While I was
reading through this weeks’ parshah: Miketz, I couldn’t help but think about,
and by think about I mean get endlessly stuck in my head, Debbie Friedman’s
song, And the Youth Shall See Visions. The line from that song goes and the old
shall dream dreams, and the youth shall see visions. This got me thinking about
what the difference between dreams and visions really is. Anyone can dream.
Young children do it all the time. But I’m not as convinced that every person
can see visions. I think only those who want to see visions will see them, and
otherwise, their notions of the future will be stuck in their dreams.
In this parshah,
Joseph is freed when he interprets one of Pharaoh’s dreams, and therefore, his
ability to interpret dreams is what saves him both from slavery and from his
brothers. It is very probable that someone else could have interpreted
Pharaoh’s dream, it wasn’t that hard to figure out, but the way that Joseph
interpreted it required immediate action which may be why it was included in
the Torah.
We all have dreams
of where we want the world to be in five, ten, fifteen years or what we hope
will happen in our lifetimes, but I think what we need to do is have visions. I
have a vision for the future where our discourse is not as racially and
sexually biased as it is today. I have a vision for a future where kids with
disabilities can go to Sunday school just like everyone else. Visions can be big or small. They can affect
just your family or the whole world, but the important thing is to take
immediate action because while change may be slow, if dreams stay dreams,
nothing can happen at all.
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