Joseph’s dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars.
Dream On — not the dismissive phrase our culture sometimes uses to mock hope, but the ancient call our tradition gives to test, discern, and live the dreams that come from God. When the world grows cynical, when spiritual longing is dismissed as naïveté, the Joseph stories invite us to Dream On in a different way — not to chase fantasy, but to remain attuned to revelation and committed to action. With that direction, we return to two different Josephs of the Scripture and the dreams that guided them.
The Torah teaches, “If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream.” Yet the prophet Zechariah warns, “The dreamers tell false dreams and give empty consolation.” The rabbis resolved this tension with surprising clarity. Rav Hisda—an incisive Talmudic sage known for his teachings on the subtle workings of the spiritual life—explains “a dream which is not interpreted is like a letter unread” (Berakhot 55a). Some dreams steady us toward God; while others lure us toward illusion or fear or vanity..
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the great 18th-century Hasidic master, adds that dreams can also reflect our own confusions and desires. Spiritual attention without discernment leads to delusion; discernment without spiritual openness leads to cynicism. To walk with God is to hold both—attuned to revelation, yet grounded and ethically awake. Dream On requires both sensitivity and practical wisdom. Not every stirring of the imagination carries divine authority, yet the faithful heart remains alert to God’s call.
How do we understand our dreams? Are they divine messages—or fragments of ego, fear, and fantasy? Dreams are not deciphered through formulas, seminars, or spiritual techniques. They become meaningful only within relationships through the inner life a person cultivates with the Holy One. Rav Kook—the first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel and a visionary of profound spiritual optimism—taught that great dreams enlarge the soul and carry hints of the world as it could be. They are glimpses of redemption that invite us into partnership with God. But he also cautioned that dreams ungrounded from reality can drift into delusion. So… Dream On means holding both truths: staying spiritually open yet practically rooted.
This brings us back to the Joseph of the Torah. Joseph dreams boldly—and suffers for it. His brothers hear arrogance. Jacob hears confusion. But God hears possibility. Joseph’s youthful dreams were incomplete, but not false. They required maturity, humility, suffering, and service before they became revelation. Joseph had to Dream On but also grow into the kind of person who could carry those dreams responsibly.
And so too with the Joseph of the Brit Hadashah . Joseph the carpenter dreams of angels, danger, rescue, and divine mission. His dreams are not about his own elevation but about responsibility. His dreams command action: “Take the child.” “Flee to Egypt.” “Return.” These are not escapist fantasies. These are dreams that demand courage, obedience, and sacrifice. Joseph dreams, and then Joseph moves.
Into this lineage steps Yeshua. As Sholem Asch, a renown Yiddish author, wrote,
“A little less than two thousand years ago, there came into our world among the Jewish people a personage who gave substance to the illusion perceived by our fathers in their dream. Just as water fills the hollowness of the ocean, so did he fill the empty world with the spirit of the One living God. No one before him and no one after him has bound our world with the fetters of law, of justice, and of love, and brought it to the feet of the One living Almighty God as effectively as did this personage… He raised man from his probationary state as a beast, from his dumb, blind, and senseless existence, gave him a goal and a purpose, and made him part of the divine. He stands before our eyes as an example and a warning—both in his divine form and in his human one—and demands of us to follow his example and carry out his teachings.” (One Destiny: An Epistle to the Gentiles)
Yeshua embodies the dream Joseph dreamed—the dream of the faithful servant who brings salvation through steadfast obedience. He descends into His own Egypt—Gethsemane, betrayal, Roman power—so that we might learn what it means to serve God with our whole selves. He reveals that dreams are interpreted not through cleverness but through faithful action. We come to understand God’s call by living God’s call.
The two Josephs, together with Yeshua, teach us that authentic dreams—God-breathed dreams—always call us toward wholeness, toward service, toward a deeper anchoring in God’s purposes. False dreams flatter us. True dreams transform us. False dreams console without changing anything. True dreams compel us to act. To Dream On, then, is not to float above reality but to bring God’s possibilities down into it. It is to remain spiritually awake while walking the very real ground of responsibility and service. It is to test our longings, submit them to God, and pursue the ones that draw us toward holiness, justice, compassion, and truth.
Our task is not simply to dream, nor simply to work. It is to do both together—to Dream On with discernment, and to live those dreams with courage. If our lives shine with compassion, if our lips speak freely of God, if our dreams begin in heaven and take shape through obedience, then perhaps we will earn the right to say with integrity, not only on Shabbat but every day: Ana avda de-Kud’sha b’rikh hu—we are the servants of the Holy Blessing One.
May the God who gave dreams to both Josephs and fulfilled them in Yeshua awaken in us that same dream of holy service.