Rabbi David Fohrman: Hey, Imu, I've been having so much fun with this. I am looking forward to Part Three.

Imu Shalev: I also…what’s the best way to respond to that? Let’s see, let me craft my words carefully…me, too. Me, too.

Alright everybody, welcome back. We are going to continue our exploration of Tehillim 126, Shir Hama’alos, and we're keeping our focus on the second half of the psalm with our man who is continuously crying as he plants his seeds and then eventually he reaps his sheaves of wheat with joy.

Now, last time we had linked those verses to the Yosef story and suggested that the crying man in Tehillim is actually Yaakov and he's tearfully mourning over the loss of his son Yosef during Yosef’s many years of captivity. We suggested that the psalm was depicting Yaakov as metaphorically planting his tears, and he's watching them ultimately sprout joy and redemption. It’s an allusion to how Yaakov's tears eventually caused Yosef to burst forth with his own tears, reveal himself to his brothers, and ultimately reunite with his family.

And while this read of Yaakov's tears was very moving, its focus on how Yaakov’s tears change the outcome of the story also felt kind of troubling in a way. Because what about our own tears? If our tears don't have the effect that we desire, are they somehow spiritually less meaningful? Are they flawed in some way?

So Rabbi Fohrman had a second read of Shir Hama’alos that would address that very question, and it required us to go back and reexamine those same three verses at the end of the psalm — but this time, with a slightly different focus. Rabbi Fohrman suspected that this new read of Shir Hama'alos would lead us to an all-new interpretation of tears in the Yosef story, in Shir Hama'alos, and in our own lives as well.

I'm Imu Shalev, and this is Aleph Beta’s A Book Like No Other, generously sponsored by Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum.

Rabbi Fohrman: Let me get underway by going back to this final image in Psalm 126, הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ  וּבָכֹה נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ־הַזָּרַע בֹּא־יָבֹא בְרִנָּה נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו. There's this guy who's been planting with tears, and we tentatively associated that person with Jacob. Jacob, he's walking around, he's crying every day. One day he's going to come in happiness. נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו — He's going to be holding his sheaves.

So Imu, if that is Jacob, what does it mean that even though throughout his life he'll be crying, one day he'll be joyous and he'll be holding his sheaves? Why would that be joyous, and what does “sheaves” mean in that context?

Imu: My immediate instinct is that I would imagine that he's reunited with all his kids. נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו, like, if the alumot are the sheaves of Yosef's dream, then the sheaves are not just Yosef but all of his kids. And that's probably what a father wants most, not only to be reunited with one child, but to have the entire family together in wholeness and completion.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah. One day, Jacob will be really happy. He'll be reunited with all of his kids, this entire family together. It's what every parent wants. 

Let's just parse the implications of נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו referring to this moment when Jacob is reunited with all of his kids. If you were interviewing Jacob and you were asking him, “Hey Jacob, you're sending your kids down to Egypt. Could you explain what they’re searching for?” What would Jacob tell you they're searching for? Why are they going on that trip to Egypt?

Imu: What they're searching for is grain. They need to go get grain. That's what he says to them. 

Rabbi Fohrman: They're searching for alumot.

Imu: Oh, interesting.

Rabbi Fohrman: They're searching for sheaves of grain. They need grain for bread, for food. So when it says in the end that he's going to be really happy, one way to read it is he's going to be really happy because he has his grain.

In other words, if you would tell Jacob at that moment that he dispatches his children to go down to Egypt, “Hey, that mission's going to be successful. That mission to go down to Egypt is going to bring you back grain,” he'd be pretty happy, right?

But Shir Hama’alos goes and suggests that there's a double entendre with that idea of נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו. Because in the end, boy, does he get his alumot. But he gets more alumot than he even suspected.

Imu: He gets the mashal and the nimshal, he gets the symbol and its meaning, right? Yeah, you'll get grain, but you're also going to get the metaphorical meaning of the grain. You're going to get the master of grain. You're going to get Yosef and the rest of the alumot.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right. You're going to get the one who is portrayed in the dream as alumot, right? The standing alumah. He's going to come back to you, so you're going to have both. Not only are you going to have grain, but you're going to have your child back, who was analogized to the stalk of grain.

And that's really what it means, נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו. Boy, will he get his grain. He's holding his sheaves in one hand, he's holding Joseph in another hand, and he's as happy as can be because he has everything that he wants. נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו.

Imu: He didn't state it explicitly, but Rabbi Fohrman had just made an important connection between Shir Hama’alos and the Yosef story. In Genesis, Yosef has a dream about sheaves of wheat where his sheaf stands tall and the rest bow down to it.

In that dream, Yosef is a sheaf of wheat. So according to Rabbi Fohrman, the crying man in Shir Hama’alos who eventually reaps his sheaves of wheat is a reference to Yaakov both getting actual grain as well as getting his son Yosef back. As if the imagery from Yosef's dream way back when he was a kid in Canaan is coming back in spades at the end of the Yosef saga.

Once he had done that though, it opened up a bit of a Pandora's box for us, because if Shir Hama'alos was really calling back to that dream of Yosef as we were claiming, what more might it be trying to tell us about that dream? About the dream's strange symbolism of bowing sheaves? Because as it turns out, the dream of Yosef isn't quite as simple as I remembered it.

Rabbi Fohrman: If you think about it, what's happening now is Shir Hama’alos is telling you something about the actual meaning of Joseph's dream, a dream which I would argue was rather opaque in terms of its meaning.

One of the great loose ends in the Joseph story is, what in the world does that dream mean? וְהִנֵּה אֲנַחְנוּ מְאַלְּמִים אֲלֻמִּים בְּתוֹךְ הַשָּׂדֶה — We were all gathering these sheaves in the field. And then קָמָה אֲלֻמָּתִי וְגַם־נִצָּבָה — My sheave got up and stood up straight, and your sheaves were all bowing to my sheaves (Genesis 37:7). If you would have interviewed the brothers at the moment when they heard that dream, what would Shimon tell you he thinks that dream means?

