Dreams, Materialism, and Gelt | Parshas Mikeitz

okay an oldie but a goodie a guy goes to the therapist then he says doctor I don't know if you do dream interpretation but I've been having a recurring dream every single night I dream that I'm a teepee and then I fall back asleep come on it and then I have another dream where I dream that I'm a wigwam and then I fell back asleep and I dream I'm a teepee and I dream that I'm a wigwam and then I'm a teepee and then I have a wigwam the doctor says well it's very simple you're two tents okay all right so I have to roll out such a corny joke because this week's pasha has two dreams Pharaoh king of Egypt has two dreams one dream is about the cows skinny cows eating fat cows another dream is about the stalks of corn scrawny ones or skinny ones devouring the robust ones and it says the reason that he had two dreams well case of interprets it for him is to tell you it's gonna happen quickly that's right so it's a double dream to tell you it's gonna happen quickly now here's the thing last week we all said two dreams one person having two dreams I know there was another two dreams there was the butler as a bakery each had a dream but that was two people having a dream each so that's two from the to two dreams total from two people but there was one person who had two dreams last week one person had two dreams yes yes that two dreams how did the whole thing start that he dreamed about bundling bundles of grain out in the field he and his brothers working out in the bill and they're all their bundles bowed down to his bundle and then he dreamed about how the Sun in the moon and the stars bowed down to him so you also had to dreams funny thing is that when Pharaoh has two dreams we need an explanation why - why - dreams why not one dream when Joseph has two dreams okay so you just had two dreams we need to understand that in addition the question is we always look for a connection like the Shalako this says that the parsha of the week connects to the time of the year and vice-versa so what is our Hanukkah connection from the Parshin specifically this idea of the double dreams of pyrite and of Yosef okay so I'm going to tell you a little story a little parable it's a story that never happened but it's so it's so good it's worth telling the story is about you gonna see very quickly why it never happened because they're talking well there are talking animals in the story but you're gonna see that right away from the very beginning alright so once upon time there was a goat and the goat was crying and the owl who was the wisest of the animals he saw the goat crying he says why are you crying so the goat says because I hear everybody talking about the stars about how beautiful the stars are and I have never seen stars because I'm don't like this I'm hunched over floor feet on the ground and as much as I lift up my head I can't get an angle to be able to see stops so I hear about the stars and I've never experienced them and that's why I'm Kronk so the owl says all right go we're gonna work on this together we're gonna do next retching exercises and we're gonna get you able to see the stars so they start working this regimen stretching every night they were stretch and stretch and finally after a month the go is flexible enough this is the fateful night where it's going to see the stars for the first time in his life and they go off into a little clearing in the middle of the forest and it's a clear night no clouds no nothing and one two three and then go uh and he finally he gets his neck tilted back enough he's looking right up at the stars and then he looks back down and he starts to walk off doesn't even comment he just starts walking off so the owl comes flying up behind him you say can't go how was it and the good to say yeah it's okay yeah all says well how does it go what I mean it's okay we've prepared for this for a month you wanted to see the stars and then we saw the stars a little bit you know a little reaction here go they go trucks and he's like I told you it's okay now says go what do you mean it's just okay the goat says owl everyone was talking about the Stars the stars the stars I assumed stars or something really special they're pretty but you can't eat them that was the big disappointment of the coke he heard people saying they were raped they were raving about stars so what does the goat assume people are raving about stars they must be really yummy right because for a goat you put everything in your mouth you chew it up you eat it right so he sees these beautiful stars he's looking them can't bite them so that what's the point of the stars as I said it's a parable what's the point of the parable the parable is about materialism materialism does not mean as the common misconception conspicuous consumption you don't have to have the newest car the newest clothes newest styles conspicuous consumption is one of the symptoms of materialism but materialism is deeper than that materialism simply is a worldview which is primary or sometimes exclusive exclusive emphasis on the material physical reality so that only that which is tangible physical is deemed worthy where as abstraction that which is you can't touch that which you can't experience with the five senses that which you need to imagine in order to experience that's considered completely worthless that's materialism there is a world view it goes back to ancient Greek times called epicureanism and it was founded by a guy named Epicurus and from this we derive the rabbinical term for a heretic epic iris who was Epicurus and what was Epicureanism very simple he said don't fear God don't fear death live for today if it feels good it's right if it feels bad it's wrong he was a hedonist mashita that was his ideology he believed in that and he was a deep philosopher he can explain to you why that was so and of course that influence that ideologies influence on Jews was took form as a denial in the fact that there is anything beyond the physical reality and therefore you know eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die you know just live it up in this world that's all there is materialism is the worldview that this world is all there is which is fundamentally antithetical