Joseph’s Wisdom

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

Joseph’s interpretations of Pharaoh’s dreams were accurate. But how did Joseph know that 1) the dreams were divine and not mere imagination, 2) what was their true interpretation, and 3) that offering a solution was a wise move? 

Immediately after Pharaoh tells his dreams to Joseph—with no gap in time—Joseph offers an interpretation, and with great conviction at that. We wonder at the intent for Torah to include two accounts of Pharaoh’s dreams. Torah could have simply said, “Pharaoh was disturbed by his dreams and he told them to Joseph saying, ‘Seven healthy cows ascended from the Nile’….etc.” But Torah does not do so, and first tells us what Pharaoh dreamt, and then later tells us that Pharaoh repeated over those very dreams to Joseph.

That Torah nowhere says that God tells Joseph the dreams’ interpretation, and that Joseph required to hear the dreams to interpret them indicates that Joseph—independent of any divine communication, using his wisdom alone—detected clues to both: the divine nature of Pharaoh’s dreams, and their meaning.

God records in Torah a repetition of the dreams for good reason: there are discrepancies between the two accounts. Had we only one account, we could not detect what Pharaoh added when retelling the dreams. But with two accounts, the divine dream content alone may be distilled from Pharaoh’s additional personal response when retelling his dreams to Joseph.

A clue in the dream content is that on the one hand, Pharaoh views himself as a god, for he sees himself standing “over” the Nile river, which itself is a God of Egypt. That he is standing over the Nile means that Pharaoh views himself superior to the god of the Nile (Rabbi Israel Chait). In contrast, Pharaoh views hunger-stricken animals, “the evil of which I have never seen in all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 41:19). Meaning, this negativity disturbed him in his capacity of Egypt's ruler “of that land.” Pharaoh could have just said, “I never saw such malnourished animals.” But his inclusion of “in all the land of Egypt” registers on his capacity as ruler of that land. This reaction was not in the dream itself; it was his personal response to the dream. Another personal response to the dream—not dream content—was after the malnourished cows ate the healthy ones: “But when they had consumed them, one could not tell that they had consumed them, for they looked just as bad as before” (Ibid. 41:21). This was not in the dream, but was added when he retold it Joseph as his own response.

 Leaders dream of greatness, not of failure. For a leader who views himself as a god that is more superior than Egypt's Nile god, dreaming of depravity in Egypt indicates that this content of lean cows and grain were of divine origin and not his own thoughts. From the conflicting dream content alone, Joseph recognized the dreams did not originate in Pharaoh’s healthy ego, but that they were divine. Rabbi Chait taught similarly concerning Lavan. In a fit of rage, Lavan pursued Jacob intending to annihilate he and his family. Lavan then told Jacob that the God of Jacob’s fathers warned him not to speak “good or evil” to Jacob (Gen. 31:29). Rabbi Chait explained Jacob’s amazing deduction: If Lavan’s previous night's dream was his own imagination—not prophecy—but the dream was merely his guilty conscience for desiring to annihilate everyone, it would have only manifested itself as “God warning him not to speak bad.” (One’s conscience does not prohibit good actions.) But when Jacob heard Lavan say he was warned also not to speak good, Jacob knew the source of the dream had to be divine.

 Additionally, Pharaoh responded to the dreams. He was disturbed by those lean cows, before and after they ate the healthy cows. Seeing malnourished animals in “his land of Egypt”—a negative image on his reign—offered Joseph an opportunity to respond with a plan, which he knew this disturbed and crippled Pharaoh would jump at. Pharaoh’s disturbance—his despair—meant that he had no solution to rid Egypt of depravity. Although Joseph had not yet interpreted the dreams, Pharaoh was already bothered by such animals roaming Egypt. And once Joseph interpreted the meaning of those lean cows and offered a solution, this relieved Pharaoh of his disturbance. His despair was replaced with a solution; just the right medicine for a leader wishing to maintain control. 

Thus, the dream content indicated its divine origin, and Pharaoh’s response to the dreams invited Joseph's plan for a solution. Perhaps, if Pharaoh was not so debilitated by his evil dream, he would seek his own solution and not readily welcome Joseph's plan. Torah repeats the dreams for the reader to detect what was dream content and what was Pharaoh’s personal response. This enables the reader to give additional credit to Joseph, not only for his dream interpretations, but also for his plan to respond to Pharaoh’s personality. 

When Nevuchadnetzar forgot his dream and its interpretation and threatened to kill the sages if they would not produce both elements (Daniel 2:13), Daniel prayed to God. God communicated to Daniel the dream content and its interpretation. This strengthens the position that God did not communicate anything to Joseph (for it would have been recorded, as is true regarding Daniel), and that Joseph arrived at his interpretations and plan independent from God. Another indicator that the dreams were divine is as Rabbi Chait stated, “It was Pharaoh—the individual with the wherewithal to remedy the famine—who received this dream, and not a common person.” Joseph says this to Pharaoh in his opening response: “What God plans to do He has shown to Pharaoh” (Gen. 41:25). Meaning, the dreams were communicated to the one who could solve the problem.

How did Joseph know the meaning of the dreams as referring to plenty and famine? It could be that as cows are associated with agriculture through plowing—Egypt despised eating cattle—and that grain formed the second dream, Joseph recognized the dream as referring to good and bad aspects of agriculture; plenty and famine. But I do not know how Joseph knew about seven years vs. seven months or days, unless such crops are annual, or how dream duplication indicated immediacy. The swallowing element too is Joseph’s genius. He must have possessed great psychological insight to interpret dreams, symbolism and human psychology. And he was completely correct.

A final question is God’s plan that Pharaoh require an interpreter for a cryptic dream, instead of God simply informing Pharaoh—without metaphor—of the inevitable years of plenty and famine. This could be the same reason why God sent Moses to Pharaoh, and the reason behind all prophets: God wishes man to understand that it is the intelligent person who understands God's world—reality—and who can work with its laws to attain success. Moses and Joseph portrayed to Pharaoh wise men who did not follow mysticism, superstition or idolatry, but followed the Creator, using intelligence.