Imu: It's dominance. You're trying to rule over us.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right, which is exactly what the text says. הֲמָלֹךְ תִּמְלֹךְ עָלֵינוּ אִם־מָשׁוֹל תִּמְשֹׁל בָּנוּ — You really think you're going to rule over us? You are just this narcissistic, egotistical 17-year old kid. And Yosef is kind of speechless. He might not believe he's such a narcissistic kid, but he can't really deny that that's what his dreams seem to suggest. And if you would have even asked Joseph what the meaning of the dream is when he was 17 years old, he might have said, “I don't know. Like, I don't want to rule over my family, but it sounds like I'm ruling over them.”

So Joseph's dream stirs up quite raw emotions when understood simply. But what Shir Hama’alos is saying is, don't understand it simply. It's telling you that the meaning of the dream is something else. בֹּא־יָבֹא בְרִנָּה נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו — One day he's going to come and he's going to be holding his alumot. So when is Joseph the alumah, according to Psalm 126?  It's not back in Canaan when he's 17 years old.

Imu: It's when he's the master of grain.

Rabbi Fohrman: It's when he's the master of grain.

Imu: Interesting. So you're saying that the meaning of the poetry in Shir Hama’alos is that the alumot have to do with sustenance. And you're saying, okay, well, if that's true in Shir Hama’alos, is that true in Genesis as well? In which case, maybe Yosef and the family misunderstood the dreams the first time. If alumos means sustenance, then that totally changes the meaning of the dream where Yosef's sheaves are being bowed to by the brothers’ sheaves. This is a dream about the interplay of sustenance, of Yosef’s sustenance versus the rest of their sustenance.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. What would it mean that my sheaf got up and stood up straight and everyone else's bows to me? What does that mean in terms of sustenance?

Imu: If I'm Yosef and only my sheaf is standing, then it means my access to sustenance is going to survive while the rest of yours might be imperiled.

Rabbi Fohrman: Which is exactly what happens, right? Everyone in Canaan, their sustenance is in peril. The only one who's not is the one who has an independent source of wheat. The only person in civilization who has an independent source of wheat is actually Joseph, who's in charge of all the wheat of Egypt.

So the dream never meant that, back in Canaan, Joseph, when he was 17 years old, was destined to rule over the family. The dream was talking about a vision that was so much larger than anyone back in Canaan could have ever imagined. Joseph's going to be in charge of all the sustenance of the world. He's going to be the great standing sheaf that everyone will go to when they're desperate for grain, and his brothers will be desperate for grain. And therefore, their sheaves will come bowing before his when they desperately need food, and he'll be in a position to provide it.

And so Shir Hama’alos is telling you surreptitiously the secret meaning of this loose thread in the Joseph story. What in the world did his dream mean? It was a prophecy about this really important moment in the future.

If so, when, if at all, does Joseph realize that this is what his dream means? It's only us, the reader of Shir Hama’alos, who becomes aware that this is the meaning of the dream? Or does Joseph in the story ever become aware that this is the meaning of the dream?

Imu: Yeah, I bet we're about to disagree about this. Because I think you're going to say that the moment that he realizes the second meaning of the dream is when the brothers come down and they're hungry, and they don't know who Yosef is yet. That's the moment when the text says וַיִּזְכֹּר יוֹסֵף אֵת הַחֲלֹמוֹת (Genesis 42:9). But I think it's when Yehuda makes his speech and he tells them the actual meaning of his dreams.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, I hear what you're saying. But before we get there, let's actually talk about what is the meaning of the dream? When you are critiquing what you think is my understanding of when Joseph figures out the meaning of the dream, your critique is based upon a subtle understanding of what you think the meaning of the dream is that I'm going to disagree with.

Imu: Okay, let's see.

Rabbi Fohrman: I suspect you think the meaning of the dream is that Joseph is going to have this ability to feed his brothers, and God is saying, “Your destiny is to feed the brothers.” And your point is that Joseph only gets there much later in the story, when he finally reveals himself. Before that, he's toying with the brothers.

Imu: I'll admit to that.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, so let's go back to the dream and analyze, what exactly does this dream mean? And let's be really careful when we understand the distinction between what the dream means and the inferences that could be drawn from what the dream means.

So here's the dream: The dream is, we were all bundling sheaves one day, and suddenly my sheaf stood up and your sheaves all bowed before me. So there's something actually very subtle happening in this dream. The dream starts off and it's not so absurd, right? We were all bundling sheaves in the field one day. That's not absurd. It's absurd a little bit because they're not wheat farmers, they're sheep herders, but whatever. It's not absurd.

The absurdity happens when all of a sudden Joseph's sheaves start standing up. That's not something that sheaves do. קָמָה אֲלֻמָּתִי וְגַם־נִצָּבָה — It proudly stood up straight and then all the other sheaves go bowing to it. Now that's absurd.

The thing that's subtle about this is that, in the beginning of the dream, there's people and their sheaves. There's two things. But by the end of the dream, תְסֻבֶּינָה אֲלֻמֹּתֵיכֶם וַתִּשְׁתַּחֲוֶיןָ לַאֲלֻמָּתִי — My sheaf got up and your sheaves started bowing to my sheaf. The people disappear, all there are are sheaves.

Part of the meaning of the dream, I think, is that that is destined to happen to Joseph's family. In the beginning, there's people there, but pretty soon people become conflated with sheaves. Pretty soon, all the brothers are people who are desperate for wheat. Their desperation is so intense that they're just bowing sheaves. And all Joseph is is Mr. Wheat, so much so that the brothers do not recognize Joseph. In his eyes, he's just one big standing sheaf, right? And the moment I think that Joseph understands the meaning of the dream is the moment that you intuited, I would think it is. It’s the moment when the text says: וַיִּזְכֹּר יוֹסֵף אֵת הַחֲלֹמוֹת — he remembers his dreams.

Why does he remember his dreams the moment the brothers come to him? The answer is because the moment right before that, it says: וְיוֹסֵף …הוּא הַמַּשְׁבִּיר לְכׇל־עַם הָאָרֶץ — Joseph was in charge of all of Egypt. He was in charge of all the wheat. And the brothers came, וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ־לוֹ אַפַּיִם אָרְצָה — and they bowed down before him (Genesis 42:6).

