Miketz
Dare to Dream (2011/5771)
Paroh wakes terribly agitated from a nightmare in which seven skinny cows eat seven fat cows. “Those were the most awful cows I have ever seen!” he says, “Can’t anyone tell me what it means?”
Rabbi Tzvi Blanchard says: Paroh hovers in the anxiety of the unknown. He does not know if the nightmare hints at challenge or opportunity.
Yosef interprets the dream symbols: Seven years of abundance will be followed by seven years of famine.
Rabbi Blanchard says: Paroh still does not know if the dream is good or bad.
Yosef outlines a plan for collecting grain during the seven abundant years and rationing it during the seven lean years.
Rabbi Blanchard says: Paroh begins to understand that, by his standards, his dream brings opportunity. He will be the most powerful monarch in the region, as Egypt becomes the only source of food in a time of scarcity.
Rabbi Blanchard continues: Allow yourself to dream, to free associate, to more through anxiety, to contemplate possible futures. We may not know where the dreams will lead, but if we fear to follow them, we will miss our opportunities.
– Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan
Rabbi Blanchard’s words at the RWB meeting paraphrased by RLDK
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Gates of Tears (2009/5769)
From the day that the Temple was destroyed, the heavenly gates of prayer were locked. . . nevertheless, the gates of tears have not been locked. (Talmud Bavli, Bava Metzia 59a).When Yosef first recognizes his brothers, he runs out of the room, cries, composes himself, and returns. When Yehudah offers to become Yosef’s slave in exchange for Binyamin’s life,Yosef orders everyone except his brothers out of the room and then sobs so loudly everyone in the building hears. He kisses each brother in turn and cries on each brother’s shoulder. When he finally sees his father Ya’akov, he embraces him and cries in his arms. What’s the significance of the tears?
Shuly Rubin Schwartz (2008): Joseph’s tears are a necessary element in his transition to adulthood and to true leadership. Only when he has found a way to reconcile his childhood grief with the possibility of a new relationship with his brothers, his public persona with his private life, and his invincible power with his vulnerability, does he emerge as a biblical hero who fully ignites empathy and admiration.
Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (c. 1940): The closed gates of prayer are not to be found in the heavens. Rather, the Talmud is describing our hearts that have been cordoned off from spirituality. Even though we cognitively know that we should escape our own entrapment, we cannot simply will to overcome the blockage. Only through intense emotion so earnest that we are brought to tears can we open to God and become our true selves.
