“Once Joseph had a dream, he shared it with his brothers..”
-Genesis 37:5
Welcome to the new season of the ‘Raising Holy Sparks’ podcast. This year, we will be focusing on Jewish concepts and will be experimenting with ways to take them out of the theoretical and turn them into the practical.
In this week’s Torah portion of Vayishlach, Joseph has a dream of his brothers bowing down to him. This leads them into a furious rage and they sell him to slave traders heading to Egypt.
He winds up in Pharoah’s dungeon and begins interpreting the dreams of other prisoners. When Pharoah has some wild dreams of his own it becomes Joseph’s moment to shine (and gain freedom).
When we have a dream, some may call us crazy or unrealistic. Others may be offended by our big ideas.
Yet more often than not, when we stick to our dreams we are transformed by the journey, even if the destination we reach is not the one we had in mind.
Sometimes our dreams can be so overwhelming it’s scary to pursue them and we look for distractions.
It is said that taking time to let your mind wander – or daydream – leads to greater creativity and can even make you more productive. So don’t think you are wasting time when you zone out, your mind knows what’s “on your mind” even better than you do.
The intentional action (or Kavanah) that I would like to offer this week is to take a few minutes before going to bed or after waking up to just lay there and let your mind wander.
Thanks for listening and looking forward to being on this journey through the books of the Torah with you!
Rabbi Misha Clebaner 