CLERGY CORNER: Plenty and famine

Posted on 17 December 2015 by LeslieM

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, has two dreams. In the first, Pharaoh sees himself standing over the Nile River, “And, behold, there came up out of the River seven cows, handsome and fat of flesh and they fed in the reed grass. And, behold, seven other cows came up after them out of the River, ugly and lean of flesh and stood by the other cows upon the bank of the River. And the ugly and lean cows ate up the seven handsome and fat cows.” [Genesis 41: 18-20]

In the second dream, Pharaoh sees seven thin, shriveled ears of grain swallow seven fat ears of grain.

None of the wise men of Egypt can offer Pharaoh a satisfactory interpretation of his dreams. Then, the “young Hebrew slave,” Joseph, is summoned from his dungeon to the palace. Joseph interprets the dreams to mean that seven years of plenty, symbolized by the fat cows and fat grain, will be followed by seven years of hunger, reflected by the lean cows and the shriveled ears. The seven years of famine will be so powerful that they will “swallow up” and obliterate any trace of the years of plenty.

Joseph then advises Pharaoh on how to deal with the forthcoming crisis: “Now Pharaoh must seek out a man with insight and wisdom and place him in charge of Egypt. A rationing system will have to be set up over Egypt during the seven years of surplus,” Joseph explains, “in which grain will be stored for the upcoming years of famine.” [Genesis 41: 33-36]

Pharaoh is blown away by Joseph’s vision.

In Pharaoh’s first dream, he saw how the seven ugly and lean cows that came up after the seven handsome cows “stood near the other [fat] cows upon the bank of the River.” In other words, there was a moment during which both sets of cows coexisted simultaneously, and only afterward did the lean cows proceed to swallow the fat cows.

It was this detail of the dream that caused the wise men of Egypt to reject the interpretation that Joseph would later offer to Pharaoh and compelled them to present all types of farfetched explanations.

For how is it possible that plenty and famine should coexist? Either you have fat cows alone or you have lean cows alone, but you can’t have them both together! The seven years of famine cannot be present during the seven years of surplus. Either you have lots of food, or you have no food. But you can’t be both satiated and hungry at the same time.

All of us experience cycles of plenty and cycles of famine in our lives. There are times when things are going very well: We are healthy, successful and comfortable. Often, during such times, we fail to invest time and energy to cultivate genuine emotional intimacy with our spouse, to develop real relationships with friends and to create a sincere bond with G-d. We feel self-sufficient and don’t need anybody in our lives.

Yet, when a time of famine arrives, when a serious crisis erupts in our lives, we suddenly feel the need to reach out beyond ourselves and connect with our loved ones and with G-d.But we don’t know how.

Because when we do not nurture our relationships and our spirituality during our years of plenty, when the years of famine confront us, we lack the tools we so desperately need to survive the crisis.

This is the essence of Joseph’s wisdom: You must never detach the years of plenty from the years of famine. When you experience plenty, do not let it blind your vision and desensitize you from what is truly important in life.

The priorities you cultivate during your “good times” should be of the kind that will sustain you during your challenging times as well. If you are investing your time and energy in things that will prove futile when the climate of your life changes and will not hold you up when challenges come, you might want to re-examine your present choices. Why wait for the day you will have to say, “If I would have only realized…”

Rabbi Tzvi Dechter is the Director of Chabad of North Broward Beaches located at 4081 N. Federal Hwy., #100A, Pompano Beach, FL 33064. For all upcoming events please visit www.JewishLHP.com.

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