Nocturnal Iconoclasts
Dream interpretation seems somewhat out of vogue these days.
Talmudic wisdom seems to have it that dreams are simply a concoction of what
one experiences over the course of their waking hours (Berachot 55b). However,
beneath the nightmare of thirsty sea-creatures meandering upon dry land, gulping
from giant bottles of gurgling goop, there lies our most primal fears,
anxieties and aspirations. Our subconscious lets loose as it weaves metaphors
of childhood neglect (the thirsty sea creatures) which drives our insatiable appetite
for approval at work (the giant bottles of gurgling goop). Obviously, this matter
requires copious therapy if its seemingly far-fetched significance is to be fully
unravelled.
No different are the dreams that abound in Genesis. The colourful
characters of the Bible were as iconoclastic in their sleep as they were in
their waking hours. Jacob dreams of ladders, angels and sheep, Joseph dreams of
stalks and stars, the butler and baker dreams of wine and bread as does
Pharaoh, in Parshat Miketz, dream of cows and wheat.
What, you might ask, is beneath these vivid experiences
recounted by the Torah in such graphic detail?
Though I am not qualified in dream interpretation, I wish to
draw attention to a slight nuance that emerges in the comparison of two of the
said dreamers. Joseph and Pharaoh uniquely dream the same message twice, in two
differing formats. Joseph first dreams of the twelve stalks bowing to his, and then
the sun and stars curtseying in his direction. Pharaoh dreams first of the
seven cows, skinny and fat, and then of the seven ears of wheat, thin and
plump.
Fertile as dreams are for interpretation and revealing the
inner world of their dreamer, it would be contrary to a healthy sense of
voyeurism, were one not to read deeply into the character of these men on the
basis of their similar yet different nocturnal experiences.
Joseph’s dreams develop from below to above. From stalks on
the ground to stars in the heaven. Pharaoh’s dreams develop too, however in the
opposite direction. In fact, they regress, focusing on animals that dwell
above the earth in his first dream, to vegetation expressing a more limited
vitality and rooted within the earth, in his second dream. Joseph’s dreams
symbolise an ascent from the terrestrial to the sublime, whilst Pharaoh’s
dreams connote a descent from the vital to the inanimate.
One possible meaning of this inverse property turns on the
deeper nature of the two men. Pharaoh was a man steeped in materialism, a decaying
facet of reality that loses vitality over time. Joseph on the other hand, was a
spiritualist, educated on the primacy of spirit over matter. The physical aspects
of our world corrode with age. Houses become tired, cars rust and garments
fray. In contrast, the spiritual aspects of existence crystallise over time. Friendships
evolves into love, knowledge ferments into wisdom and experiences blossom into
character. The materialistic Egyptians waged a war against the inevitable decay
of the physical symbolised in their mummification of the dead, embalming the
body in a desperate war against its nature. In contrast, Joseph’s tradition was
one that dictated a simple burial, cognisant of the fact that the corporeal is
never anything more than dust. Rather than accumulating possessions, Joseph
bequeathed a tradition of sharing them, and constructing a legacy in their
stead.
Chanukah, which regularly coincides with our Parsha,
represents the self-same dichotomy. The Seleucid Empire waged a war against the
spirit of the Jewish nation, enticing our people towards the worship of the
body. The victory of the Jewish people over their oppressors represented the
mastery of spirit over matter. The Chanukah battle remains, albeit with
re-invented opposition, the material-focused foe of old having long dissolved.
The Jewish people however remain the same, a spirit that has only emboldened
over time.
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