SDMB weekly Bible Study (SDMBWBS)-Week 22 Genesis 37

[stpauler]

New thread for Genesis 38

[cmkeller]

CK Dexter Haven:

cmkeller: I’m actually studying Tractate Berakhot, which includes a section on dreams. The Talmud is very clear, that dreams are NEVER fully predictive, and they use Joseph as the prime example. Rashi, of course, is much later. However, thanks for the info, I wasn’t aware that Rashi thought the moon was Bilhah.

OK, looks like you caught me here. In these threads, for this mixed audience, I try to keep things as close to a surface reading as possible (because to many here, Tamlud and Midrash and commentaries seem like post-hoc apologia, much as I believe it’s genuine ancient tradition), and sometimes that means that what I say is a simple answer, but I know personally that deeper examination will reveal that simple meaning to not really be true (and upon re-reading this post before submitting, I’m struck by how meta that statement is, as you’ll see). In fact Rashi cites that portion of Berakhot as well. I’m going to have to step away from my usual reticence to go into depth in these threads.

Let’s start with your description of Rashi as “much later”. For those of you not familiar with Jewish Bible commentary: the Talmud and Midrash were written in Israel and Babylon over the period from the year 200 to about 500 CE. Rashi is one of the most highly respected commentators on the Bible and on the Talmud, and lived and wrote in the 11th century. While I did cite Rashi as my source, because he is concise and his commentary can be found in a readily-available text, he is almost never the original source of the material in his commentary, but rather, draws from Midrashim, which are as old as the Talmud is. That particular Rashi is sourced from Midrash Genesis Rabbah, 84:11. The entire Rashi piece (translation by Artscroll) is as follows. The portion I underlined is the quote from the Talmud in Berakhot that you brought up, so it will be easy to recognize:

@Rashi on Genesis 37:10

come?"]But hasn’t your mother already died? But Jacob didn’t know that the words apply to Bilhah, who raised Joseph like his mother. Our Rabbis learned from here that there is no dream without some senseless matters in it. But Jacob intended to remove the matter from the heart of his sons, so that they should not be jealous of Joseph. This is why he said to Joseph, “Will your mother and I (etc) come?”, just as it is impossible about your mother, so is the rest nullified.

It sounds like Rashi is saying that Jacob did not expect at least the “mother” portion of the dream to come true, which is what I said in my earlier post, right? However, an examination of the original source reveals that that’s NOT the case. Here’s the full Midrash passage (translation by me, bolding mine):

@Midrash Genesis Rabbah 84:11

(snipping out an unrelated point about Jeremiah) Rabbi Levi said in the name of Rabbi Hama son of Hanina, “This is what our father Jacob thought: the resurrection of the dead would happen during his lifetime, as he says, “Will I and your mother and your brothers come, etc…”, he should have merely said “I and your brothers”, but is your mother not already dead? Yet he said, “I and your mother and your brothers.” However, our father Jacob did not know that these words applied to Bilhah, maid of Rachel, who had raised him as his mother.”

Though Rashi omits the bolded portion for the sake of conciseness (his Torah commentary is sort of a Reader’s Digest version of Midrash and Talmud), it’s clear that Jacob indeed expected that the “mother” portion would come true - he expected it to happen through a miraculous resurrection (for those who don’t know, an eventual resurrection of the dead is, according to Maimonides, one of the core beliefs of Judaism.) rather than the more simple and mundane explanation that the Midrash quotes from Rabbi Hama. Yet Rashi also points to the Talmud’s statement that Jacob’s statement indicates that every dream has some nonsense in it. What is Rashi’s point (and, by extension, his understanding of that passage of Talmud)? That’s what the last (and completely original) statement of the quoted Rashi tells us, reconciling the two: Jacob made that statement purely to allay his other sons’ jealousy. Jacob could have only expected that to work if there is a general principle that dreams always include some element of nonsense, even though he personally believed this one to be true (and in fact it was, though not the way he understood it). The fact that Jacob used such an argument is the Talmud’s proof that in general, every dream contains some element of nonsense.