And Joseph was like, “Oh my gosh, I've seen this before. They're bowing to me and I'm in charge of all the wheat.”

Imu: Okay, so I might've made things just a little bit confusing when I said, “I think I know when you think Yosef understood the dream, but I don't think you're right.” Sorry about that.

Okay, so let's just make sure it's clear. Rabbi Fohrman was asking when Yosef understood that the dream was not about him ruling over the family, but instead about him having food and sustenance while the brothers did not.

And as I suspected, Rabbi Fohrman did in fact think that it was when the brothers arrived in Egypt desperate for grain and bowed down to him. After all, that moment did embody Yosef’s dream, and the text even tells us that it was at that moment that Yosef remembered his dream.

So I guess the question really is, why didn't I think that was when Yosef understood the dream?

Well, here's the thing. If Yosef really understood the dream at that point, that it wasn't about ruling the family but it was about who had wheat and who would need wheat, then why did Yosef play all these games with the brothers for the next bunch of chapters in Genesis? Why not just reveal himself to them right then and there and bring the whole family down to Egypt and  give them the food they needed? Which is a pretty good question, right?

So that led me to think that, despite those words in the text, Yosef really only understood the dream fully later in the story. But Rabbi Fohrman wanted to claim that I was conflating two nuanced points. There was the meaning of the dream, that Yosef was Mr. Wheat and that the brothers needed food, and then there was the implication of the dream, meaning what do you do with that information? What action do you take next?

And while Rabbi Fohrman did in fact think that Yosef understood the meaning of the dream when the brothers bowed before him, when they arrived in Egypt, he was convinced that Yosef did not yet understand the implication of the dream. And he suspected that this was because the dream itself wasn't clear on this very point, on what the implication of the dream was.

Rabbi Fohrman: The interesting thing though, Imu, is that the dream doesn't tell Joseph what we think it should tell him. The dream has a moral to it. The great moral of the dream is, your brothers are going to be desperate for wheat. You should be a good brother, you should feed your brothers. The dream could have been explicit about that. Construct me a version of the dream that unambiguously said, “The moral of the dream is, your brothers are going to be desperate for the wheat and your job is to feed them when they're desperate.”

Imu: All these sheaves can't stand, and his stands until they bow to him. And then Joseph's sheaf touches each one, and each sheaf rises as it gets touched by Joseph's sheaf.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, something that unambiguously says…Why doesn't God say that? God could have made the dream any way He wanted. The dream stops. All it does is say that there's a standing sheaf and everyone is bowing to you. Bang, you wake up. Why not say the moral of the story?

Imu: I don't know if we want to get into free will, but the ambiguity of the dream preserves Yosef's ability to choose something. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly.

Imu: There's one version of the dream where it's about power and not about responsibility, where actually he can lord over his brothers through wheat, through being the mashbir (benefactor).

Rabbi Fohrman: In other words, the dream itself is ambiguous. The meaning of the dream is, there will come a moment when all of your brothers will be desperate for wheat, and you will be the one who has it. You will be the one independent source of wheat, and they will be there, and they will all supplicate you, and they will all be desperate for wheat. That's it.

The dream doesn't say more, because, you're correct, it's up to Joseph what he does with that moment. So what then is the dream saying? Or let me ask you, how does it end up impacting the story?

So if you actually look at the story, Joseph, at that moment when he recognizes his brothers, is still very angry at them. He's mad at them. It says: וַיִּתְנַכֵּר אֲלֵיהֶם וַיְדַבֵּר אִתָּם קָשׁוֹת — He estranges himself from them (Genesis 42:7). He's clearly upset. These are the brothers who threw him out of the family. He can't even believe it. He's so bitter to them, right? But then it says: וַיִּזְכֹּר יוֹסֵף אֵת הַחֲלֹמוֹת — And he remembers his dreams.

Now let's say he didn't remember his dreams. Let's play “What Happens Next?” What would you do? You're Joseph, you're filled with rage. You see your brothers. The chutzpah, right? They want food from you, and they were the ones who kidnapped you. They ruined your life, and now they're bowing before you. And you're angry at them, and you're starting to speak meanly to them. What is likely to happen?

Imu: I don't know. I don't know that anything different would happen.

Rabbi Fohrman: Something different would happen, because even as Joseph is angry at them and even as he accuses them of spying, he sends them back with food. He always sends them back with food. Why did he send them back with food?

What I want to suggest is that, the dream says, “Here's this moment that will happen in the future. What are you going to do with that moment?” What are the two possibilities? The good possibility and the bad possibility. The good possibility is you're going to feed your brothers. What's the bad possibility? You’re going to lord over them. You'll use this moment to seek revenge. You're the one with all the food. They're desperate for food. Do they deserve it? They don't deserve it.

You might even tell yourself, this is the moment that God Himself has come out of the clouds to say, “Here is your moment of revenge.” Maybe. Maybe that's what God wants from me. Or maybe not. Maybe God wants me to feed them.

And Joseph at that moment doesn't know. He seems to struggle with this. On the one hand, he's mad at them, and he's kind of mean to them, and he accuses them of being spies and he doesn't reveal himself. So you might say, he's thinking revenge. But on the other hand, he sends them back with food. It's as if he's struggling with this question.

Imu: Are you arguing that the ambiguity of the dream starts to explain the ambiguity of Yosef's actions?

Rabbi Fohrman: Yes.

Imu: Because that's really interesting, because I think that one of the things I always struggle with in this story is what's Yosef's plan all along, right?

Some people argue Yosef's plan. He was concocting a situation where the brothers could do teshuva, tight, and that feels a little too perfect. Another is, as you quoted earlier, the Benjamin theory, “I'm going to get Benjamin back.” Which is partially compelling, but feels a little too convoluted. If he wants to get Benjamin back, he's got all the swordsmen. Like, just tell them, “Hey, it's me. I'm Yosef. Benjamin, come over here. I'm going to rescue you. I'm going to kick these guys out of the country or kill them,” right? Like, he doesn't need to be that Machiavellian about it.

