Can You Have a Part in Someone Else's Dream?

Parshat Vayeshev

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Yosef comes across two sets of dreams in our parsha. The first are his own dreams, of bundles of grain and stars, and the second are the dreams of Pharaoh’s chief wine pourer and chief baker. (For more on Yosef and all the dreams he experiences, read here)

If Yosef’s own dreams were predicting a portion of his future, we certainly understand why the Torah gives them to us in full detail. It is interesting to note that the anger of his brothers, and the concern of his father do not actually amount to proper interpretations of the dreams. It is not farfetched to say that while everyone seems to take the messages of the dreams in a similar manner, Yosef has no actual inkling of how such notions might ever come to fruition, simply because he doesn’t know where or how he might ever rise above his brothers. 

As far as the dreams he hears of in prison, we can ask a simple question. What need have we to hear their details?
An entire chapter of the Torah is dedicated to the encounter Yosef has with Pharaoh’s imprisoned officers, which includes meeting them, seeing their consternation, hearing their dreams, interpreting both dreams, and seeing his interpretations be proven correct. Were the details to be left out, we could have seen 2 verses simply summarizing the event: “While Yosef was in prison, two of Pharaoh’s officers were thrown in as well; one night they both had a dream. Yosef interpreted the dreams correctly for them, and asked the wine pourer to mention his name to Pharaoh.” That is all we, the readers, really need from the story, as the wine pourer will fill in the blanks for us in 41:9-13 when he recounts to Pharaoh what happened to him and the baker, and the results of Yosef’s dream-interpreting.

In an article entitled “Two Dreams and Two Solutions,” Rabbi Yonatan Grossman (of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Herzog College), focuses on the need for the baker’s dream altogether, because shortly after receiving his interpretation, he is out of the picture (dead) and can not help Yosef’s story move along. In conclusion, Rabbi Grossman suggests that the power of showing how Yosef can discern specifics of interpretation from differences between two dreams is what impressed the chief wine-pourer the most. Noting the many parallels between the dreams of butler and baker, Rabbi Grossman highlights Yosef’s picking up on the number 3 to mean 3 days, while the roles each officer plays in his own dream, respectively, indicates what the interpretation means for each officer. Of course, the idea that the dreams mean anything at all and aren’t just nonsense (as most dreams surely are) is another feather in Yosef’s cap! But it’s the specific contrast which alerted the wine pourer to mention Yosef when Pharaoh himself had two dreams and couldn’t make heads or tails of their interpretation or of the differences between them.

In fact, Yosef’s main message to Pharaoh was that both dreams were really one dream, whose message will commence in its fruition immediately.

That is a nice message. But I found that Haktav V’hakabbalah’s (Rabbi Yaakov Mecklenberg) interpretation of this episode to be most enlightening. He understands the dreams to not just contain a message for those who dreamt them, but a message as well for Yosef.

Look back at the dreams in chapter 41. See which elements of the dreams Yosef utilizes for his interpretations for the officers. More importantly, see which elements Yosef completely ignores in his interpretations. Rabbi Mecklenberg’s view is that whatever Yosef did not mention or use as his message to the wine pourer or to the baker were because he discerned that they were messages God was sending to him.

How he knew the number three symbolized days is a fascinating question. But I like to think that the message he gleaned from the dreams told to him were that his own number would soon be called. Looking back at his own dreams, noting he had been away from home for 11 years, he may have thought his dreams with the eleven stars meant the number of years which would pass before he became king – a much nicer-to-his-family interpretation than that he would rule over them! Perhaps he was aware of the king’s birthday, and that it was a day of reckoning for political prisoners! Translation: 3 vines and 3 baskets equals three days for each of these gentlemen. And that the wine pourer is doing his job in his dream, and that the butler is not doing his job in his dream becomes relatively straight forward. Maybe Yosef thought it was time for him to be released too. 

But the message Rabbi Mecklenberg brings out is that the remaining items in the dream are messages for Yosef. The grapes are a reminder that he is an Israelite (Israel is called “Gefen” in some sources), and the blossoming of the vine indicates that from the place of his utter lowliness (prison) will his success blossom. Like wine which is hidden and preserved inside the grape, he is sitting in a prison during which he is ripening and maturing and being prepared for his next role (honestly, his being right hand man to the warden is a great resumé note to become viceroy to the king!). Just like effort needs to be made to get the wine out of the grape, he needs to do his part to implant the idea in the wine pourer that he doesn’t belong on the prison.

Even Yosef’s request to the wine pourer to remember him is arguably part of the interpretation of the dream. It’s as if Yosef is saying, “I’ve explained to you the parts of your dream that relate to you. Now when I ask for you to mention me to the king, that’s based on the parts of your dream which were really a message for me. When the time is proper for you to do so, please remember me and mention me to Pharaoh.”

It turns out that the time was not proper yet – Pharaoh needed to have his dreams, he needed to be distraught over them, and the wine pourer needed to make the necessary connection. Had he come out of prison and told Pharaoh about Yosef, nothing would have come of it. What need did Pharaoh have for Yosef at that time, 2 years before his own dreams?

I readily admit I don’t know the meanings of dreams. But I have met people who have had dreams which they found to be premonitions of things that ultimately happened, or they felt a message they received in a dream was truly guiding them.

I like to think that for us, the message of dreams and the roles of others in them becomes a question of what dreams do each of us have for ourselves, for our loved ones, families and friends? Do we have the capacity to see what role others will play in our seeing our dreams come to fruition?

Too many people readily dismiss the roles others might play in their lives. Were we to appreciate people on a higher level than we do, perhaps we too would be blessed to see what special roles they might play in helping us see our dreams come true. Some dreams come true with luck, some with a tremendous amount of effort, and some never at all. But many people never give up on dreams, and they see them through when they have the right people in their lives at the right moment.

For Yosef, the wine pourer was there at the right time: at the end of his first 11 years in Egypt, when he was almost ripe and ready to step in Pharaoh’s court, needing that last resumé boost and a little more time, to step into the position that was to be his destiny to hold for 8o years.