창세기 41:17의 유대 사상

In order to make use of one's eyesight, light is indispensable. Even possession of perfect eyesight is useless, since one is unable to translate one's potential into the actual, unless the objects to be seen are bathed in light. None of our other senses requires external phenomena to enable them to function. One can smell in the dark, touch in the dark, etc. Because the sense of vision requires light in order to function, light is also called "wisdom," seeing that wisdom is also an external agent assisting all our senses to improve the quality of their respective perceptions. G-d the great "Seer" is different inasmuch as He does not require light to enable Him to see and perceive all that exists. Whereas photography cannot function when outside light penetrates the viewer, the Almighty, the seat of light who is surrounded by light, is not handicapped by that fact. Daniel 2,22 says, "He knows what is in darkness, though surrounded by light." Isaiah 60,1-2 says, "Though the earth will be surrounded and covered by darkness, the Lord will light you up. His glory will be visisble to you." This "glory" will not be visible to other nations. The fact that the account of the story of Creation commences with the creation of light, illustrates the point that in order to build successfully, one must be able to see what one is doing. Though night is no darker than daylight for the Almighty, the point was to describe the inescapable need for daylight for man to be able to live on earth successfully. For this reason, we read at the end of the story of creation, "G-d saw all that He had made and it was very good" (Genesis 1,31). Until He had viewed it, it could not have been described as "very good." Solomon also describes the relationship of light to darkness as like the relationship of wisdom to foolishness, explaining that the fool, though he sees, walks in darkness, whereas the wise, even though blind, carries the source of light in his head (Kohelet 2,13-14). Since Torah more than anything else has been designed to provide wisdom, the verse "for each mitzvah is like a candle, but Torah is light itself" (Proverbs 6,23) is self-explanatory. When Moses says to Yitro "You will become our eyes" (Numbers 10,31), he had this kind of vision in mind, i.e. one which provides spiritual light, wisdom. The fact that the members of the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin are called "the eyes of the community" (Horiot 5) is to be understood in the same vein. Basing ourselves on this comparison between eyesight and wisdom, the Torah's statement that Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream was "good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants" is clear. It means that people who had up to now walked in darkness, suddenly were greatly enlightened (Genesis 41,37). In the final analysis, providing spiritual enlightenment to those walking in spiritual darkness is what the interpretation of dreams is all about. The ability to relate apparently unconnected phenomena to one another, is what foretelling of the future amounts to. When Joseph had said to Pharaoh's ministers who were in jail with him, "Ks not the interpretation of dreams G-d’s business?" (Genesis 40,8), or when he said to Pharaoh, "May the Lord put Pharaoh's mind at ease" (41,17), this underscores that only someone possessed of qualities especially conferred upon him by G-d could succeed in interpreting dreams. Our sages in Berachot 25 appear to contradict this theory when they state that "All dreams follow the mouth." At first glance this seems to mean that the interpreter of a dream determines its meaning and significance although logic dictates otherwise. When the Torah says that Joseph explained each man's dream according to its dreamer, surely this means that each dream allowed for only one explanation. How then can our sages allow latitude to the interpreter to impose his own meaning? Strangely enough the Talmud reports two identical dreams that permitted widely divergent interpretations. Still stranger is the statement of Rabbi Neriyah (Berachot 56) that the twenty-four interpreters in Jerusalem offered twenty-four different interpretations for the same dream, all of which turned out to be true.