What I like about what you're suggesting is that Yosef himself doesn't really know where he's going with this. And you know, the truth is that, on the simple level of the text, you see Yosef changing his plan a few times right here. Like, Joseph remembers his dreams, accuses his brothers of being spies, and then says, “Okay, let's test to see whether you're spies. We're just going to send one of you back. Go bring back your younger brother.”

But Yosef doesn't do that. He throws them all in jail, and then, after three days, he changes his plan again. And he's like, you know what? I'll let you all back. I'm going to hold one hostage and we'll see, right? So you see his own plan evolving. You see conflicted feelings.

A person doesn't change their mind if they have clear conviction. Minds change because you're confused. And what I love about what you're pointing out when you said וַיִּזְכֹּר יוֹסֵף אֵת הַחֲלֹמוֹת is that once you say that the dream is ambiguous, then it opens the door for feelings to be ambiguous, which opens the door to actions to be ambiguous. So it has explanatory power.

Rabbi Fohrman: Right. And by the way, the genuine truth is, his feelings are ambiguous. There's a part of him that loves his brothers, even though there's a part of him that hates his brothers. He actually does have very ambiguous feelings. So in a way, the dream with its ambiguity almost validates the ambiguity of his feelings. Like, it's okay, I'm not telling you what to do. There's all sorts of possibilities here, but you should just know this is a very important moment for you, right? With all of its possibilities.

Imu: I'll just point out, methodologically, the fact that the text tells you that he remembered his dreams would suggest that there would be a different version of the story if he didn't remember his dreams. You do have to ask what you did ask. What would have changed if he hadn't remembered his dreams? And my answer…you can't give that answer. You can't say nothing would have changed because now you have an oddity in the text, right? Why is the text telling me…?

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. And therefore, what would have changed? I would argue that what would have changed is, all he was feeling before he remembered that dream was what emotion? He sees them, וַיִּתְנַכֵּר אֲלֵיהֶם — He estranges himself from them…

Imu: Interesting. It would be only vengeance.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly.

Imu: And you're pointing out, isn't it interesting that he's still feeding them? That would be the other side of the dream. So there's the dark side of the dream, which is, “I will lord over you and have power over you.” And then there's the light side of the dream, which is, “I'm going to feed you.” And what Yosef does is a little bit of both. I'm going to still lord over you…

Rabbi Fohrman: But I'm still going to feed you.

Imu: That's pretty interesting. What a different read.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah. So in a way, the dream, when you really think about it, ends up saving the possibility of the brothers ever reuniting. Because if it weren't for that dream, and Yosef remembering it at just the right time, the next thing that happens is, he arrests them and puts them in jail forever. Or at best, he just closes the door and says, “Sorry, we close at 3:00 here, goodbye,” and sends them home without food to starve. And that's the last he ever sees of them, and Joseph never reunites with his family.

So if the dream is responsible for the possibility of Yosef ever reuniting with them, it's a great gift. It's that dream and his memory of it which is going to be his only chance to ever see his family ever again.

Now, if you think about the dynamic of Joseph feeding them at that moment when he's angry, but Joseph remembers this dream. And all the dream is telling him is, there will come a moment when your brothers will be desperate for wheat and you will be in charge of all the wheat in the world. And Joseph finds himself living in that moment.

How, just mechanically, does that work to soften his anger at the brothers, the remembrance of the dream and the realization of what it means? “Oh, the dream was never talking about Canaan. It was never talking about me lording over my family. It was talking about me being in charge of all of Egypt and the brothers being desperate for wheat.” How does that soften the anger? Even before Joseph is wondering if the dream means I'm supposed to feed them, even before that, how does it soften his anger?

Imu: Iit's not like, “Oh, how great I've risen,” but actually this was Divinely ordained.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yes, this is Divinely ordained. So think about it for a minute. If I'm a therapist and I'm talking with Joseph at that moment, before he remembers the dream, he's so enraged at his brothers and I'm helping Joseph vent. You're Joseph. Why are you so enraged? Why did you וַיִּתְנַכֵּר אֲלֵיהֶם, why did you estrange yourself? Why are you being so mean to them? Vent. Tell me what you're so upset about.

Imu: These guys threw me in a pit, right?

Rabbi Fohrman: And?

Imu: Well, I became a slave.

Rabbi Fohrman: I became a slave! I had a good life, and suddenly I'm kidnapped. I'm a slave. I get thrown in jail. I have to wait for seven years in Potiphar's dungeon. My whole life is ruined. And the next words are, “And it's all because of them.”

But suddenly, you remember the dream and you realize what the dream means. The dream wasn't talking about Canaan. The dream was talking about now. And even before you question what you're supposed to do with it, there's just this mysterious message: One way or the other, I was supposed to be here. This was preordained.

The dream says your life is going to come down to one moment, the moment when you are in charge of all the wheat in the world and your brothers are desperate for wheat. You think, oh my gosh, this is the moment. This had to happen. And if it had to happen, how angry can you really be at your brothers for being the mechanism for putting you here? You can't say, “And it's all because of them.” Really? Is it all because of them? They were the tools, but one way or the other, you had to be here. So how angry can I be?

And therefore, there's a part of him that's, “You know what, darn it, let me feed them a little bit. Let me give them some food.” And he's still not sure, and he's still conflicted, but it takes the edge off of his anger enough to feed them, enough to keep his brothers in his life to meet them another day when possibly he could reveal himself to them.

Imu: Yeah, that's very compelling.

Rabbi Fohrman: And ultimately, by the way, when Joseph does reveal himself to his brothers, isn't it interesting what he says to them? He says to them: לֹא־אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי הָאֱלֹקים — It wasn't you that sent me here. It was God (Genesis 45:8). He knows that from the dream. I had to be here, one way or the other.

But then he says something else that's not in the dream but he's convinced it's true: כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹקים לִפְנֵיכֶם — It was for sustenance that God sent me to you (Genesis 45:5). Joseph ultimately comes to the conclusion…

Imu: That it's not power.

Rabbi Fohrman: That it's not power, that it's sustenance. That even though the dream didn't explicitly say it, the proper way to interpret the dream is, I'm supposed to feed them. He ultimately gets there.

