianite traders on their way to Egypt. He knows no one, and no one knows him. But it’s only from this point, when he’s hit bottom, that he begins to grow, and he begins the process of self-transformation.

When Joseph lands in Egypt, he ends up being sold as a servant to one of Pharaoh’s officers, Potiphar, the captain of the guard. Joseph could no longer afford to sit back and dream. He was no longer a “favorite son”. Now he had to prove his worth and earn the respect of others. His arrogance gradually drops away – he loses his self-centeredness. Now he is a working man. We read that “Vayehi Adonay et-Yosef” - “God was with Joseph, and He made him very successful”. Joseph learns to think things through, to use his head, to manage his affairs as well as the affairs of others. He learns to be responsible. And indeed, Joseph is quite successful in his new role. He proves himself to be so capable in fact, that Potiphar, his owner, promotes Joseph to be his personal servant, and then puts him in charge of his entire household, giving him responsibility over everything he owns. Joseph ends up handling all his master’s affairs. He’s in charge. He’s the man. Things are looking up for Joseph. And then, just when Joseph is feeling on top of the world – boom – it all comes crashing down again. He’s accused by Potiphar’s wife of attempted rape, he’s thrown in prison, and he spends the next 12 years in the dungeons of Egypt.

So again, he’s lost it all. His back is on the mat. But as Bob Dylan says “When ya got nothin’, ya got nothin’ to lose”. And as the Torah says, ”Vayehi Adonay et-Yosef” - “God was with Joseph, and He showed him kindness”. What does that phrase mean? When Joseph had been sold to Potiphar, we were told “God was with Joseph, and He made him very successful”, and now, after being thrown in prison, it says ”God was with Joseph, and He showed him kindness”. It means that Joseph grew in both of these situations, and that he grew in different ways. While working for Potiphar, he’s learning how to successfully manage others; how to be responsible for himself and for others. In prison, he’s learning kindness – empathy. Joseph is becoming a man of principles. A moral man. A man of character. Joseph takes each of these setbacks and uses them to mature into a man capable of leading. In fact, Joseph does so well in prison, impressing the warden so much, that the warden puts him in charge over all the other prisoners – before long he’s running the place! Wherever Joseph ends up, he’s put in charge. This guy had some serious organizational skills!

We see that Joseph learns how to be humble when dealing with the needs of others. After ten years in prison, we’re told that Joseph notices that two of the prisoners, Pharaoh’s cupbearer and his chief baker, seem distressed. They say they’ve had some troubling dreams. Joseph offers to interpret their dreams for them saying “Interpretations are God’s business, if you want to, tell me your dreams”. So he knows he has a skill for dream interpretation, but something is very different now. He gives credit elsewhere – specifically to God. He’s smart, but he’s no longer arrogant. Also, he’s not touting his own self-centered dreams, predicting that others will bow down to him. He’s taking his ability to give meaning to the mysterious, and he’s using it to help others who are in distress. He’s practicing kindness. Only after this transformation takes place is Joseph capable of meeting the challenges ahead.

Two years later, Joseph is 30, he’s still in prison, the cupbearer has been restored to his position, and remember, the Pharaoh is dreaming about cows and grain.

When none of Pharaoh’s magicians or wise men are able to interpret his dreams, the royal cup-bearer remembers Joseph from his days in prison, and tells Pharaoh about Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams. When they summon Joseph and bring him before Pharaoh to hear his dreams, Joseph offers this interpretation: Seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of severe famine. He says the occurrence of the two dreams, one after the other, indicate that the events depicted in the dream are imminent. But Joseph doesn’t stop there. He goes on to advise Pharaoh to seek out a discerning and wise man, and to let that man appoint overseers on the land, to prepare the land during the seven years of abundance. Nor does Joseph stop there: He says that they should gather food during the good years, and safeguard it – to build a reserve. But Joseph does not specifically offer his services – merely his advice. His childhood arrogance is absent. Pharaoh’s reaction isn’t one of anger and resentment, the emotions that Joseph used to elicit in those to whom he was speaking. Now he gets respect and appreciation. Pharaoh is in awe. He bestows upon Joseph honor and reward.

I’m curious though, why Pharaoh is so quick to hand everything over to Joseph based on this single event. It seems a bit unbelievable to me. I suspect that, to some degree, Joseph’s reputation must have preceded him. Also, these were superstitious times. We read that Pharaoh called upon his necromancers and his wise men (the Torah groups them together in the same sentence, by the way). They were closely related professions in the ancient cultures. Predicting the future was a highly respected and well-paid skill. It is quite common to read how dreams were considered harbingers of things to come. Still, I think Joseph was being very savvy when asked to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. Basically, what we’re being told is that Joseph was able to successfully predict Egypt’s weather for the next 14 years. I don’t quite buy that. What I see here is a very wise and pragmatic Joseph. Several times in his life he’s been in a position of having nothing to lose; his current situation is not very different. Based on Pharaoh’s dreams, he makes a prediction that, for the time being anyway, is a pretty safe bet. Egypt has been having good crop yields for quite a while. We were told when Joseph was first taken into Egypt that God took good care of the Egyptians because Joseph was in their midst. So all Joseph is saying is that things are going to continue as they are for the next seven years – not a very risky prediction. He then warns of a devastating famine for the seven years following that, and goes on to advise the Pharaoh on just what needs to be done throughout the kingdom in order to avoid the oncoming calamity. He may be right, he may be wrong. But the jury is going to be out for the next seven years on this one. And what about the consequences of not heeding Joseph’s advice? Can Pharaoh really afford not to listen to Joseph?

When I discussed this thought with my wife, she told me the story of “The King and the Talking Horse”. Some of you may know this story. A condemned man is brought before the king. He tells the king, “If you spare my life now, I’ll teach your favorite horse to talk – but – it will take a year.” The king thinks about it and says “OK, you’re on. Teach my horse to talk. But if in a year from now, you don’t succeed, you’ll be put to death.” The convict’s friends can’t believe it. “Are you crazy?! You can’t teach his horse to talk! He’ll kill you for sure!” To which he replies, “Look, a lot can happen in a year. The king can die, I can die, or who knows, maybe the horse will learn to talk!” He’s got nothing to lose! Joseph also, has nothing to lose. And if the Pharaoh thinks it’s at all possible that Joseph’s interpretation is accurate, then he has a lot to lose by not listening to Joseph. So when interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph is being very smart. If there are no drastic changes in the climate over the next few years, he’s got that much time to prove himself as an effective governor, and for Pharaoh to get used to having him around, having someone else deal with the difficult day-to-day tasks of running a country. Smart. Savvy. He’s not making the mistakes he made in his youth. Joseph has grown into a wise man. Just as he knows he’s capable of great things, he also knows from experience that he can lose it all in an instant. His arrogance is gone.

So we’ve seen Joseph transform himself from a dreamer, into a doer. His dreams came to fruition only through his taking action – working – changing. It required much from him. Along with great managerial skill, he’s developed a strong moral character.

I think one of the core points to take from this parashah is that a dream, though enlightening, is not enough. Dreams alone will not change things. Joseph grows from a youthful, arrogant dreamer into a visionary wise man. He goes beyond his dreams. He listens to his dreams and he gives them wings. There’s a tractate in the Talmud that states, “A dream un-interpreted is like a letter unopened.” Joseph opens the dream up. Joseph transforms the dream to have a positive effect on his life and the life of others. There’s a Chinese proverb that says “Imagination without knowledge is like a bird without feet.” Joseph didn’t just give wings to his dreams; he gave them feet as well.

Shabbat Shalom.