Yosef, Master of Dreams
His brothers saw him coming across the field and gave him a title.
הִנֵּה בַּעַל הַחֲלֹמוֹת הַלָּזֶה בָּא
Here comes that master of dreams. Bereishit 37:19
They meant it as mockery. The Hebrew says more than “dreamer.” A ba’al is an owner, a master, the one who holds title. Yosef is called the owner of the dreams, and the rest of his life proves the deed.
One sixtieth
The Gemara lists five things in this world that are each one sixtieth of something larger.
חֲמִשָּׁה אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים… שֵׁינָה אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לְמִיתָה, חֲלוֹם אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לִנְבוּאָה
Five things are one sixtieth: fire, honey, Shabbat, sleep and dream… Sleep is one sixtieth of death. A dream is one sixtieth of prophecy. Berachot 57b
Sleep is a small death and a dream is a small prophecy. The author takes the ratio one step further: this life is itself one sixtieth of the soul’s whole career. Every night’s dream is a piece of a lifetime, and every lifetime is a piece of the soul’s longer work. The reading is the author’s own and is marked as his.
A letter that was never opened
חֶלְמָא דְּלָא מְפַשַּׁר כְּאִגַּרְתָּא דְּלָא מְקַרְיָא
A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read. Rav Chisda, Berachot 55a
A dream is mail. It arrives sealed, and someone has to open it. Rabbi Bana’ah took one dream to twenty-four interpreters in Jerusalem, got twenty-four different readings, and every one of them came true in his life.
כׇּל הַחֲלוֹמוֹת הוֹלְכִים אַחַר הַפֶּה
All dreams follow the mouth. Berachot 55b
Rabbi Elazar proves it from Yosef’s own prison: “as he interpreted for us, so it was” (Bereishit 41:13). The dream waits on the word that reads it. The one who interprets is a partner in what comes true.
The banker of the storehouses
Yosef reads Pharaoh’s dreams and then does something no interpreter had done. He builds the storehouses.
וַיִּצְבֹּר יוֹסֵף בָּר כְּחוֹל הַיָּם הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד עַד כִּי חָדַל לִסְפֹּר כִּי אֵין מִסְפָּר
Yosef stored up grain like the sand of the sea, very much, until they stopped counting, for it was beyond number. Bereishit 41:49
וְיוֹסֵף הוּא הַשַּׁלִּיט עַל הָאָרֶץ הוּא הַמַּשְׁבִּיר לְכׇל עַם הָאָרֶץ
Yosef was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold provision to all the people of the land. Bereishit 42:6
Mashbir, the one who dispenses. The same root gives mashber, the birthstool, the place of breaking through. Yosef holds a store beyond counting and opens it to the whole world in the years of hunger.
The book reads the storehouse as a picture of the soul. Each dream deposited, each life a withdrawal, and Yosef as the banker of God’s soul bank, the mashbir of universes, releasing to each soul what it needs for the life it is about to live. The thread runs into the fifty gates of understanding, Sha’ar HaNun, which the third book opens. That reading is the author’s own.
Tonight you will receive a letter. Read it. Say it out loud in a good direction. All dreams follow the mouth.
From the Kol Tehom series.
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