“Know it All” Parashat Vayeshev 5786
What is Joseph possibly thinking? He is clearly his father’s favourite child. He unabashedly tattles on his older brothers. Unsurprisingly, they cannot stand him. They cannot even speak to him. And yet, for some reason, he thinks that the best thing he can do to redress the situation is to tell them about some really fascinating dreams that he has been having in which he is a rock star and they, well, are not. In one dream, their sheaves bow down to his sheave and in another, the sun, the moon and eleven stars, obviously a metaphor for eleven brothers, bow down to him. How could telling his brothers about these dreams possibly be a bad idea?
The Seforno[1] attributes Joseph’s behavior to his age. He was only seventeen and the Torah describes him as [Bereishit 37:2] “a young lad (na’ar)”. My favourite piece of advice for parents is to be sure to ask their teenagers for advice on extremely tendentious topics while they still know everything. According to the Seforno, Joseph was acting like a typical seventeen-year-old. The Or HaChaim HaKadosh[2] disagrees, asserting that Joseph was acting like a mature adult and that there was method to his madness: He believed that his dreams were not mere fantasies – he believed that he was receiving prophecy. By telling his dreams to his brothers, he was asking them for advice on how to interpret his prophecy.
Support for the explanation of the Or HaChaim HaKadosh can be found in a comment made by Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin[3]. Writing in “Chiba Yeteira”, Rabbi Henkin draws our attention to an anomaly in Joseph’s first dream, an anomaly that is so blaringly evident that I have been oblivious to it for the past sixty-two years. Here is how Joseph describes his dreams to his brothers [Bereishit 37:5]: “We were binding sheaves in the field when suddenly my sheaf stood up; then your sheaves gathered around and bowed low to my sheaf.” Waitaminute. Joseph and his brothers were not wheat farmers – they were shepherds. What are they doing in a field gathering wheat? It is precisely this dissonance that makes Joseph so certain that his dream is Divinely sourced. And indeed he is correct: He goes to Egypt, accurately interprets Pharaoh’s dreams, predicts a global drought, and stores enough wheat to feed the world, his family included. In Joseph’s second dream, it is clear the moon is a metaphor for his mother. The problem is that she is long dead. According to Rashi[4], Jacob scolds Joseph for this very reason: How can he possibly believe his dream will come true? I suggest that Joseph is fully aware of the impossibility of his dead mother bowing to him and for this very reason, he is even more convinced that he was experiencing prophecy. As he is only seventeen, he goes to his older brothers for advice. They completely misinterpret his motives. Panicking, they decide to kill him and after a change of heart, they end up selling him into slavery in Egypt. Why do they not entertain the possibility that his dreams might be prophetic?
“Confirmation Bias” is the tendency to notice, seek out, and remember information that supports what we already believe, while ignoring or dismissing evidence that challenges our views. It is a mental shortcut that makes us more comfortable but less objective. Instead of weighing all the facts, we filter reality to fit our expectations, reinforcing our original opinions. Confirmation Bias makes it harder to change our minds even when confronted with strong, contradictory evidence. The result is that we become more entrenched in our beliefs and less open to genuine understanding. Joseph’s brothers hate him. They believe he is out to get them and so they interpret everything he does in a way that confirms their belief. They assume that his dreams are simply examples of his delusions of grandeur and nothing more.
This week I read a fascinating article in “The Free Press.” Remember when scientists declared the Great Barrier Reef “dead” back in 2016? They warned that back-to-back bleaching events meant the reef was doomed forever. It became the poster child for climate panic, a vivid image used to justify sweeping policies and trillions in spending. Fast forward a few years and somehow the reef bounced back. By 2022, coral cover had hit record highs in some regions. So much for “dead.” Nature didn’t follow the script. And yet, the same voices who told us the reef was finished now insist their predictions were still right, just “misunderstood.” Sorry, but this is not about coral. It is about credibility. When scientists make absolute statements about complex systems and those statements do not pan out, trust erodes. People start asking: If they were wrong about this, what else are they wrong about?
Other similar predictions that fell flat: Climate scientists predicted that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013, that children in the UK would never see snow again, and that polar bears would vanish. None of these predictions transpired. These are not cherry-picked anomalies. They are examples of a pattern: bold, absolute predictions that fail, followed by excuses and moving goalposts. Climate models are not crystal balls. They are educated guesses based on assumptions. They cannot capture every variable. But instead of admitting this, too many scientists speak in absolutes. “The reef will die.” “Cities will drown.” “Snow will disappear.” When these predictions fail, the public tunes out, and rightly so.
The reef’s recovery was not magic. It was resilience. Corals evolved to survive stress. This does not mean there is no risk but it does mean the doom narrative was hasty and simplistic. And it raises a bigger point, that we should be more cautious before remaking the global economy based on worst-case scenarios. Alarmist predictions drive bad decisions. Governments rush to impose sweeping measures sold as urgent fixes to avert catastrophe. But when the catastrophe doesn’t arrive on schedule, we pay the price – literally. What should scientists do? Be humble. Stop pretending models are gospel. Use language that reflects uncertainty. Admit what you do not know. And when what you see is not what you predicted, accept the possibility that you may very well be wrong.
Let us see how we can fold this lesson back into the story of Joseph and his brothers. From the outset, his brothers are convinced they did the right thing. They show not one iota of remorse until years later in Egypt, when they are incarcerated by Joseph, whom they do not recognize. Sitting in a prison cell, they admit [Bereishit 42:18]: “Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anguish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded with us. That is why this distress has come upon us.” When did they hear “his pleading”? The Torah never explicitly mentions that Joseph cried out from the pit but it does explicitly mention that they poo-pooed his dreams. Had they listened to him and given his dreams even a modicum of credence, perhaps they would not be sitting in the dungeon.
When we are convinced we already know the answer, we can miss the truth that sits right in front of us. The world is more complicated than our models, our assumptions, or our grudges. If we want to avoid the mistakes of Joseph’s brothers – and the mistakes of modern prophets of doom – we must cultivate humility, patience, and a willingness to admit that sometimes, just sometimes, we might be wrong. That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.
Shabbat Shalom.
Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5786
Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Rachel bat Malka, Iris bat Chana, Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Meir ben Drora, and Hodayah Emunah bat Shoshana Rachel.
[1] Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Seforno, known as “The Seforno”, lived in Italy at the turn of the 16th century
[2] Rabbi Chaim ben Atar, better known as the “Or HaChaim HaKadosh”, lived in Morocco and in Israel in the first half of the 17th century
[3] Rabbi Henkin came to Israel from the U.S. He was the Rabbi of the Beit Shean Valley and then along with his wife, Chana Henkin, founded the Nishmat Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies for Women.
[4] Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known by his acronym “Rashi,” was the most eminent of the medieval commentators. He lived in northern France in the 11th century.
