The brothers said to each other, "Here comes the big dreamer."(Genesis 37:19)
My dad is a therapist and, not surprisingly, his favorite biblical character is Joseph. Joseph dreams. He has visions.
At first he is ridiculed for this. His brothers refer to him mockingly as "the big dreamer." Yet it is Joseph's dreams that save his brothers and the Jewish people.
Joseph is not unique in dreaming. Everyone dreams. What distinguishes Joseph is the ability to dream great dreams even in times of crisis.
He is in prison when he interprets the dreams of Pharaoh's baker and cupbearer. He is a recently released prisoner—a foreigner, a stranger in a strange land—when he interprets Pharaoh's dreams of the seven thin cows eating the seven fat cows.
Joseph does not let the situation get in the way of the dream. He is not blocked by artificial obstacles. He lets God speak through him, even when it seems he is the last person through whom God would speak.
To dream, Joseph teaches us, is not to live in a world of fantasy. It is to imagine a world infused with God's spirit. It is to draw from the energy and goodness God put into our world in order to help make it better.
Too often we give up too early. We let our despair get in the way of our dreams. Those figures, like Joseph, who make history, let their dreams live.
Winston Churchill could have let the overriding power of the German army and the despair of the British people in 1940 destroy his dream of survival and total victory. He did not.
Martin Luther King Jr. could have let the persistence of segregation destroy his dream of an America where people would be "judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He did not.
What is your dream? What is stopping you from getting there?
An excerpt from Shalom for the Heart: 50 Torah-Inspired Devotions for a Sacred Life.
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evan@rabbi.meEvan Moffic
Congregation Solel
1301 Clavey Road
Highland Park, Illinois 60035, United States
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