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‫בס"ד‬

‫פרשת מקץ תשע"א‬ ‫שיחות רב עוזר‬


Insights into Torah and Halacha from Rav Ozer Glickman ‫שליט"א‬
‫ר"ם בישיבת רבנו יצחק אלחנן‬
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I Have a Dream
‫ִיפ ֹת ֑תּ ֹאַר וַתִּ ְר ֶ ֖עינָה בָּאָ ֽחוּ׃‬ ֥ ‫ ֙ת ֶ ֣שׁבַע פּ ָ֔רוֹת בּ ְִר‬Kֹ ‫ְוה ִֵנּ֣ה מִן־ ַהי ְ֗א ֹר ע‬
֣ ‫יאוֹת בּ ָ ָ֖שׂר ו‬
Paging through Taylor Branch's definitive Parting the Waters: America in the King
Years, I discovered that that there is quite a backstory to the heartstopping, tear-pro-
voking speech Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in
1963. The seventeen-minute oration has a place of honor on my iPad, incongruous but
not completely out of place among the Rav Schachter and Rav Lichtenstein shiurim to
which I listen. They are all there because they inspire me, albeit in very different ways.
While Branch, incidentally, was able to overcome the white Southerner's antipa-
thy toward Afro-Americans, he never did overcome his prejudice toward our people. I
remember distinctly the misinformation he disseminated about the promotion of racial
hatred by Jews, especially his gross distortions of the treatment of the Black Hebrews in
Dimona, ultimately disproven by Bayard Rustin and a commission of Afro-American
civil rights activists. If Jews shied away from every writer, politician, and corporation
that has at one time shown animus toward our people, there might be very few choices
left. I admire T.S. Eliot's poetry if not the man and am not averse to Wagner in the right
circumstances.
What I discovered in Branch is that parts of Dr. King's speech had been delivered
on other occasions. The theme was a major motif in his repertoire. When Dr. King
reached the microphone, the Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called, "Tell them about the
dream, Martin." Shelving some of his prepared remarks, Dr. King reprised and revised
speeches he had given before. The dream that his "four children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character" was indelibly written on the tablets of his heart (and on mine).
Dr. King's primary use of the word dream was as an idealized vision of what the
future might become. The word has other connotations in the popular mind, many of
them associated with the work of another great man who experienced racism, Sigmund
Freud. If some of what he wrote has been discredited, Freud's observations about
dreams as the expression of unconscious memories have deeply entered popular cul-
ture. There is a pendulum in intellectual matters. Hostility toward Freud, some of it
loosely disguised anti-Semitism, swung in the other direction toward iconization. It has
now apparently slipped back closer toward the middle.
The one area of his legacy that seems unthreatened is Freud's The Interpretation of
Dreams. Although Freud emphasizes the notion of dreams as repressed memories and
wishes, there is a commonality between Dr. King's usage and his. Dreams are deep-seat-
ed and closely held. If they create a sense of conflict within us, they may be repressed. If
they actively impel us toward action, then they are manifest not only to the dreamer but
to others. In both usages, the word dream implies deep-seating and instinct.
These notions were not unknown to ‫חז"ל‬. Consider the rabbinic reinterpretation
of a Scriptural reference to dreams in ‫מגילת קוהלת‬:
‫א‬
‫ִכּ֛י בָּ ֥א הַ ֽחֲל֖ וֹם בּ ְ֣ר ֹב ִענְ ָי֑ן ו ְ֥קוֹל כּ ִ ְ֖סיל בּ ְ֥ר ֹב דְּ ב ִ ָֽרים׃‬
The context within the ‫ מגילה‬is the admonition to the wise to treat speech with respect.
One is advised to keep to the topic and not pepper one's speech with many unconnect-
ed ideas. Just as dreams are incoherent and confusing strings of images, feelings and
ideas, so is foolish speech. The comparison is, of course, pejorative. One's speech should
not sound like a foolish dream.
In ‫במדרש רבה‬, however:
‫ אתה‬:‫ אני על אלהי או אלהי עלי? אמר לו‬,‫ מי מתקיים על מי‬:‫" אמר פרעה‬.‫"כי בא החלום ברב ענין‬
.‫ ויהי מקץ וגו' ופרעה חלם והנה עמד על היאר‬:‫ הדא הוא דכתיב‬-‫על אלהיך‬
"For the dream comes from much concern." Pharoah asked [Yosef]: Who is paramount over whom,
I over my god, or my god over me? [Yosef] answered him: You are paramount over your god. This
is the force of the verse: and it was at the end...and Pharoah dreamed and behold he is standing
over the Nile."

