Shabbat Replay: When Dreams (Kinda) Come True

“Don’t smile because it’s over, cry because it happened."⁠

Why do we so often cry after a huge accomplishment? Why does it never feel truly satisfying when a dream comes true? What is honey times 60? Rabbi Deena unpacks Joseph's tears after achieving his lifelong dream.

This sermon was from the Friday night service on December 10th. For full Friday services, click here. For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar.

Learn more about Mishkan Chicago. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

Be sure to like and subscribe to our podcast for updates on new episodes, and please leave a review. We want to hear from you!

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript here

Transcript

In every marathon I’ve run, I have cried when I crossed the finish line. It doesn’t matter how the race went, how good or bad I’m feeling, each time, like a magic switch was embedded in that finish line pad, I start to cry. Yes, physiologically, I’m in pain, tired, proud, hungry, exhilarated and so on, so I could be crying from physical overload. But each time, I know I’m also crying from a sort of emotional overload. From the sudden feeling of:...it happened. It’s over, I did it. I spent so much time imagining this moment and IT HAPPENED...

And that’s when the tears come. Each and every time, it feels like total system overload. It’s kind of surreal, to be standing in what was once a dream and living it as your actual, real life. To remember the moment I did my first training run of that cycle, and to know all the time and sweat and dedication it took to get to the moment where that dream is totally played out, maybe not exactly how I dreamed it but pretty darn close.

That moment of spontaneous, unstoppable crying is the apex of this week’s parsha: there’s a whole back and forth in last week and into this week’s parsha, in which Joseph plays tricks on his brothers, who 22 years ago tried to kill him then decided they would settle for selling him into slavery because he had been an obnoxious who wouldn’t stop telling them about all the dreams he had where his brothers bow down to him. Joseph frames his youngest brother, Benjamin, for a crime and tries to keep him as a slave, and then watches Judah bow down before him and beg for mercy, and after all this drama, Joseph suddenly breaks down, sends the Egyptians out of the room, and begins to sob. All he says is “Is my father well?” and the brothers are too dumbfounded to speak. 

It’s not totally clear what he’s crying about: Joseph doesn’t say why he’s crying, and interestingly enough, the commentators don’t seem to talk about it either. Which opens the door for us to ask: what is Joseph feeling? Why is he crying?

It’s not the moment of reunion with his long lost brothers, he’s had that already, and it’s not like they apologized to him or recognized him to prompt this episode. Is it sadness for the lost years of relationship? Anger over the suffering he endured? Pride that he is in such a powerful position now? Maybe a little of all of these things, but I imagine there’s also some of that finish line sort of feeling of “OMG, it’s happening, that thing I dreamed about actually happened?!” 

The Talmud teaches that there are five matters in our world which are one-sixtieth of their most extreme manifestations. They are: Fire, honey, Shabbat, sleep, and a dream. Fire is one-sixtieth of the fire of Gehenna, the Jewish sort of purgatory; honey is one-sixtieth of manna, the mystical food the Israelites ate in the desert; Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World-to-Come, the “Good Place” we all end up eventually; sleep is one-sixtieth of death; and a dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy.

This teaching from the Talmud helps us grasp at something that feels out of our reach, helps us imagine emotional and physical experiences that are too overwhelming to actually experience. If honey is just 1/60 of manna, how intensely sweet must manna be? If Shabbat is just 1/60th of the world to come, how joyful and songfilled and delightful must the world to come be?

And if dreams are 1/60th of prophecy, then the moment we realize our dreams… we’re experiencing a little bit of prophecy. And it’s intense! Maybe that’s why we cry when our dreams come true: not from something on the happy-sad spectrum, but because we’ve tiptoed up to the edge of the intensity we can handle- we’re getting a taste of the edge of human experience. Prophecy in the bible is the way God makes Godself known among humans, which means that dreams come true are like a manifestation of the Divine or numinous, the place where our lives connect with the essence of YHVH, that is/was/will be… 

But just as dreams touch the most extreme manifestation of the mystery and divinity of the future, they’re also still fully rooted in our existence. When we achieve our dreams, we realize that this thing that felt mystical and far away, isn’t. And that is very cool and empowering, probably enough to bring us to tears. And, it might be a little disappointing. We know what it took to get to the moment where our dream became reality: we know all the sacrifices we had to make, all the doors that closed as we pursued this one. So perhaps we feel a tinge of disappointment or regret, for all the other dreams we ignored or de-prioritized in pursuit of this one. 

