Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Miketz #1- Dreamer
Parshat "Mikeitz" starts in Perek 41 and begins with the two famous dreams Pharaoh had. In his first dream, seven skinny/emaciated cows ate the seven healthy cows and after doing so still remained skinny. Additionally, seven withered ears of grain swallowed seven healthy ears of grain and still remained thin and withered (pesukim 1-7). When Pharaoh was looking for an interpretation and eventually summoned Yosef as an interpreter the Torah restates the entire dreams again in great detail (pesukim 17-24). The Haamek Davar asks: We all know the Torah never says things that are unnecessary, even a single letter, why then does the Torah tell us Pharaoh's dreams twice, the first time when they happened and the second time when Pharaoh was telling them to Yosef, instead of just saying "and Pharaoh said over his dreams to Yosef"?
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Rabbi Shalom Bochner explains the repetition of Pharohs dreams by saying that in order for a dream to be useful it must repeated and interpreted. He quotes the gemara saying that "a dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read". He furthers his argument by saying that dreams are not just dreams, they're inevitable realities on their way. Pharohs dream was repeated in detail a second time because that's what should be done in order for it to be beneficial and not a wasted opportunity or an ignored inspiration.
ReplyDelete- Gabrielle Posner
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ReplyDeleteRav Yonatan Grossman explains that the Torah writes of Pharaoh's dream twice to show us that Pharaoh changed some minor details in order to test the magicians and Yosef. Pharaoh knew Yosef's explanation was good because he picked up on a detail that Pharaoh missed.
ReplyDeleteMyjewishlearning.com teaches us that the reason for the repetition of Pharoah's dream is to teach us that Hashem is hastening to bring this. The dream is showing what will happen in the future, and the repetition is showing that it is going to happen sooner than they think.
ReplyDeleteThe Gemara says that The Torah having written out the entire dream over again/Paroah repeating the dream was actually Paroah's way of validating Yosef as an interpreter. Paroh actually switched around some details from his dream the second time his dream is written out in the Torah, in order to see if Yosef will pick up on it, making sure that Yosef was a legit interpreter
ReplyDeleteAccording to rashi, Pharaohs spirit was troubled because none of his magicians could correctly interpret his dreams. So I believe the first time the dream is told to us in the parsha is representative of the incorrect interpretation by the magicians and the second time it is representative of the correct analysis by Yosef. And the reason Pharoh had to hear what his magicians had to say was because by the time Yosef was brought before him and told him what he thought the dreams meant, he had already heard all the incorrect suggestions so it was easy to find the right one, which lead to Yosef eventually becoming a leader of Egypt.
ReplyDelete- Hannah
According to the Medresh Tanchuma Pharoh restated the dream a second time but changed minor details in the dream in order to confuse and test Yosef to make sure he would really be capable to interpreting his dream correctly. And Yosef proved that he had the capability of interpreting the dream by correcting the minor details which Pharoh had changed from the original dream.
ReplyDeleteIn 42:7 the Torah actually says that Yosef saw his brothers and he did recognize them, but he acted like a stranger to them. In the next Passuk the Torah repeats that Yosef recognized his brothers but they didn't recognize him. This is why Yosef was able to single out Shimon and why he was able to manipulate his brothers so meaningfully.
ReplyDeleteLiat Silver