In the mind of the ‫דרשן‬, the ‫ פסוק‬in ‫ קוהלת‬has an altogether different force than it does in
its literal context. In the homiletical context, the word ‫ ענין‬indicates not subject or theme
but concern or introspection, as in ‫( להתעניין‬to concern oneself, to take interest, to look
into). Pharoah's dream about the Nile expresses a deep-seated concern of his: under-
standing his position qua the river god with which his own sovereignty, fate, and exis-
tence are inextricably bound. It is Pharoah who stands over the Nile. It is Pharoah who
essentially defines the divine nature of the river. It is a lesson that his dream teaches
through his own recounting: man is the pinnacle of creation, not nature. Neither are
divine.
The ‫ גמרא‬in ‫גברכות‬:
.‫אמר ר' שמואל בר נחמני א"ר יונתן אין מראין לו לאדם אלא מהרהורי לבו‬
R. Shmuel bar Nachmani said that R. Yonasan said: A man is shown in his dreams
only what is on his mind.
This opens the door for a less literal take on Pharoah's dream. Whereas a straightfor-
ward interpretation of the text suggests that ‫ הקב"ה‬was communicating to Pharoah the
future that awaited ‫ ארץ מצרים‬and its inhabitants in the years ahead, we might interpret
the dreams much more in accord with the rabbinic (and Freudian) notion of dreams.
Pharoah was concerned with the dependence of the Egyptian economy on the Nile. This
dependence was so absolute that the Nile assumed the status of a god in the people's
eyes. This is, as Henri Frankfort and his co-authors have observed, the essence of primi-
tive religion:
The fundamental difference between the attitudes of modern and ancient man as regards
the surrounding world is this: for modern, scientific man the phenomenal world is pri-
‫ד‬
marily an 'It'; for ancient — and also for primitive — man it is a 'Thou'.
Pharoah's dreams came as a challenge to his primitivism, a rebuttal of the distortion of
the Nile as Thou. They were the product of his repressed concerns, the ‫ הרהורי לב‬that dis-
turbed his sleep.
The ‫ אור החיים הקדוש‬contributes to this interpretation by noting that ‫ יוסף‬is himself
guided by Pharoah's own phrasing in his interpretation of the dreams:
‫היה לו לומר ופרעה חולם והנה שבע פרות עולות מן היאור כי מן הראוי להזכיר העולה ואחר כך‬
‫ אולי שיכוון לומר כי כל הווייתן היתה מן היאור ולזה הקדים המהווה ואחר כך‬.‫המקום שעולה משם‬
...‫המתהווה ממנו‬
[Pharoah] should have said "and Pharoah was dreaming and behold- seven cows were
ascending from the Nile" for the appropriate [phrasing] is to mention the ascending sub-
ject and then the place from which it is ascending. Perhaps his [subliminal] intention was
to say that their entire being was from the Nile and he therefore placed the source of be-
ing before what came into being from it...
Pharoah's phrasing is, in a word, Freudian.
All thinking beings are beset by involuntary dreams caused by repressed fears
and emotions. They alert us to unresolved issues with which our conscious selves must
contend. We can do nothing but heed the tortured dreams that disturb our sleep and
shine a light on the fissures in our hearts. But there are also the dreams that we will to
be realized, like the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for equality or the dream of
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer for a secure Jewish homeland. We can do everything to
cherish the dreams that make us greater and teach us to extend our reach. In a world
constrained by conflict that can limit our reach, the measure of a human being may be
less what one achieves and more to what one aspires.
‫שבת שלום‬
COME HEAR RAV GLICKMAN ON THE ROAD:
December 10-11 ‫פרשת ויגש‬
London (Finchley), England
details to follow
December 17-18 ‫פרשת ויחי‬
Boca Raton, Florida
February 11-12 ‫פרשת תצוה‬
Linden, New Jersey
March 4-5 ‫פרשת פקודי‬
Los Angeles, California
TO BRING RAV GLICKMAN TO YOUR COMMUNITY, KINDLY CONTACT:
Ms. Nehama S. Cohen
Speakers Bureau
YU Center for the Jewish Future
nscohen@yu.edu
212-960-5400 ext.6350
Sichos Rav Ozer are published by students and admirers of Rav Ozer Glickman shlit"a. While many of Rav Glickman's shiurim
and lectures appear on yutorah.org, not all are posted. To guarantee you receive Sichos Rav Ozer directly, kindly contact us at
ravglickmanshiur@gmail.com.

'‫ ב‬,'‫ קוהלת ה‬.‫א‬


'‫ ג‬,‫ בראשית רבה פרשה פ"ט‬.‫ב‬
:‫ ברכות נ"ה‬.‫ג‬
‫ד‬. Frankfort, Henri et al. Before Philosophy. Baltimore: Penguin, 1949, p.12.

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