Dream warnings: this week’s parashah – Vayeshev

Joseph’s dreams have long puzzled commentators. Why do they become the catalyst for such explosive family tension? Why do the dreams of a teenager provoke such fear and resentment in the brothers? They seem to occupy a pivotal role not only in the family story, but in the unfolding destiny of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch draws attention to a striking detail. Joseph dreams not of flocks, but of sheaves. The brothers are shepherds; agriculture is entirely foreign to their world. Yet Joseph pictures a scene drawn from a distant, national destiny. His vision hints at a settled people, rooted in the Land, working its soil and shaping its future.

For the brothers, Rabbi Hirsch suggests, this is deeply unsettling. How could Joseph be dreaming about an agrarian future unless their father had shared with him prophecies of national transformation? And if Joseph imagines such change, perhaps he also imagines his own authority within that vision – rule, leadership, dominance. “Will you indeed reign over us?” they protest. Even to imagine such upheaval feels like a betrayal of everything familiar.

Taking this idea a step further, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik sees the real divide between Joseph and his brothers not about ego but about imagination. Joseph senses that the world of tents and pastures will not last forever. History will not remain frozen in the pastoral simplicity of Canaan. Change – dramatic, disorienting and unavoidable – lies ahead. Sheep will become sheaves. The Jewish future will demand new skills, new environments, and new challenges.