Interpretation of Dreams According to Torah
The young Yoseph dreamed two dreams concerning his family. In his first dream, all his brothers bowed to him. In the second dream, his father and mother, and his brothers bowed. Later in Egypt as a viceroy, he orchestrated the things in a such way that all his brothers and father would come to bow down to him. Was Yoseph trying to bring what he dreamed of to its realization? It is the object of this work to seek the answers to this question, as we will seek to clarify what Yoseph had said. The matter will become clear once we understand that there is a common mistake made when it is asserted that it was Yoseph who interpreted his dreams. Although this is the common understanding of the verses, we can offer a different interpretation.
“If a dream has any meaning, one can leave its realization to the One who sends it”. Rav Hirsch
“If a dream has any meaning, one can leave its realization to the One who sends it”. Rav Hirsch
Yoseph dreamed a dream and told it to his brothers, “We were binding sheaves in the field, and my sheaf rose up and also stood up. And your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf”. And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Shall you indeed rule over us?” (Gen 37:5-8). And he dreamed another dream and related it to his father and his brothers, “The sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to me”. And his father rebuked him, saying, “Shall we, your mother and I and your brothers, indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” (Gen 37:9-10)
The meaning of this dream is clear. Sun and moon refer to Yoseph’s parents, father and mother respectively, and the eleven stars refer to his brothers, seeing that Yoseph had eleven brothers. But a question is forced upon us: Was his mother (Rachel) not already dead? Why did Ya’akov say “your mother” seeing that he himself buried Rachel? By saying “your mother” Ya’akov might have referred to Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant who raised him, as though she was his mother. Thus, Ya’akov wanted to diminish the rest of the dream, since Bilhah was not his mother, therefore, the whole dream is not to be taken seriously. Alternatively, according to Genesis Rabbah 84:11, Ya’akov did not know that the dream did not relate to Rachel but to Bilhah. Hence, the Rabbis derived from here that there is no dream without meaningless elements. Nonetheless, Ya’akov took the dream far more seriously than his sons and kept the matter in his mind. As we know from the continuation of the story in Genesis, these two dreams were fulfilled in Egypt as interpreted. Why? What did Yoseph interpret to make them fulfilled?
Another example. We will rewind the time further. Pharaoh’s butler and chief baker each had a dream, but they had no one to interpret it. Yoseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to Elohim? Relate them to me” (Gen 40:8). The chief butler related his dream to Yoseph, saying, “In my dream a vine was before me, and in the vine were three branches, and it was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes. And Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand. So, I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand”. When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Yoseph: “Three baskets of white bread were on my head. And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of baked food for Pharaoh, and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head”. Yoseph interpreted both dreams: one favorably, and the other unfavorably. How did he manage to interpret the dreams?
Yoseph must have carefully studied their words by the wisdom given from above. In the butler’s case, Yoseph saw that the butler was doing things. Since one can only do something if he is alive, Yoseph saw in his dream that the butler was alive. In the baker’s case, the birds were eating from the baskets, but the baker was not in the dream. In his dream, it was not clear who baked the bread. Moreover, birds are usually afraid of men and will not come near food in the presence of humans. But in the dream, the birds were eating the bread seemingly undisturbed. Yoseph, therefore must have interpreted the dream to mean that the baker was not alive, since he was not in it, unlike the dream of the butler.
A careful reader of the Scriptures knows that there is never a case in the Tanach a Hebrew seeking the interpretation of a dream. Instead, it is always the case when heathens seek interpretations of their dreams. Such a heathen was Pharaoh.
It came to be that Pharaoh had a dream and saw seven cows coming up out of the river (the Nile), beautiful looking and fat (Gen 41:1-2). And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the word is established in heaven, and because the Eternal hastened to do it (Gen 41:32). The occurrence of two dreams in one night is proof that the Eternal is behind them, as the verse (32) reads: The dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice. This is not redundancy, as it appears, but it was done so that the fulfillment of the dream must be hastened. Hence, two dreams need to be dreamed in order to know that they are from Elohim. Yoseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, which made him a viceroy of Egypt. Egypt was thus saved from the famine that was about to come upon the whole known world.
But neither Pharaoh nor Yoseph would have known that this dream was first inspired by the Eternal in order that the prophecy to Avraham that before his descendants would take possession of the Promised Land, they must first leave it and be in a foreign land for a period of 400 years. But in order for this to come true, Yoseph had to first interpret Pharaoh’s dream correctly, the famine must come in the land of Kana’an, to make Avraham’s descendants leave it, Yoseph had to become viceroy of Egypt, to save Egypt from the famine, and only then they could leave. In these two instances, it was Yoseph who interpreted the dreams of the ministers and of Pharaoh.
By now we should have noticed that it was the dreams’ interpretation that actually caused them to be fulfilled. For the meaning of this statement, we will depend on the opinion of the Rabbis who explained in Berachot 55b:16 that “All dreams follow the mouth”. What it means is that a dream is fulfilled according to its interpretation. The Gemara states that it is derived from the story of the dreams of Pharaoh’s two ministers. The butler said to Pharaoh: “And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was” (Genesis 41:13). But this comes with reservations: This is true only in a case where the interpretation is relevant to the dream, as it is stated in the story of Yoseph’s interpretation of the dreams of the two ministers: “Each man according to his dream he did interpret” (Genesis 41:12). The Gemara further says that each of Pharaoh’s ministers was shown his dream and the interpretation of the other’s dream, for it is written in Genesis 40:16: “The baker saw that the interpretation (of the butler’s dream) was good”. This teaches that he knew that it was the correct interpretation (for he saw it) and asked for an interpretation of his own dream (which did not happen to be good for him).
But while the case of Pharaoh and his ministers is clear, who interpreted Yoseph’s dreams which he related to his brothers and father? It was not Yoseph. He told them that dreamed a dream in which their sheaves bowed down to his sheaf. They interpreted as if they were bowing down to him. Likewise with the dreams of the sun and the moon, and the eleven stars. Yoseph only related to them the dreams, but the interpretations were all theirs. They heard the dreams and gave their own interpretations. As they interpreted them, so were the dreams fulfilled. Hence, the Rabbis teach that if one does not have his dream interpreted, it will not be fulfilled. So, it follows from here that it is better not to ask for interpretation whether we think the dream was good or not.
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