On Shabbos Parshas Mikeitz, 27 Kislev, 5734, December 22, 1973, the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented the following:
The dream experts of Egypt did conceive of Joseph’s interpretation to Pharaoh’s dreams, that seven years of hunger would follow seven years of plenty. Yet they dismissed this interpretation because it did not account for one important detail of the dream.
In Pharaoh’s first dream, he saw how the seven ugly and lean cows that came up after the seven handsome cows “stood near the other (fat) cows upon the bank of the river.“ There was a moment during which both sets of cows coexisted simultaneously, and only afterward did the lean cows proceed to swallow the fat cows.
It was this detail of the dream that caused the wise men of Egypt to reject the interpretation that Joseph would later offer to Pharaoh and compelled them to present all types of farfetched explanations.
Because how is it possible that plenty and famine should coexist? Either you have fat cows alone or you have lean cows alone, but you can’t have them both together! Either you are satiated or you are starving, but you can’t be satiated while you are starving, and you can’t be starving while you’re satiated! The seven years of famine simply cannot be present during the seven years of surplus. Either you have lots of food or you have no food, but you can’t have both at the same time. You can’t be wealthy and poor at once.
This is where Joseph’s brilliance was displayed. When Joseph proceeded to tell Pharaoh how to prepare for the coming famine, he was not offering him advice on how to run his country; rather, the advice was part of the interpretation of the dream.
Joseph understood that the coexistence of the two sets of cows in the dream contained the solution to the approaching famine: During the years of plenty, Egypt must ”live“ with the consciousness and awareness of the pending years of famine as though they were already present. Even while enjoying the abundance of the years of plenty, Egypt must experience in its imagination the reality of the upcoming famine, and each and every day store away food. The seven lean cows ought to be very much present and alive in people’s minds and in their behaviors during the era of the seven fat cows. Conversely, if this system was implemented, then even during the years of famine, the nation would continue enjoying the abundance of the years of plenty. The seven fat cows would be present and alive even during the era of the seven lean cows because of all the food they saved up.
This is what impressed Pharaoh so deeply about Joseph’s interpretation. To begin with, Pharaoh was struck by Joseph’s ingenious accounting for that one detail of the dream that had evaded all the wise men of Egypt.
But what thrilled him even more was Joseph’s demonstration that Pharaoh’s dreams not only contained a prediction of future events but also offered a solution, a remedy, of how to deal with those events. The dreams did not only portend problems but also offered solutions. Many people can tell you all about the pending problems. Joseph’s brilliance was that within the very dream that predicted the crisis, he perceived the solution. In the very dream predicting calamity, he saw the way out of disaster.
RABBI YY JACOBSON
