“The thin ears swallowed the seven full ears, and Pharaoh awoke and behold it was a dream.” (Beraishis 41:7)
Pharaoh dreamed two dreams of similar content and he looked for someone to interpret them to his satisfaction. This would be the opening for Yosef to come into the picture as a man of wisdom and insight, as well as humility. It would set the stage for his rise to power and the advent of the Jewish People to Egypt.
The Torah tells us that Pharaoh dreamed a dream, then awoke. Then, he slept again, and when he awoke the second time, he became aware that what he had seen was a dream. Why was it necessary for this all to transpire?
On one hand, the two variations of the dream were necessary to convey that this was a question of famine as opposed to war, as the commentaries explain. Each dream provided some necessary information, but we’d like to focus on the waking up.
It says that Pharaoh awoke, but it is unclear whether he actually woke up, or simply imagined that he did, and kept sleeping. The dreams needed to be divided by a period of awareness and wakefulness so that it was clear there was a repetition and not that it was one long dream. That’s why he had to “awaken” in between.
In order to ensure that Pharaoh took it seriously, the dream had to be repeated. Of course, Yosef told Pharaoh this was a sign of the swift manifestation of the dreams, but in truth, there was something else in it. When people experience a dream, or some other inspiration or fright that shakes them up, human nature is to shrug it off and forget about it. Therefore, Hashem had to repeat the dream so Pharaoh would be so upset that he would not let the moment go by without acting upon it.
In life, we are confronted by messages all the time. Sometimes we get them and take them to heart. Sometimes we don’t like what they’re telling us, and we ignore them. Other times, we recognize the message but the intensity fades with time, and it’s lost. Pharaoh needed to get the message, so the dream was repeated, as many lessons in our lives are, so we get the point.
But on Chanuka, when we focus on the miracle of the oil, we’re fanning the flames of the inspiration to keep them lit. The miracle was relatively small, observed by only a few in the Bais HaMikdash, but the message that Hashem was proud of us resonated clearly through it. In order not to lose that, we re-enact it each year, lighting the flames and letting everyone know that Hashem loves us and wants us to purify ourselves. He wants us to be as dedicated to Him as He is to us, and that is the greatest gift we could ask for.
R’ Chatzkel Abramsky, z”l, was once riding in an Israeli cab and the driver told him a story. “After our IDF military service was over,” said the cabbie, “some friends and I went on a hiking and camping trip. In the middle of the night, we heard shouts and awoke to find a large snake wrapped around one of my friends. It was squeezing him so hard he could not breathe.”
“We didn’t know what to do, as it slowly killed him, and one of my friends said, “You’re going to die, say ‘Shema Yisrael!’” As he did, the snake uncoiled and slithered away. He was so moved that he became a baal Teshuva, studied Torah, and is completely religious today.”
R’ Chatzkel asked him, “And what about you? Did you become more religious too?”
“Me?” replied the taxi driver quizzically, “Why should I have become more religious? The snake wasn’t wrapped around me!”
©2024 – J. Gewirtz