Imu: So we aren't arguing.

Rabbi Fohrman: We're not arguing. He's developing, right? He will ultimately come to that conclusion. In the beginning, it's ambiguous. In 37, the brothers think it's power. In 42, it's ambiguous.

Imu: And then by 45, then he understands that it's sustenance. That's elegant. That's very elegant.

Rabbi Fohrman: But what Joseph is doing, let's just understand, is saying something extremely subtle. It's not like he revised an interpretation of the dream. If you asked him now, he says, “But wasn't the dream ambiguous?” If the dream was ambiguous, how can you say כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹקים לִפְנֵיכֶם? God didn't say that, you're saying that.

What he says is, of course I'm saying that, but that's the delicious interplay between Divine will and human free will. Of course the dream didn't tell me what I was supposed to do. Only I could decide. But I know that God wanted me in this situation. And in essence, the dream was nudging me in that direction. I was supposed to make a particular choice. It was God's will that I make that choice, and therefore I call that something I know from God. Despite the fact that it truly is my own will, I am manifesting God's will by choosing that right choice.

Imu: So putting everything together, Rabbi Fohrman was arguing that the minute Yosef realizes his brothers coming to him is the fulfillment of his dream, he knows he's in Divine providence territory. Whatever's happening was meant to be, but he doesn't yet know his role in this fated encounter. That he has to work out for himself. He has to make a choice. Is his role here to express power and revenge, or care and sustenance?

And it's only at the end of the story that he fully understands that the right answer is care, that that’s what God wanted from him all along. And while our performance suggested that Yosef’s dream somehow nudged him in that direction, did the story reveal anything more to us about the development of Yosef's perspective?

We saw last time that Yosef learning of Yaakov's tears is the final push for Yosef, opening that floodgate of his own tears and causing him to reveal himself to his brothers. But Rabbi Fohrman suspected that there was another point in the story, an earlier point, that nudged Yosef to interpret the intent of the dream as being about care and sustenance. A point much earlier on in the story.

Rabbi Fohrman: One thing that helps get him there is right after he remembers the dream, right at that moment that he's changing his plans. “Am I going to imprison all of you? I'll imprison one of you?” At that point, the brothers start talking amongst themselves. I'm reading now from chapter 42, verse 21: וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו — One brother says to the other, אֲבָל אֲשֵׁמִים  אֲנַחְנוּ עַל־אָחִינוּ אֲשֶׁר רָאִינוּ צָרַת נַפְשׁוֹ בְּהִתְחַנְנוֹ אֵלֵינוּ וְלֹא שָׁמָעְנוּ עַל־כֵּן בָּאָה אֵלֵינוּ הַצָּרָה הַזֹּאת — We're guilty. You know why this thing is happening to us, that one of our brothers is going to be imprisoned in Egypt? It's because we saw his pain when he was crying out to us for mercy and we didn't listen to him. Now the same thing is happening to us.

וַיַּעַן רְאוּבֵן אֹתָם — Reuven responded to them and said, הֲלוֹא אָמַרְתִּי אֲלֵיכֶם  לֵאמֹר — I told you back then at the pit, אַל־תֶּחֶטְאוּ בַיֶּלֶד — not to sin against the child, לֹא שְׁמַעְתֶּם  — and you didn't listen. וְגַם־דָּמוֹ הִנֵּה נִדְרָשׁ — Now his blood is being sought from us.

וְהֵם לֹא יָדְעוּ — But they didn’t realize, כִּי שֹׁמֵעַ יוֹסֵף — That  Joseph was listening to this discussion, כִּי הַמֵּלִיץ בֵּינֹתָם — Because there was a translator between them. They didn't know that the high Egyptian official could understand Hebrew, and that their conversation in Hebrew was being overheard.

וַיִּסֹּב מֵעֲלֵיהֶם וַיֵּבְךְּ — So Joseph went aside and wept privately, וַיָּשׇׁב אֲלֵהֶם — and comes back to them, וַיְדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם — and speaks to them,  וַיִּקַּח מֵאִתָּם אֶת־שִׁמְעוֹן — and he goes and he takes Shimon, וַיֶּאֱסֹר אֹתוֹ לְעֵינֵיהֶם — and he imprisons Shimon before their eyes.

Now, previously he said he's going to imprison someone, but by the end of this little episode, he decides who that someone is. That someone is going to be Shimon. My question to you, Imu, is why Shimon? Could have been anyone. If you were looking for the ringleader, you'd want the oldest brother. The oldest brother is Reuven. But what did Joseph just hear Reuven say? He just heard Reuven pipe up and say, “I told you back then, אַל־תֶּחֶטְאוּ בַיֶּלֶד — Don't sin against the child.”

Imu: Right. So Reuven is less culpable.

Rabbi Fohrman: Reuven is not culpable, Reuven was on his side. So the next guy down is Shimon. But it's not just that the next guy down is Shimon. What does Shimon's name mean? Interestingly, Reuven and Shimon were both named for something. They were both named for certain senses that had to do with the anguish of their mother.

How did Reuven get his name? Leah, who felt hated, said: רָאָה יְקוָה בְּעׇנְיִי — God has seen my suffering, and named her child Reuven, a contraction of רָאָה בְּעׇנְיִי. And then Reuven, who was named for “God saw my suffering,” was followed by Shimon, the next child of Leah, who was named שָׁמַע יְקוָה כִּי־שְׂנוּאָה אָנֹכִי — God heard that I was hated (Genesis 29:32-33).

Now, if you grew up with the name Reuven or you grew up with the name Shimon, what would you think your job is?

Imu: To embody that character.

Rabbi Fohrman: To embody that character. But what's interesting is here, too, there is a truth and there's the implications of the truth. For example, if you're named Reuven and you embody the idea that God saw the suffering of my mother, well, now you're at this moment where Joseph's in the pit, and your mother's nemesis is Rachel, and Rachel's favorite child who is going to usurp the place of Reuven is now in the pit. So you say to yourself, what does God want from me in this moment? This is a Divinely inspired moment. I am named for the idea that God saw the suffering of my mother. What should I do with the child of my mother's nemesis that's causing all these problems in the family?

