Parashat Miketz: Seeing God in the Dreidl

The dreidl spins and spins, like the world around us. Sometimes we land on a “gimmel” or a “heh,” and sometimes we land on a “nun” or a “shin.” Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

The funny thing about the dreidl is that, like the lots of Purim, it makes it seem like everything has to do with luck. But at the same time, the message of its letters is otherwise: Nes Gadol Hayah Sham. “A great miracle happened there.” Miracles imply divine control, that there is some order or purpose in the universe, not just dumb luck.

Yosef’s story is similar. He starts out on top, a beloved son, adored by his father, with dreams of grandeur, but then he gets pushed down and down some more. He is thrown down into a pit, “brought down” to Egypt as a slave, and sent further down into the “pit” of jail. Finally, in this week’s parsha, his “luck” turns again, and he rises quickly to the position of second to the king, riding high through the streets in a chariot.

Is that all Yosef’s story is? A story of good and bad luck, like the randomly spinning dreidl?

Yosef himself thinks not. His skill is to interpret dreams and also to interpret life. What he sees in these dreams is always a plan. At first, in his own dream, he imagines that he himself is the mover of this plan, the center of the universe. As a slave in Egypt, he learns otherwise, so that when he comes to interpret the baker and the cup-bearer’s dreams, he sees king Pharaoh as the planner, the one who has the power to either impale or re-instate his servants. Finally, in this week’s parsha, Yosef comes to terms with the true Planner, the real King, the Master of the Universe. What do Pharaoh’s dreams of fat and skinny cows and grain mean, according to Yosef? They mean that God has a plan and that God has revealed this plan to Pharaoh. And what do Yosef’s own ups and downs mean? Yes, he tells his brothers, you meant evil when you sold me, but see, it was all part of a divine plan to feed people.

Yosef lives in the same kind of world we do. Bad things happen, good things happen, and it all seems random. God no longer speaks directly to Yosef as he did to his ancestors, and there are no clear miracles. Yosef is the first of the patriarchs to have children without divine intervention.

In such a world, to be great is not to converse with God, not to hear God’s voice or to speak His words, but to be able to read God’s presence in the world as it is, to be a Tzafnat Paneah, “an interpreter of hidden things,” as Yosef is called in Egypt. Yosef’s ability to do this -- his ability to see in Pharaoh’s dream the marks of a divine plan -- is the key to his success. It is only when Yosef learns to speak, not of his own dreams of greatness, but of God’s plan, that he can become great. Being great in this kind of seemingly random world involves the ability to read the words: Nes Gadol Hayah Sham on the swirling dreidl of life.

This essay was inspired by the story “Right Side Up” by Barbara Diamond Goldin and by a shiur given last shabbat by Joel Linsider at Congregation Beth Abraham-Jacob.



An Extra Thought on Numbers and Yosef’s Dreams:

There are 3 sets of dreams in the Yosef narrative. In both the second and third set, the numbers in the dreams correspond, according to Yosef, to time elements. The 3 branches of the vine in the cup-bearer’s dream and the 3 baskets in the baker’s dream each correspond to 3 days. In Pharaoh’s dreams, the 7 cows, skinny and fat, and the 7 ears of grain, skinny and fat, all correspond to 7 years.

What about the first set of dreams, Yosef’s own? There is no number given in the first of his dreams (though it refers to his brothers’ sheaves of wheat, apparently 11), but in the second he says that the sun, the moon and 11 stars will come and bow down to him. On one level, the dream clearly refers to his father and mother (although dead at the time) and 11 brothers. But what if we also apply the time/number interpretation to this dream? What do we come up with?

1 sun + 1 moon + 11 stars = 13. The Torah does not often tell us its protagonists’ ages, but it tells us that when Yosef had this dream he was 17 years old (37:2) and that when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and thereby became a vice-roy with many people bowing down to him, he was 30 years old (41:46). 30 – 17 = 13. The celestial elements in Yosef’s dream would then correspond to the number of years until his dream was to be fulfilled.

(What about the number 11? Yosef’s first dream involves 11 sheaves of wheat, though they are not numbered there, and in the second dream the number 11 stands out. But why 11, if, as we have just seen, it was 13 years until Yosef’s dreams were fulfilled? The Torah emphasizes that Pharaoh had his dreams “after 2 years.” Based on this strange detail, the rabbis say that Pharaoh was actually supposed to dream his dream 2 years earlier but that God postponed the event as a punishment to Yosef for trying to get the cup-bearer to help him get out of jail instead of relying on God. Perhaps then Yosef’s dreams of 11 sheaves and 11 stars refer to the 11 year time-frame after which he was supposed to have his dream fulfilled? The original plan was 11 years so the dream had 11 stars. The addtion of the sun and the moon turns the number to 13, corresponding to the actual number of years it took.)