Parshas Mikeitz

The Rebbe says:

1. The beginning of this week’s Parshah tells us all about Pharaoh’s dreams. Verse 1 through 45 (Chapter 41) tells us about Pharaoh’s 2 dreams with all their details, how Yoseph was called to interpret them, how Yoseph actually interpreted them and how Yoseph became ruler of Egypt.

To summarize these 45 verses:

Pharaoh King of Egypt has a dream. He dreams that out of the Nile comes 7 healthy cows and they start grazing. Right after this 7 sickly cows come out of the Nile and eat up the 7 healthy cows. The 7 sickly cows don’t even get fatter.

Pharaoh wakes up and then falls back asleep. He has another dream. In this second dream he sees 7 hearty stalks of grain grow, but then 7 wilted stalks of grain also grow and they eat up the 7 good stalks of grain.

Pharaoh wakes up startled and doesn’t know what to make of his dreams. He summons all the wise men of Egypt and they cannot interpret the dreams either. Finally Pharaoh’s servant in charge of all the royal drinks mentions that when he was in jail there was a Jewish slave there with him who had interpreted his dreams once.

Yoseph is brought in front of Pharaoh and interprets the dreams. Yoseph says that both dreams have the same meaning: There will now be 7 plenty years in which the ground will give a lot of produce. After that there will be 7 years of famine in which the ground will not give any produce. The years of famine will be so bad that you will not remember any happiness you had during the 7 plenty years.

Yoseph then suggests a solution to Pharaoh. His solution is that Pharaoh appoints a man capable of storing enough food for the 7 years of famine during the 7 plenty years.

Pharaoh is amazed by Yoseph’s wisdom and says that Yoseph himself should take this vital mission.

Yoseph becomes second in command to Pharaoh and rules over all of Egypt.

2. We build a question:

We know that every single word and every single letter in the Torah is there for a reason. In fact, our Sages in the Talmud learn out many Halachas/laws from one letter!

Question: If every single word and letter in the Torah is put there for a specific reason, why does the Torah tell us all the details of how Yoseph became the ruler of Egypt? All we need to know is that Yoseph informed Pharaoh there would be 7 years of famine after 7 plentiful years and then Pharaoh appointed Yoseph to be the second-in-command ruler of Egypt. What’s the difference to us how Yoseph became ruler of Egypt?
And even if the Torah wants to tell us that Yoseph became the ruler of Egypt because of Pharaoh’s dreams, why does the Torah tell us every single detail of pharaoh’s dreams? Why do we have to know all the details of what a goy (non-Jew) saw in his dream??

3. We answer:

We see in last weeks Parshah (Chapter 37, Verses 5 through 11) that Hashem communicated with Yoseph through dreams.

Yoseph was the leader of his generation. And we know that the energy from Hashem to this world goes through the leader of the generation (as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya). Therefore since Hashem set up with the leader of that generation that he would communicate through dreams (in that generation) Hashem also communicated with the world through dreams. This is why Hashem communicated with Pharaoh through dreams.

So when the Torah goes through all the details of Pharaoh’s dreams it is teaching us that the way a Jew acts affects the whole world.

[We cannot say “since this story in the Torah is only regarding the leader of the generation (Yoseph) we see that only what a leader does affects the whole world”, because the Torah is written for all Jews to learn from and only Jew in every generation is the leader. Therefore the Torah must be teaching this lesson to every single Jew, the actions of each and every Jew affect the world].

4. The lesson for us is obvious:

Every single thought, speech and action we do affects the world. So when something happens in the world which isn’t (seemingly) good, we must better our own actions to help the situation. Each and every one of us has the power to change the course of the world. Let’s change it for the better.

Translated and adapted by Shalom Goldberg. Taken from Likutei Sichos Chelek Gimmel.