One possibility is, this is the moment where God wants me to take revenge. The other possibility is, no, if God saw the suffering of my mother, the meaning of that isn't, “I'm supposed to take revenge on her nemesis.” The meaning of that is, “I'm supposed to see the suffering of others, always. I'm supposed to see the suffering of the downtrodden, no matter who they are, even if they are the child of my mother's nemesis.”

And that's actually how Reuven acted. Reuven was the one who wanted to save Joseph, and that's what Joseph comes to understand at this moment. Shimon interpreted his name differently. Shimon interpreted his name, no, if I am named for “God heard that my mother was hated,” and now there's this kid that's responsible for all this hatred in the family, so my job is to get rid of him.

And so Shimon goes and acts against Joseph's interest in the story, and it plays out in the sense perception of the story which you see here. אֲשֵׁמִים  אֲנַחְנוּ — we are guilty. עַל־אָחִינוּ אֲשֶׁר רָאִינוּ צָרַת נַפְשׁוֹ — Our brother, we saw his pain when he was crying out to us. וְלֹא שָׁמָעְנוּ — We saw, but we didn't hear. We saw, but didn't listen. Almost as if the seeing one was responsive, but the listening one wasn't. The child named for sight, Reuven, he was responsive. The hearing one, Shimon, לֹא שָׁמָעְנוּ — We didn't listen. Yosef takes Shimon, the listening one, and imprisons him before their eyes. You see, it's all about this interplay of hearing and seeing, hearing and seeing.

But I bring this up because Yosef listens to all this and imprisons Shimon, which means In his mind, Shimon's approach to that dilemma, “What do you do when this is the moment that you know is the Providential moment? Do you respond by revenge, or do you respond with compassion even for the child of your nemesis?” Shimon's answer was the wrong answer, according to Joseph. He imprisons him. Reuven's answer was the right answer.

But isn't it interesting that Joseph at this moment is struggling with the same question? He, too, has got this moment that he knows is Providential, right? The brothers are in his hands. He can do with them what he wants. This is the moment that the dream foretold. What should he do? And maybe Joseph even thinks about his name, אָסַף אֱלֹהִים אֶת־חֶרְפָּתִי — God has gathered in my shame (Genesis 30:23). Well, if you're named for “God has gathered in my shame,” and here's a moment that you could take revenge on those who caused you shame, well maybe that's what God wants from you, revenge. Or maybe, if God gathered in your shame, then God wouldn't want you to inflict shame on others.

And suddenly he doesn't know what to do with that, but then he sees it on the outside. He sees it, and he says, “You know what? I kind of like what Reuven did there. Not such a big fan of what Shimon did there. I think Reuven's really the role model here.”

And suddenly, it's another nudge. You don't know what to do with the dream. You don't know which way to interpret it. Maybe revenge isn't the answer. And this is part of the journey towards eventually revealing himself to the brothers and deciding that the real meaning of the dream is I'm supposed to take care of you. 

Okay, I have a confession to make to you. You ready?

Imu: Let's hear it.

Rabbi Fohrman: For many years, I read the Joseph story without realizing any of this. I had no idea what Joseph's dream meant. It was a mystery to me. Like, I don't know why he had that dream. He probably was just egotistical. I thought he was lording over his brothers. Never occurred to me that it was strange that a sheep herder should be dreaming about sheaves. Never occurred to me that when he remembers his dreams, it's clicking what his dream means. I didn't get any of that.

You know, when I got it, this whole interpretation? For me, I'm not saying this is the only way anyone could have gotten, but I'm telling you how I got to it. I got to it when I was preparing this course, and I was reading Shir Hama’alos, 126, and I got up to the words נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו. Having seen that it was a read of the Joseph story and that Jacob is going carrying his sheaves, I stopped and I said, oh my gosh, carrying his sheaves. Shir Hama’alos is seeing it as if the climactic moment of the story is when he's holding Joseph, but Joseph is a sheaf. It's like the dream is coming true in Egypt, and if the dream is coming true in Egypt, maybe the meaning of the dream is in Egypt. It wasn't back in Canaan. Like, that was the trigger that propelled me to this interpretation. I never would have seen it without Psalm 126.

Imu: Got it. The end of the story in the psalm is where the guy is finally holding his sheaves and he's happy again. So if that's going to translate onto the end of the story in Genesis with Jacob, alumot have nothing to do with the end. Unless the alumot have multiple meanings, and then the obvious only in retrospect pops out, which is that alumot have to do with grain and sustenance, which is a huge part of the Yosef story in Genesis.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly, and I was kicking myself because, like, it shouldn't have taken me Psalm 126 to figure that out. In retrospect, it's obvious in the Joseph story, right? But like all good things in life, things are very obvious through the rearview mirror, but they're never obvious when you're actually looking at them.

But once you see it, you see it. Like, of course that's what the dream means. But it took Psalm 126 saying it in bright lights to make me feel like, okay, uh-huh, so it wasn't in Canaan, it was in Egypt. That's all that's coming true, that Joseph is the great alumah in Egypt.

Imu: Regardless of how Rabbi Fohrman could have come to this understanding of the Yosef story, ultimately he did come to it by way of Tehillim 126. And because of that, the following question emerged: If Shir Hama’alos really was channeling the Yosef story, and in that context referencing Yosef’s dreams of sheaves of wheat, well, what could that then boomerang back and teach us about those very verses in Shir Hama’alos itself?

Rabbi Fohrman: So the story of Shir Hama’alos ends with this idea: הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ — Sometimes you plant with tears and you reap with joy. And the way I want to read that now is not that the tears are themselves seeds, but sometimes you plant seeds and you're crying when you plant those seeds. And now the vivid image, הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ  וּבָכֹה — There's this man walking around crying, נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ־הַזָּרַע — Holding this bag of seeds. בֹּא־יָבֹא בְרִנָּה — And one day he's going to come in joy, נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו — He's going to be holding his אֲלֻמֹּתָיו.

