Why is someone else's dream so tedious and one's own so gripping? Because our own dreams are vividly real to us, of course. The other person's is a fiction. In this distinction is a great spiritual lesson for the New Year.
Remember the biblical Joseph who told his brother's his dreams? He imagined that they bowed down to him, and in his second dream, that not only his brothers (disguised as stars) but his parents (as the sun and moon) bowed down to him, which sets a new standard of youthful grandiosity. As a result -- and because of his father's favoritism -- his brothers hated him. In the end they threw him in a pit and he was sold into slavery.
In Egypt Joseph wound up in prison. Among the prisoners were Pharaoh's baker and cupbearer. By interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh's servants, Joseph eventually makes his way to the court, where he interprets Pharaoh's dreams as well. As a result of his insight, Joseph becomes second only to Pharaoh in the land. So dreams got him into trouble and dreams got him out of trouble. But did you notice the difference?
Rabbi Isaac Bernstein pointed out -- Joseph got into trouble when he listened only to his own dreams. He succeeded when he learned to listen to the dreams of others.
The New Year is distinguished by dreams. Not only the dreams of the night, where our day thoughts and moods and secrets bloom in images, but the dreams of the day. As a Rabbi I am privileged to hear the dreams of others. I know each time I listen that I am enlarged by taking in another vision, another hope, one more aspiration of a seeking soul. The Zohar, the central text of Jewish mysticism, teaches that we are all "children from the chamber of yearnings." I hope this year we listen not only to ourselves -- to the echo chamber of our own dreams -- but to others.
After all, it worked for Joseph.
Russell Bishop: Could Sleep Aid Your Contact With The Divine?
What Do Dreams Mean? - Judaism - Israel National News
Judaism 101: Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism
Dreams are the engine to our soul, or eternal self. Many can drive a car in the lineal way of thinking, but it is the soul that has the Diadem. Google: Dreams/Meaning, and begin understanding your Kundalini, and become a Neophyte no more!
1. The Qur'anic report of this story (Qur'an:Surat 12) talks not about Pharaoh, but about a king of Egypt. This was not because Muhammad (PBUH) made a mistake while copying the biblical version of Joseph's story as he is often accused of doing by those who would mislead and misinform. Indeed, Pharaoh is mentioned dozens of times in other chapters of the Qur'an, especially when reporting various details about the life of Prophet Moses (PBUH). But in Joseph's story, the Qur'an repeatedly refers to a king of Egypt, not Pharaoh! Historically, during the time of Joseph, Egypt was occupied by Asian tribes called the Hexos. Their rule in Egypt interrupted the pharaonic dynasty. The Hexos referred to their rulers as kings, not as pharaohs. This information became known only after modern-time archeological digs and was not known in Muhammad's time! See http://suscopts.org/pdf/copticchurch/hx1.pdf for details.
2. Joseph succeeded only after learning that God did speak to other people (not just the chosen ones!) and that "The Truth" could reach him through someone else (the king's dream). When he opened his heart to this possibility, he became willing to act on the Truth and was put to good use by God. Furthermore, Joseph stepped forward to assist, saving untold numbers of people from famine, regardless of their ethnicity or creed.
My good Rabbi: Learn from others! Remember the Palestinians!
I don't blame Joseph for telling his dream. It seemed significant to him and it was. It was not his fault that no one paid attention to "the dreamer".
The real amazing thing was when the Pharaoh could not remember his dream that troubled him greatly, Joseph prayed so that he was able to have the same troubling dream which ended up saving many lives including the lives of his own brothers that had to bow down to him.
Visions and or revelations coming true are also possible. I can say that from personal experience.
Teaching is not inherently good. Bad ideas can be taught. Leviticus alone is an inexhaustible source of bad ideas.
That is, until the afternoon of June 12, 2005, four years later, when I found myself standing at the edge of a dried up pool where crumbling stone columns were overgrown with vines and weeds and scores of doves and pigeons nested and flew. To my right was a large shade tree, but to my left I saw a few square squat dwellings with large satellite dishes attached to them. What a strange place I thought, how could it be that I had seen this scene in a dream a few weeks after that day we call 9/11?
On the afternoon of my very first day in Jerusalem, I told Mother Agapia about my dream and what I had seen at the Pool of Bethsaida.
She told me about the Interfaith Peace Conference that was happening the Sunday after the Thursday I was scheduled to return to the USA. I knew I needed to attend
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=579&Itemid=169
Thank you.
I wish you an abundant and joy-filled new year.
Cheers
But dreams happen in private, whereas religious interpretation is public. So something must be done, and Rabbi Wolpe puts his finger on it: we need to bring the private into the public, and "listen to the dreams of others".
Long before Isaac Bernstein, his point was made by Rabbi Eleazar (also in the long and wonderful section of Talmud beginning at Berachoth 55a) in commenting on Joseph: "each of them was shown his own dream and the interpretation of the other one's dream."
The author of the Joseph story was a forerunner of Philo, Aqiva, Freud and Harold Bloom -- the greatest interpreters in history. Today the image of religion is blackened by the phenomenon of fundamentalism, which says that myths don't need to be interpreted (because they're "true"). This is the very opposite of the tradition whose mythic icon is Joseph.
Who exactly would believe that a race between a talking turtle and a talking rabbit was a historically factual event?
"Better stick to quantum jokes."
Better stick to apologizing for literalists.
Your quantum jokes are jokes, right? Nothing incorrect or offensive about referring to them that way? On the other hand, my concern is always with defending NONliteralists against literalists, and I'm pretty sure you know that, so your remark is disingenuous. (No doubt you can respond with some sort of argument to the effect that defending any religion is defending all religion. Don't bother.)
so much unused real estate out there....q uite violent too. lots and lots and lots of inert matter
just crashing around. Also, why did he take so long to "create" man ..the universe is 13 billion yrs old
was man just an after thought or could we be the product of random events ?
Bible = Jewish folk tales