Mikeitz: A Dream's Target
In this week’s sidra and last, we had a series of dreams. An interesting question is who was the intended recipient and beneficiary of the dream’s message. Obviously, there was an initial recipient, which was the actual dreamer. But, for some of them, the target might be someone else entirely.
So, for instance, in Mikeitz, when Pharaoh dreams, he is the initial and eventual target. The beneficiary is Pharaoh and really all of Egypt, in order to save them from the impending disaster. There’s an overarching “beneficiary” which is Yosef and his family back in Canaan, as this is how Yosef will rise to greatness and the family will be saved, all as part of the Divine Plan formed at the Berit bein haBetarim in Lech Lecha, so that they would go down to Egypt, be enslaved, and emerge as a nation. But what I have in mind is Egypt.
Thus, Pharaoh is supposed to learn from his dream and know how to save Egypt. As Yosef says (Bereshit 41:28):
ה֣וּא הַדָּבָ֔ר אֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּ֖רְתִּי אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֧ר הָאֱלֹהִ֛ים עֹשֶׂ֖ה הֶרְאָ֥ה אֶת־פַּרְעֹֽה׃
It is just as I have told Pharaoh: Pharaoh has been shown what God is about to do.
הִנֵּ֛ה שֶׁ֥בַע שָׁנִ֖ים בָּא֑וֹת שָׂבָ֥ע גָּד֖וֹל בְּכׇל־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
Immediately ahead are seven years of great abundance in all the land of Egypt.
Similarly, it was urgent, since it was impending. That is why it was repeated.
וְעַ֨ל הִשָּׁנ֧וֹת הַחֲל֛וֹם אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֖ה פַּעֲמָ֑יִם כִּֽי־נָכ֤וֹן הַדָּבָר֙ מֵעִ֣ם הָאֱלֹהִ֔ים וּמְמַהֵ֥ר הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ׃
As for Pharaoh having had the same dream twice, it means that the matter has been determined by God, and that God will soon carry it out.
What about the dreams of the butler and baker in last week’s sidra? They dreamt the dreams, and the dreams were about them. But I don’t think that there was any concrete action that they could have taken to avert the catastrophe or bring the salvation. It was all in Pharaoh’s hands, and God had already declared it. (Maybe teshuva on the baker’s part?) Maybe to make the butler rejoice sooner, and allow the baker to make final life preparations?
Meanwhile, the obvious beneficiary was Yosef, as it made a great minimal contrasting pair, of similar dreams with slight differences in detail leading to opposite results. This eventually placed him before Pharaoh as an expert dream-interpreter, where he could be saved. It was not the one dream, but the pair of dreams that were created, in order to achieve this result.
What about Yosef’s dreams? We might think that he is the target, since he dreamt it, and it did concern him. His brothers did bow down to him. At the same time, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If not for the dreams which he related to his brothers, they would not have cast him into the pit, and he wouldn’t end up viceroy of Egypt, before whom they bowed.
On the other hand, the dreams concern them, and their eventual fates, so might we consider them the targets? And, might they have acted in a different manner so as to have a positive version of that predicted future?
In Bereshit 42:9, shortly after his brothers came before him as the vizier, not recognizing him, and bowing before him:
וַיִּזְכֹּ֣ר יוֹסֵ֔ף אֵ֚ת הַחֲלֹמ֔וֹת אֲשֶׁ֥ר חָלַ֖ם לָהֶ֑ם וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֲלֵהֶם֙ מְרַגְּלִ֣ים אַתֶּ֔ם לִרְא֛וֹת אֶת־עֶרְוַ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ בָּאתֶֽם׃
Recalling the dreams that he had dreamed about them, Joseph said to them, “You are spies, you have come to see the land in its nakedness.”
Note the words אֲשֶׁ֥ר חָלַ֖ם לָהֶ֑ם, most literally “that he had dreamed for them”.
Yes, “about them, concerning them” is also a valid peshat interpretation. If so, that would be that he is now working to achieve the prophecy even more.
Or maybe even that he had dreamed and related to them, so he now wants to take a limited measure of revenge.
But Radak takes it in an interesting direction, writing (using the Munk Rnglish translation):
אשר חלם להם, כי להם היו החלומות וראה עתה פתרונם, והם שנאוהו בעבורם, ובזכרו כל מה שעשו לא גמלם רעה אבל ציערם והקניטם:
אשר חלם להם, for the dreams had really concerned the brothers, primarily. He realised now that they had hated him on account of his dreams; this is why when he remembered all that they had done to him instead of repaying them in kind, he only made them extremely uncomfortable for a while. [perhaps what the author means is that originally, Joseph had thought that the brothers resented his becoming a big shot in his dreams, whereas only now did he realise that what they really resented was the fact that they, the brothers, appeared as socially low ranking, slave like, in Joseph’s dreams. Ed.]
There is a lot of words in translation here, even aside from the Editorial aside in brackets, and it seems that he is struggling with how to make sense of Radak’s point, and how the disjointed thoughts connect together. He is transparent in his struggle here, which is a good thing.
I would translate more literally:
“Which he had dreamed for them — for the dreams were for them. And now he saw their [the dream’s] explanation [when the brothers bowed low before him in verse 6, וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ אֲחֵ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף וַיִּשְׁתַּֽחֲווּ־ל֥וֹ אַפַּ֖יִם אָֽרְצָה׃]. And they [meanwhile] had hated him because of them [the dreams]. And when he recalled all that they had done, he did not repay them with evil [by e.g. executing them or imprisoning them forever], but he did distress and provoke them.”
It seems that Radak is reading the word לָהֶ֑ם as full of import, that this was all for their benefit. That would be a reason to severely punish them, because now we see that instead of being grateful for receiving the Divine message, they oppressed the messenger. Yosef then tempered his legitimate anger, though his did distress and provoke them.