Originally published in the Jewish Journal · Table for Five
Now it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; so he sent and called all the necromancers of Egypt and all its sages, and Pharaoh related to them his dream, but none could interpret them for Pharaoh.
Gen. 41:8
Novelists would call this moment the crisis. Poets call it the volta. Magicians, the turn. Pharaoh’s dream is the hinge that swings open the door to free imprisoned Joseph, and thus Hebrew history.
R. Chisda said, “An uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter.” If we render the Hebrew chartume’im correctly, it’s not “necromancers” who fail to open the letter but “hieroglyphic scribes” (inscribers) who can’t read the doubled, troubled dream. Their writing system, and hence their whole sensibility, is limited, inert. For Joseph, dredged out of prison, Pharaoh’s dream is transparent and dynamic with portent. His interpretation dissolves the boundary between dream and reality, this world and the next, last night’s dream and future actuality.
When Pharaoh resurrects this lowly Hebrew prisoner to decipher his dream, he loses control of the narrative, which flips. He will become a character in Joseph’s dream of enlargement, of a more expansive vista of reality and destiny, and of bringing the holy into the mundane. When Pharaoh appoints Joseph as his executive to avert the drought, he implicitly acknowledges that Joseph has a superior grip on what’s what and is better able to bring it into being. It’s the premise for the rest of the Torah, as Joseph’s people ultimately emerge from Egypt massively enlarged and eventually inhabit the Promised Land.
Ibn Ezra notes the Hebrew root for Pharaoh’s agitation comes from פעם “anvil.” Pharaoh and Egypt are an anvil. The hammer striking them is held by the supernal Hand.