to the Jewish world view which is this world is the tip of the iceberg the physical world what we call the philosophers called the phenomenological universe the world in which stuff takes place is the tip of the iceberg what does that mean there's a story that the critical about should ever go Bharat's when he was being persecuted by the communists he was arrested on several occasions he was interrogated and during one particular incident where he was being interrogated by the the KGB who were masters at psychological torment they were frustrated with him because they saw he wasn't getting flustered they were masters at breaking people down and he wasn't he wasn't buckling so one of them pulled out a gun a revolver and he started brandishing the revolver and he said to the frita Kariba this little toy has been known to make people talk and the physical episode that little toy is effective on people who have one world and many gods but I have one God and two worlds what does that mean people have one world and many gods means materialism there's only one reality the empirical by the way science is a gift Hashem sent us the scientific method so we could discover more about how the universe around us works it's a beautiful thing the corruption of science is that people assumed that it's the only tool for knowing truth and therefore what happened is people will only assume something is true if you can test it scientifically which means the scientific method means empirical it means if you can see it if you can touch it if you can taste it you can experience it with your five senses then it's real so what happened is instead of understanding that the scientific method is a method for one way of knowing one kind of truth it became enshrined as the only way of knowing truth so therefore the only thing that's true is something I can touch and taste and feel and see and which negates the entire notion of a reality beyond the physical so materialism has one world well I want to tell you something Stephen Hawking did a very evil thing besides for the fact that he used his political clout as a as a academic celebrity to boycott Israel he said a terrible thing he came out with a proclamation he said there is no heaven and he knew that people would believe him because he's a genius or he was a genius and he was as the expert the top expert in his field but you know why that that was an evil thing to do because it was disingenuous he was an expert in the physical universe the first of all it's a little bit it's a little bit of a it's a little bit arrogant to say don't worry we checked out the whole physical universe there's no habit like okay but second of them but second of all does he think that I think or other religious people think that happen as a physical location that it's in the physical universe Stephen Hawking is an expert in the physical universe okay but I don't think that heaven was a planet that's a different dimension it's a different reality it's a spiritual reality so his expertise in the physical world doesn't qualify and to make any proclamations about spiritual realities so that's the point materialism is like the go to says oh the pretty but you can't eat them unless it's something physical I have no value for it Judaism comes and says there's no such thing what are you talking about I have one god they have two Worlds two worlds means that there are two realities operating simultaneously and this is what the devil explained when he told the story about the Frederik another very boldly saying I have one God in two worlds then I've explained what that means it doesn't mean I don't I'm not afraid if you kill me because if you kill me I'll leave this world I'll go to the next row that's not what it means I have two worlds mates right now right now I have two worlds doesn't just mean I'm not afraid of death because I believe in an afterlife that's not what it means it means at this very moment what you are looking at is the tip of the iceberg it's a facade it's the very very outer shell of reality but there's so much more depth there's so much more happening even at this very moment you can't see now who are the who are the Communists the communists were Marxists what is Marxism Marx didn't call his belief Marxism he called the dialectical materialism dialectical materialism is the belief that economics the division of resources money runs all of history and that all of history is basically people fighting over competing over resources and the ultimate resolution of all problems will be when you've divvy up the resources properly and that's why the Marxist and Marx did say this religion is the opiate of the masses because if you think about religion if you think about spiritual reality that will he will call it a spiritual reality if you think about spirituality it's an opiate it's it's it's distracting you from the only real the only reality is the physical reality so the only thing that matters is deviating up physical resources and you're going to distract someone from that and to talk about spirituality from a Marxist point of view that's why they were atheist so for the previous rabbit to say to this communist I have two worlds and what he meant two worlds right now that was the most anti Marxist statement that he could make and what it was is fundamental Judaism Judaism it's two worlds at once everything that happens every experience we have is operating simultaneously on two planes the material and spiritual a guy once said to me he's like you know I also speak I was speaking somewhere I don't want to say where but I was speaking somewhere and came up to me after my talk it's like you know I'm also a speaker he says but I speak about whatever was he like a professional topic so he says I'll tell you what I tell my rabbi that you speak about spirituality I speak about reality I said you shouldn't really say that because that's very unjú ish you're implying that spirituality is something other than reality there are two aspects of reality there's a material aspect we don't think we're not Buddhist god forbid we don't think that the fence the physical world is an illusion the physical world is real but that's one aspect of reality and then there's a spiritual aspect of