When I read about Joseph crying in front of his brothers, I see him experience this moment of elation and disappointment, the thrill of knowing your dreams have come true and realizing that you’re still you, in your same life. Because while I haven’t dreamed of lording over my family and friends (you’re welcome mom and dad if you’re tuning in tonight), I have dreamed of my own version of success and worked really dang hard to achieve it, only to realize that the world I live in is still imperfect, incomplete, that there are more dreams to be chased and more work to be done.

Exactly three hundred and sixty four days ago, I gave a sermon on dreams- how Joseph was kind of a jerk for sharing his dreams with his family, but also how it was inspirational to see him speak out his big dreams before he knows if they will come true. I spoke last year of my “big dream” being a peloton instructor. That dream has followed me all year- I actually had the email for the peloton talent recruiter saved in my phone, but somehow I’ve never used it. 

I’ve actually been looking forward to the one year anniversary of that sermon- again, not because I thought there was any chance my dream would be fulfilled by now, but because I knew it would give me a chance to check in with my dream and my emotions. And this week, I deleted the email for the talent recruiter. Partly because even emailing that person felt like a big risk, a scary chance to get rejected. But mostly because I’m not confident I want that dream to become a reality, and I know that chasing dreams necessarily means letting other doors close. I’m not sure I want that life of fame and spandex, but I do know I like and want this life of being a Mishkan rabbi. As Joseph shows, and as I’ve felt at each marathon finish line, achieving a dream is no guarantee that we will be happier, or more fulfilled. Joseph achieved his dream, yes, but he also lost decades of being in relationship with his family, didn’t get to see his little brother grow up, and didn’t get to live openly as himself for most of his adult life.

Exactly one year ago today, the FDA endorsed the Pfizer vaccines, the first endorsement in the US. It felt like a moment of dreams coming true, maybe even prophecy: we thought getting a vaccine would be the end of the pandemic. We spent most of 2020, and early 2021, talking about how all we wanted was to hug our grandparents, or go out to eat, or experience singing together… and we have, in fact, realized that dream. But is this moment the one we dreamed of? Not really?

A few other interesting “on this day” things: 

•  in 1948 UN adopts universal declaration of human rights
• 1964 Nobel peace prize is awarded to MLK jr
• 1978- Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accept peace prize; 1994 nobel peace prize awarded to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin; 

December 10th is kind of a big day, it seems.

Each of these moments represents a major dream, fulfilled. But we still don’t live in a world where all people’s rights are respected, where there is racial justice and equality, where there is peace in the Middle East or between Paletinians and Israelis. We’re living in a post-dream world in terms of those accomplishments above, which were indeed momentous and incredible, but we also know we still have a lot to work towards. 

When he regains his composure from crying, Joseph says to his brothers, “Don’t be distressed about having sold me into slavery, it was all part of God’s plan. God sent me to Egypt ahead of you to sustain your life, and the life of so many. We’ve only lived out two years of this famine, which means we have five more years to survive, so why don’t you go get our father Jacob and all move down here so I can look after you and provide for you?”

Joseph’s childhood dream came true, sort of, or maybe more than sort of, and that moment brought him to tears. But then, once he had had a moment with the reality of his long held dream, he needed to start working on the next thing.

Thinking back to these moments in history, I wonder what dreams people began to dream on December 11th, or 12th? I hope each of these people took some time to revel in their accomplishments, before diving back into the next dream. None of these dreams, even in their fulfillment, meant the end of dreaming about a better world, or a world in which we are more safe, happy or free. 

We spend a lot of time thinking about our dreams, and how to achieve them… how much time do you spend thinking about how it will feel when you reach that moment? What about living in the world where that dream has been fulfilled?

Roughly 2 weeks after each marathon I’ve run, I have broken my own previous personal best for a 10k. Not because I was trying to, it just happened. Each time, I went out for a run, and just told myself to run a distance that felt good at a pace that felt good...but after 20 weeks of hard training, and a week or two of good rest, the pace and distance that felt comfortable was better than what I used to be able to do. And maybe that’s the lesson Joseph most teaches us, and that we most need: achieving our dreams isn’t about the achievement, but the potential they unlock, the ways we grow stronger, and more resilient, and more imaginative and more confident because of the work of pursuing them. 

A year ago, I asked you to share a big dream. And I was so blown away and inspired by the dreams you shared. Now, I want to ask: how’s it going? Has anyone achieved their dream? Is anyone still working towards it? Has anyone decided this dream is no longer the right dream? Feel free to share in the chat if you’re tuning in online, or send me an email, or share your dream progress in our community Facebook channel. 

So I want to offer a blessing, or a prayer, that your dreams will come true if you want them to, and that you will be able to use the precious minutes of the next year- all 525,600 of them, if you get where we’re going- to choose the dreams that feel most important and most right. And know, if and when the time comes, we’re here to hug you and cry with you when those dreams become reality.