Miketz 5776 - English

By Rabbi Daniel A. Kripper

Beth Israel - Aruba.

And the dreams continue in Joseph’s story, but this time the dreamer is Pharaoh.  It is that well-known dream about the seven fat cows and the seven gaunt cows, followed by the dream of the solid ears of grain and the thin ears.  The text ends by saying, “Next morning, his spirit was agitated.” (Gen. 41:8)

Rashi comments that with the second dream “the whole dream is complete.”  Pharaoh himself, like Joseph, must have realized that both dreams were essentially one.  Thus, we might ask why his spirit only becomes agitated after the second dream.  

The Midrash (Genesis Raba 80:5) reminds us that the words “his spirit was agitated” appear also in the book of Daniel (2:1).  Curiously, this text also refers to the reaction of a king to a dream.  

In that dream, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, has a vision of a great statue whose body was made entirely of gold, silver, copper and iron, but his feet were made of clay.  A single little rock hitting those feet was enough to pulverize the colossal figure and turn it into a pile of rubbish that the wind blew away.  But the little rock that hit the figure became a huge mountain that filled the Earth.  

Both monarchs, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, founded powerful empires based on power and the exploitation of slaves, the weakest human beings.  Both of them awoke from their dreams with agitated spirits because the both had a common motive.  Their dreams suggest the unthinkable: that the weak could defeat the powerful.  

When Pharaoh had the first dream, he might have considered it a coincidence.  But its repetition strengthened his fear that the dream would become a reality.  

Suddenly, Pharaoh was forced to confront the idea that challenged his vision of the world: that even the greatest empires become vulnerable when they are built of feet of clay, of oppression and domination.  

This is also the theme of the story of Hannukah: the final triumph of justice over tyranny, and the defense of the inalienable right of a people to be free, of each and every nation in the world.  

This universal message finds its strongest expression in the luminous call of hope of prophet Zechariah to all the subjugated, which is read on Shabbat Hannukah: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, said Adonai Tzevaot.” (4:6)

Rabbi Daniel Kripper