“In dreams begin responsibilities.”
When we first meet Joseph, as a teenage boy, he is blessed
with prophetic, visionary dreams but profoundly lacking in wisdom. He foolishly flaunts his reveries at his
brothers’ expense, thereby earning their deep enmity. His dreams of dominion are, in fact,
accurate—but he does not yet know what to do with them. He speaks when he should be silent. Joseph’s prophetic gifts run deep—but they
blind him to the needs and feelings of others.
He is brilliant but insensitive, rich in vision but impoverished in
empathy and action.
Decades later, in this week’s portion, Miketz, Joseph grows up.
Pain and adversity teach him compassion.
Enslavement and imprisonment open his eyes to the suffering of
others. Joseph learns how to listen, how
to see into the hearts of those around him.
This wisdom enables him to develop his prophetic potential into powerful
action.
Pharaoh calls upon Joseph to interpret two parallel
dreams. Joseph does this—but does not
stop there. He goes on to offer policy
advice based on his interpretation: Pharaoh should set up a detailed system
over all of Egypt to collect and store up food during the seven years of
plenty, so that there will be provisions when the seven years of famine
strike. Here, Joseph moves from words to
acts. He acknowledges that in
interpreting dreams, he is a mere vessel, channeling God. But the choice to translate those
interpretations into a course of action is his alone. As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz notes: “From being a dreamer of dreams, Joseph became the
person of the dream... a man who experienced the dream... as a burden and a
responsibility and a course of action from which there could be no digression.
We may not
all have the gift to accurately interpret our dreams. But we can assume responsibility for
them. That is, after all, just assuming
responsibility for ourselves.”
The Jewish
writer Delmore Schwartz wrote story whose title is adapted from a poem by W.B.
Yeats: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. Indeed.
As we grow older—and hopefully, wiser and more compassionate—our
challenge is to translate our dreams and visions into well-chosen actions. During this week, which celebrates light and
miracles, let’s think about how to live up to the responsibilities imposed by
our dreams.
Happy
Chanukah to all!
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