The Impossible Dream Dreams play a central role in the story of the Jewish people's descent to Egypt. Firstly, Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave to Egypt as a result of him sharing his dreams with them, in which his brothers bowed down to him. Secondly, after being sent to prison, Joseph interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's ministers, who were imprisoned with him. And finally, Joseph rose to become the ruler of Egypt because he interpreted Pharaoh's dreams. The exile to Egypt was brought about through dreams because exile is likened to a dream. The verse in Psalms (126:1) states, "When the Lord will return the exiles of Zion, we will have been like dreamers." When a person awakens from a dream, he realizes that what seems so vivid and real was but a dream, so too, when we will return from the exile, we will look back at our time in exile and realize that it was but a dream. A dream is a state of mind where a person's discerning mind is not conscious, and therefore he can imagine a contradictory and impossible reality. Spiritual exile is when one is living a contradiction, where two opposite desires can co-exist. When one is in a state of spiritual exile, he may have a deep love for G-d, yearning to transcend and cleave to holiness. Yet moments later, he may be wholly invested in love and desire for physical existence and pleasure. When one is spiritually "awake," when the discerning mind functions, these two opposing desires cannot co-exist, yet in exile, they both exist. One may suspect that the love to G-d is not genuine for, if it were, it would permeate all of his desires. Yet, the reality is that the devotion to the material and the spiritual are both real. They may be a contradiction, yet, like in a dream, they can exist simultaneously. Kabbalah explains that the illogical dream, which occurs when the discerning mind is asleep, can sometimes express truths that the logical mind cannot grasp. The same is true regarding the spiritual dream of exile. When we will be redeemed, we will awake and see that we were dreaming. We will recognize that reality, as we experienced it, was not the ultimate truth, for in truth, the material and the spiritual are not contradictory. They were both created by G-d, and each expresses their Divine source in their unique way. In exile, we are in a dream; we are genuinely drawn to the contradictory experiences of heaven and earth. When we awake from our dream, with the arrival of Moshiach, there will be no more dream because the physical and the spiritual will be at peace. Adapted from Torah Ohr Parshas Vayeshev as explained by Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael.
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