reality so they're both reality oh and by the way which one is primary spiritual one right so at any rate this is the answer to the question when powdery has two dreams we have to ask why is he having two dreams why to dreams why not one one yessuf when a Jew has two dreams set to dreams is one dream he had one dream one message the message was that he was going to become ruler over his brothers and over the world but that one message that one dream was depicted on two levels first bundling bundles of grain out in the field a physical symbolism for the message and the second version of it was the Sun in the Stars and the moon to represent the celestial beings the heavenly bodies a higher reality because everything in a Jews life takes place on a lower plane and a higher plane it's not two different messages it's one message on two levels that's with everything in Judaism the famous story I felt quickly that the divyam the tons are off was a place accused to answer many chile's many rabbinical responsa and he had such a quick mind what he used to do is he would answer the previous letter while he was reading the next letter so he would be doing two letters at once and once he was doing one letter at a time one particular letter he was only reading that ladder and only answering that letter he wasn't double he wasn't doing double duty so his sons saw him and they said why why Donna what's different so he says well I'll tell you why right now I'm corresponding with the lubavitcher rebbe which the sanzu Roth's contemporary was the Tanakh Sadek who was also a place ik Halak ik cada fire he says and when I'm riding with the term they ostensibly were having a discussion about halacha the you know their Halak correspondences but at the same time we're also discussing Kabbalah because everything we're discussing the technical ha logic realm also has its parallel in the spiritual realms so I am doing two letters two letters in one ladder so that's why Asus with with para we have to explain why to dreams with the age of universe explained to dreams whether 2d was one dream two versions of the dream just like a Jews life it's one life two levels two parallel level spiritual and material simultaneously that's the connection Taconic mentioned Epicureanism which was an ancient Greek belief what did the Greeks hate they hated that we attributed spiritual qualities to material things in other words what was the Shem entire what was the pure oil in the Masonic dish was an extra virgin olive oil that wasn't the part it wasn't a certain grade of physical purity Shemin Tomi and Shem entire if you would send them to a lab and you had asked analyse this oil tell if there's a physical difference between them there is no physical difference that was the point when the Greeks came in they defiled the oil they want to make a statement look it's the same oil and we insisted we said no it's not enough that it's physically the same oil yeah but all of it was first drop oil that's a good question it was a certain grade physically but all of that of all of that oil was who she was of that physical grade what was difference between the ones that we wanted to use the ones we didn't want to use only a spiritual difference whether it was ritually defiled or not so the Greek statement was there's no difference its physical stuff it's physical oil if it's physically good use it the Greeks were hedonist and they were into physical fitness for its own sake which is why we jelly doughnuts so that we won't look we won't look like Greeks right but the Jewish worldview is no it can't just be physical even a physical thing like physical out olive oil it's not just about well uh it'll burn it'll make like no it has to be spiritually the right type of oil and that's why the ritual purity status of the oil mattered so much to the Jews and finally that is the reason why we give Konica gelt why do we give money to children I don't mean the chocolate gelt with the foil why do we give money to children that album says that when the the the the Greeks were oppressing the Jews one of the things they did is that they they're our mom right Sparta Yard number milena Michelle you throw they set forth their hands upon the Jewish wealth about your ever asks what's with this poetic language if they stole it say they stole it why they stretched forth their hands upon you as well so the never says on a deeper level what it means that album is implying stretch forth their hands upon Jewish wealth is similar to team oak aluminum they've defiled all the oil the filing the oil didn't mean they stole the oil that mean they vandalized it not in the physical sense it meant that they touched it and they mean it spiritually impure so too they stretch forth their hand upon Jew as well does it have to mean that they confiscated Jewish wealth it could mean they left the Jews to have their wealth but they said because we are the dominant culture and we're hellenizing you we want you to have your wealth but use it with a Greek touch in other words if you have money spend it on nice things don't try to elevate it make it spiritual spiritual and physical those are different things and we insisted we said no if we have material wealth we have to use it for spiritual goals because for a Jew material and spiritual have to coincide in everything and that's what we fought for and in order to celebrate that we were victorious what do we do we take something material the most material thing there is money we give it to a child and we say and now you have a teachable moment you figure out how much is my sir how much is my mission where do you want to give that stuck up now the the 90 or 80 percent that's left over for you what are you gonna buy with it what are you gonna do get it a you gonna buy candy you're gonna buy Sodom and the whole thing becomes a teachable moment where you realize money the physicality can't just remain physicality physicality has to be transformed into something of spiritual value because that's the line of a Jew the physical and spiritual coinciding together that's the Lassen Konica that's the two dreams of Yosef and that's that's Judaism all year round two worlds at all times two planes of existence coinciding and everything that we do