Rabbi's Sermons

Shabat Shalom, Hodesh Tov and Hanukkah Sameach!

Tonight we celebrate three holidays! Shabat, Rosh Hodesh Tevet and 6^th day of Hanukkah!

“I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it; and I have heard say of you, that you canst understand a dream to interpret it” ^{Genesis 41:15}

So Pharaoh spoke to Yosef, in this week's portion: Parashat Miketz. You must agree, that the dream that Pharaoh had was quite a weird dream. We could never know, if the dream described actual events, and it was originated from Pharaoh’s mind, or maybe, Pharaoh wrote it down, in the middle of the night, on a piece of papyrus, or it was the result of someone repeating what Pharaoh said, passing on the story, and as the typical scenario goes, more and more details were added to the story until it became ridiculous: seven skinny cows consume seven fat cows, and remain skinny... And then, seven dry ears of wheat, ate another seven good ears... The Torah tells us that the dream complies with the scriptures, and according to tradition, we must accept it with no reservations, as-is. I wonder how Sigmund Freud (another great Jew in the history of mankind) would have interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams. Luckily for Pharaoh, and even if Freud had not yet been born, he had Yosef, instead, to interpret them.

Now, imagine the next morning. Pharaoh woke up upset, frightened, "his spirit was troubled", after having two nightmares disturb his rest. He walked from one side to the other, thinking about what to do, and what level of importance he should attribute to his dreams: "Maybe I should forget about them? After all, it isn't the first time I've had nightmares!". But this time, the dreams have made him unease, to the point of calling the best magicians in Egypt, which were not able to do a thing about it.

The news of Pharaoh's strange nightmares have been made known to the chief butler, who gently told Pharaoh, about his own dreams, and also about the case of the baker, to whom the young Hebrew Yosef had managed to decipher his nightmares with precision. Yosef, who used to be a laughing stock of his brothers, who referred to him as – "בַּעַל הַחֲלֹמוֹת הַלָּזֶה - This dreamer", is now the one who knows the secret of deciphering the messages encoded into dreams. And I wonder, how many of us, have had dreams or detailed nightmares, that we had no idea what they meant? I think we have all experienced them, at some point in our lives. And did we give those dreams much thought? Did we try to investigate their meaning? Or – did we just dismiss the thought, thinking – “it’s a bad idea to eat so much chili for dinner”, and discarded their message? Did we discuss them with our family? Or – did we just keep them to ourselves, and waited to see – if something related to our dream would happen in our lives, something that would make sense of it? And perhaps, the most interesting question, did we experience those dreams while being awake? Have you had a dream that you wish would come true? How many of us, lead our lives, in pursuit of a dream?

There is a well-known story of the wise man who went in search of a treasure, traveled around the world only to return home, and discover that the treasure was in his own house. Asking ourselves: "If this could have happened" or "What could have been...", are meaningless questions, since, in fact, it never was, and it never happened. Probably, the most important thing is to ask ourselves, where we are TODAY, in reference to our dreams, or which dream we will give importance to and which nightmare we should simply discard. Are we going to continue the path of the dream, like Pharaoh did, or will we forget it? Yosef's dreams took him very far in his life, and Pharaoh's concern for his dreams led him to prepare the entire Egyptian nation for the difficult seven years of drought. Maybe, it is something that we should learn from them both: To not let our dreams be forgotten! And if those were nightmares, they might be worth analyzing, and trying to understand if it is something we should pay attention to.

The message of Yosef and Pharaoh echoes in our lives, especially now, that we are celebrating the week of miracles of Hanukkah. We have heard beautiful motivating messages, about the light and fire, that we have seen increasing during these eight days of Hanukkah, and it will definitely be worth it, to pay attention to those dreams that we have had. In any case, let us learn from them, and please… do not stop dreaming! In the words of the beautiful song:

To dream the impossible dream...

To write the unwritable wrong, to be better far than you are,

to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star!

And the world would be better for this, that one man scorned and covered with scars,

still strove with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable star"

Happy Hanukkah! Shabat Shalom and Hodesh Tov!

Rabbi David Laor

December 19^th 2025