Who is this guy? This guy is Jacob. Let's read it really, really carefully now. הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ  וּבָכֹה — There's this guy, he's walking around crying. It's Jacob. וַיֵּבְךְּ אֹתוֹ אָבִיו — When he saw the bloody coat, he just couldn't stop himself. He just was crying, crying, and crying (Genesis 37:25).

Now let's get to this ambiguous next phrase: נֹשֵׂא — Holding, holding up, מֶשֶׁךְ — carrying, pulling, הַזָּרַע — of seeds or a seedling.

Okay, let's play our little game, “Where Have We Heard These Words Before?” בָכֹה, that is וַיֵּבְךְּ אֹתוֹ אָבִיו. But let's go further, right around that moment, the sale of Joseph. The word נֹשֵׂא, to carry. Is anybody carrying around that time? Who's carrying back in chapter 37 as Jacob is crying? When is Jacob crying?

Imu: He's crying when they present him with the coat.

Rabbi Fohrman: Right. So, around when would that have happened vis-a-vis Joseph?  Where's Joseph at the moment that Jacob is crying?

Imu: On an Ishmaelite caravan down to Egypt.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, so one more time I ask you, as Jacob is crying, the word נֹשֵׂא, what does the word נֹשֵׂא strike you of in Genesis 37 around the sale of Joseph? Just poke around the sale of Joseph.

Imu: Oh, נֹשְׂאִים נְכֹאת וּצְרִי וָלֹט. I didn’t see it (Genesis 37:25).

Rabbi Fohrman: There it is. הִנֵּה אֹרְחַת יִשְׁמְעֵאלִים, they picked up their eyes and they saw.

Imu: The caravan is carrying merchandise.

Rabbi Fohrman: The caravan man is carrying merchandise. What was the merchandise? It was these various different kinds of incense. And where are they bringing them?

Imu: Down to Egypt.

Rabbi Fohrman: They're carrying stuff to bring. That's right. They're about to carry Joseph some new wares. Now how does Joseph get onto the caravan? Midianim come and what do they do?

Imu: וַיִּמְשְׁכוּ וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת־יוֹסֵף מִן־הַבּוֹר.

Rabbi Fohrman: Translate please.

Imu: So there's that word, מֶשֶׁךְ, they pull. וַיִּמְשְׁכוּ here means “they pull,” and they lift Yosef from the pit. You don't need that word here, so it sort of does stick out like a sore thumb.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah. Specifically, they pulled him out, right? But interestingly, how does Shir Hama’alos talk about this? There's a man walking around crying, and even as he's walking around crying, this is what's happening in the background. As he's crying, there are these Midianite traders that are pulling Joseph out of the pit. And he's being נֹשֵׂא, he's being taken down. But if Joseph ultimately becomes an alumah, if Joseph isn't only a man but a sheaf, right, sheaves don't get to be sheaves overnight. How does a sheaf start?

Imu: It's a seed.

Rabbi Fohrman:  It's a seed. And what do you have to do with a seed in order to make it into a sheaf?

Imu: You have to plant it.

Rabbi Fohrman: And where do you plant it?

Imu: In a pit in the ground.

Rabbi Fohrman: In a little hole in the ground.

Imu: Yeah, yeah.

Rabbi Fohrman: In a little hole in the ground. So if you are a human being and you're put in a hole in the ground, it's the end of you. You're dead and buried. But if you're a little seed that's being put in the ground, whose destiny is to become an alumah, whose destiny is to become king of all of the wheat…well, if you're a little seed, it's just the beginning of you.

How did you sprout into this alumah? These brothers who thought they were doing bad…אַתֶּם חֲשַׁבְתֶּם עָלַי רָעָה — You thought you were doing such bad things to me, putting me in the pit. אֱלֹהִים חֲשָׁבָהּ לְטֹבָה — God had a different plan (Genesis 50:20). I was destined to become a sheaf. You were planting me in the ground. And as I was being pulled out, this little tiny seedling, so fragile, was being pulled out and transplanted.

What a vulnerable moment in Shir Hama’alos. הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ  וּבָכֹה — There's a man walking around crying, נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ־הַזָּרַע, as the traders, the Ishmaelites, are carrying this little seedling that's been pulled out of the pit. And at that vulnerable moment that Joseph is on that caravan, there's a little problem. Because what do you have to do when a little seedling is pulled out of the ground and transplanted? What do you need to put along with that seed?

Imu: It needs water.

Rabbi Fohrman: It needs water.

Imu: So someone would need to supply the irrigation.

Rabbi Fohrman: הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ. Sometimes you can plant with tears, not with water. Who supplied the water that kept Joseph alive spiritually as he was being dragged onto that Ishmaelite caravan?

Imu: His father.

Rabbi Fohrman: His father with his tears. His father's tears nurtured him.

If you put yourself in Joseph's shoes, he was a broken man. His whole life has been turned over. It's the most incredible trauma. His family turned on him. In his eyes, maybe not even just his brothers. Maybe, as we said before, for all he knows, his father, too.

Such resentment, such anger. What's going to keep him going? He's going to literally die. He's going to wilt inside, but someone didn't let go of him. Jacob was crying the whole time. He was crying and crying and crying, and he refused to let go of the memory of Joseph and always cried for him. Along comes Shir Hama’alos and says those tears were meaningful.

I want to argue that both interpretations are correct, the one we gave last episode and the one we're talking about now. It's true that Jacob's tears catalyze Joseph's, but they don't just catalyze Joseph's. They nourish him until Joseph's can be catalyzed. What brings Joseph down to Egypt? In a way where he is not a broken man, when he can rise to power in Potiphar's house, when even in prison he can have his wits about him and socialize with the butler and baker and tell them the meaning of his dreams. He's not broken. He's being nurtured and he doesn't even realize it. The tears of Jacob are what keeps that little seedling alive.

And what Shir Hama’alos is saying is a mind-blowing thing. There's certain kinds of communication, cognitive kind of communication, words that only work in a short field array. If I can talk to you and you can hear me, then my words are meaningful. But there's other kinds of communication, nonverbal, noncognitive stuff like tears that can affect you even if you don't know about it. If I'm crying for you, you may not know. You may even think I betrayed you. But if I'm crying for you, those tears nurture me. Those tears do nurture him, such that בֹּא־יָבֹא בְרִנָּה. One day, Jacob will come and there'll be this proud, shining alumah nurtured by his tears that he can hug and be reunited with one day. But the tears are what kept Joseph alive, what kept him spiritually.

