창세기 37:5의 주석

ויגד לאחיו, this too was an ill advised move. Had he been more mature he would have kept the contents of such a dream to himself.

ויחלום יוסף חלום. Joseph had a dream. Why did Joseph add to his brothers' hatred of him by telling them of his grandiose dreams? Furthermore, knowing as he did that the brothers hated him fiercely, why did he accept his father's mission (verse 14) and venture "into the lion's den?" (According to Bereshit Rabbah 84,11 even Jacob could not understand Joseph's preparedness to accept his mission) Perhaps Joseph went to tell his brothers that they were wrong in ascribing his dreams to his ambitions, but that for some resaon G'd planned to elevate him to a high position and that Jacob's agreeing to send him on this mission was a sign that all of this had been approved by G'd. He may have hoped to assuage their hatred of him by accepting the misssion.

ויחלום....ויאמר, he dreamed, and wanted to make them feel bad seeing that they had displayed jealousy of his father’s love for him, and had allowed that jealousy to deteriorate into hatred of him. Seeing that eventually, Joseph’s rise to power was due to his handling of the harvest in Egypt, the details of the dream were: והנה קמה אלומתי, the symbol of my success, i.e. my sheaf of grain remained erect, whereas your sheaves bowed down to me. It was a fact that in due course the grain harvest was the cause of the brothers prostrating themselves before Joseph.

מלוך תמלוך?, “are you planning to rule over us?” According to Ibn Ezra the expression מלוך refers to rule by a king with the consent of his subjects, so that the brothers asked: “do you expect us to crown you as king over us?” The expression משול refers to imposition of authority without or against the wish of those that are subject to such authority. The brothers wanted to know if Joseph perhaps thought that he could impose his will upon them. It is somewhat difficult to understand why the brothers accused Joseph of such plans, based simply on the fact that he had had a dream or two. Are then dreams something over which the dreamer has control? What proof did the brothers have that Joseph’s dreams reflected his innermost hopes? Some commentators attribute Joseph’s aspirations to the fact that it had become plain that their father had preferred him to all of them, something that had gone to his head and given him ideas of grandeur. The proof that Joseph indeed harboured such thoughts, lay in the fact that even his dreams reflected what he had been thinking about by day.

Er hatte einen Traum und erzählte davon seinen Brüdern. Kaum aber hatte er vertraulich davon angefangen, wollten sie sofort nichts davon hören. Er aber dringt bittend in sie Raw Hirsch on Genesis 37: 6: den Traum müsst ihr doch hören! — Etymologie von חלם siehe (Kap.20, 3). Ob Träume Bedeutung haben, lassen auch die Weisen als eine offene Frage. Siehe Berachot 55 a. Dass aber die Vorsehung diesen halbwachen Zustand benutzt, um Gedanken in die Brust des Menschen zu werfen und ganze Reihen von Begebenheiten damit einzufädeln, dass Gott auch den Glauben der Menschen an Träume in dieser Richtung benutzt, das sehen wir wiederholt aus Jakobs und Josefs Geschichte.

ויחלום יוסף חלום ויגד לאחיו, “Joseph dreamt a dream and he told his brothers its content.” This was a dream that never came true. This is why the Torah does not reveal its content.

On the other hand, he may have warned them that the time would come when they would have need of him, and that they might do better to suppress their hatred of him pending further developments; otherwise they would expose themselves to retaliation on his part when the time came. He was convinced that the brothers would accept what seemed to them a heavenly decree.

ועל דבריו, “and on account of his talk.” Joseph’s real error lay in his telling his brothers of his dreams, as if boasting of the grand future that he considered in store for himself. Had he not been telling his brothers the details of his dreams, i.e. שמעו נא החלום הזה אשר חלמתי, “listen please to this dream that I dreamt, etc.,” the entire tragic sequence of events that follow might have been avoided. He had only dreamt one dream, and already he uses it as something inflammatory, something that is bound to arouse further jealousy among his brothers. Why does the Torah refer to חלומותיו, “his dreams,” (pl;) when only the content of a single dream has been reported? (verse 8) Some commentators believe that he had had a previous dream, a dream which the brothers did not pay much attention to, seeing it was an isolated event. Once he told them the content of his second dream they became alerted to the trend displayed in this dream and revised their opinion about the first dream he had told them about, also.

There is yet another possibility. Joseph actually hoped to draw his brothers' hearts nearer to him. We have a saying Berachot 55 that כל החלומות הולכים אחר הפה, that "all dreams follow the mouth." [What the interpreter sees in the dream determines its true meaning. The reader is referred to an excellent analysis of this statement by Rabbi Yitzchak Arama in chapter 29 of his Akeydat Yitzchak, see my translation page 247, second edition. Ed.] The rabbis also say that one should enquire from someone who is well disposed towards him when searching for the meaning of one's dream (Rosh on that paragraph). Joseph hoped that by telling the brothers of his dreams they would themselves find an acceptable and plausible explanation which would put their minds at ease. At least they would realise that Joseph had no ambition to become king over them. Why else would he be silly enough to provoke their hatred by telling them about his dreams? All of this might have worked if the existing hatred had not already closed the brothers' minds to any conciliatory gestures.

ויחלום יוסף Joseph dreamed. The Torah reports that Joseph only dreamed so that we should not think that he hallucinated making himself believe he had dreamed when in fact he entertained thoughts of lording it over his brothers. The reason that in verse 9 the Torah repeats again that Joseph dreamed is also to emphasise that it was a nocturnal vision, that he had not made up the story he told his brothers.

ויגד לאחיו. He told his brothers. It was a good dream. The brothers were tough as nails and did not even want to know what he had dreamed; this is why he had to say: "please listen to the dream I have dreamed." I am sure that the Torah does not here refer to a dream the content of which has not been mentioned, nor to a dream which did not come true. If the latter, why mention the existence of such a dream? If to tell us that the brothers hated him even more, this too has already been adequately explained. We must therefore assume that these words refer to the dream Joseph revealed only after having insisted that the brothers listen to his dream.