Imu: Slow down what you're saying for a second, because it's pretty shocking. The metaphor that Shir Hama’alos uses has deep significance because it's not just telling you, you know, that bad things happen, but don't worry, things turn out fine. It's actually saying, when bad things happen to you…let's say they happen to your kid and your kid is taken away. It's not just that your kid might grow up to be a king one day and actually they're going to be fine. The metaphor makes use of your anguish, of your tears. And I'm just moved by, like, what are tears? They aren't the kind of thing that you will, and in that way, an interesting response to when something happens to you that is terrible that's also against your will. You just release anguish, you release sadness. You're totally helpless.

And why I appreciate this metaphor is because it's not just providing comfort in the sense that, “Hey, that thing you worried about is going to be okay,” but your helplessness wasn't all that helpless, is what I'm hearing you say. Actually, these tears that you were crying, which are an expression of anguish and helplessness…

Rabbi Fohrman: End up being the most constructive things in the world.

Imu: Yeah, because what is a seed in the most fertile soil going to do? Nothing. Not to take away from Joseph. Joseph was great. He's a seed and he had so much potential, but he needed to be watered.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right. You need the love.

Imu: So that's what you're saying. This analogy, the metaphor that Shir Hama’alos is using says that father's anguish also doubles as father’s care.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right. But when I can't actually care for you, my anguish that I can't care for you doubles as care, and that actually provides care in some way that we cannot understand. That if you cry for your kid and your kid's in another world, inaccessible to you and they have no idea you're crying for them, there's something about that that's still nourishing. There's something about parental love that is so powerful that its field of influence is beyond words, beyond cognitive.

Imu: Just to go out on a limb here, I'd even argue that this isn't, like, when you can't take care of your kids, you at least have tears. I'd argue that this is the essence. I'd even argue that when you're sending your kids to the extracurricular program and when you're doing soccer and you're trying to invest, invest, invest in your kids, the ultimate core of it is care.

Rabbi Fohrman: All of it is just a way to show that you care, but its parental care is so powerful. It literally is like the water that makes a plant grow.

Imu: And it works, even if you don't have soccer at your disposal, even if you can't actually do the physical things. The essence is care. Wow. That's what this means, because Jacob didn't even know he was alive. And it worked, whether he knew it or not. This tremendous care for his son nourished him. It's really powerful.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, and that's Shir Hama’alos.

Imu: I sometimes listen to near-death experience testimonies, and one frum woman shared that, in her near-death experience, she was having some surgery. She sort of died on the table and rose above her body, and she said she felt, instantly, prayer. That people around the world were praying for her and caring for her, and that her soul found it nourishing.

And I was struck because there's this debate about how prayer works. The rationalists, and I was one of them, believe that you can't change God's mind. Prayer is really about changing yourself, and then maybe you'll merit something, this or that. But maybe prayer works because of the way God decided to make our universe work.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, which is that love is far more powerful than we can imagine, and care is far more powerful, and prayer is a way of expressing love and care. And when I pray for someone and I feel helpless, I'm pouring my soul out to God. I am also caring for them, and God builds into prayer the efficacy right there.

Imu: That's how it works. It's not so much like, did you say this kapital (chapter) Tehillim or that kapital Tehillim? Do you even know what all the words mean? The way it seems to work is, your care matters. Your care actually can nourish a soul that you don't even know is still on the planet and needs your nourishment. Wild.

Rabbi Fohrman: It is wild. And I would say, at some level, you know, Joseph and Jacob at that moment, they used to be in the same world. They were in the same milieu, they were in the same environment together, and now Joseph is going off to another world that Jacob can't even conceive of. He's going off to Egypt, and Jacob is there in Canaan, but these tears still nourish him.

And you know, back to that near-death experience, we can nourish those who are no longer in our world. I think that tears matter, and our way to connect us to the great beyond, to a world beyond ourselves. And maybe our tears for those we've lost nourish them, too.

Imu: That really struck a chord with me, that our tears can connect us to those that we love in this world and perhaps even to those that we love and miss that have moved on to the next world. That when we cry over someone that we've lost, we're not going through a process of letting them go, but perhaps growing closer to them. That even if our tears don't always impact the outcome, even if they don't always bring back the ones we love, they may still be nourishing and deepening our connection.

And it makes sense when you think about it. Can you imagine if the only thing that connected us was our physical proximity to each other? That I'm only connected to someone inasmuch as I can see them and be in the same room as them? No. Even when I'm in the same room as them, the thing that actually connects us is our care for one another. Physical proximity, that is the metaphor, but it's really the care that connects us.

And based on our read of Shir Hama'alos, it was care that bound Yaakov to Yosef, even though Yaakov thought Yosef was dead. And Yosef may even have thought that Yaakov had abandoned him. The care expressed in Yaakov's tears nourished Yosef through those dark times until they could at last be in the same place together, reunite, and embrace. 

And just reflecting on Shir Hama’alos itself, as we exist in a state of exile, the more we show care for God and cry for His redemption, just as He is presumably longing for us, that may be part of what nourishes our connection here and now until we are able to embrace with Him, so to speak, in the world to come as well.

Honestly, at this point, there was so much to reflect upon within the Shir Hama’alos and Yosef story that we could have just ended the whole season right here, but we still had one big and important task ahead of us.

In our first episode, we talked about the first half of the psalm and the five-stage process needed to heal from the residual trauma and move from a state of daze to a state of joy. And in the last two episodes, we did something that feels entirely different. We connected Shir Hama’alos to the Yosef story and saw fascinating interpretations of this man who cries while he sows and then reaps his sheaves of wheat in joy.

But this was all the same psalm. How did that first half connect to the second half? And how would that connection further deepen our understanding of both Shir Hama’alos and the Yosef story?

We're going to put it all together next time in our final episode of the season. I can't wait to see you then.