Interinclusion » Article Archive » Circus of Dreams (Part 8)

Circus of Dreams (Part 8)

By Asher Crispe: November 26, 2012: Category Decoding the Tradition, Inspirations

To Light Up the Night

The original code breaker of the Torah is Yosef/Joseph. Pharaoh in Genesis 41:45, even dubs him with the name Tzafnat Paneiach on account of his uncanny ability to explain hidden (tzefunot) matters such as the encrypted message in dreams. He is the figure who is most adept at probing the depths of the unconscious–a skill which is alluded to in the word ‘tzafnat’ [צפנת] or ‘concealed things’ which equals 620 in gematria. 620 is the value of the word Keter [כתר] or ‘Crown’–the symbol of the unconscious as we explained previously. Yosef’s/Joseph’s special talent involves making the unconscious conscious or illuminating the inner darkness of the soul. Information can be dispatched at night. Secret signals can be intercepted and decoded. In this way, he plays the part of the dream reader.

However, the problem with this description is that it presents the decryption of dreams as a mostly passive uncovering of a predetermined meaning. To borrow an analogy from the game of chess, one could generalize three levels of play:

1) I am merely reacting to the moves of my opponent which forces me back in a defensive posture. If the chess game embodies the entirely of life, then I am encountering a reality with a mind of ‘its’ own and whose positions and plays precede my own. The universe happens out there in an objective fashion which I cannot fully anticipate but will have to respond to. This mentality greets a decisive world whose concrete meaning hems me in, and to some degree decides for me what will be my best counter move in the course of the game.

2) With advanced training I may begin to go on the offensive. Using my expert skills I attempt to plan ahead and think through not only my own best course of action but also to try to anticipate the most probable moves of my opponent. Optimally, I may be able to put him or her on the defensive. Thus having to react to my moves, the other player may even fall victim to the ruses and traps that I set that leads him or her down the path that I want to take the game. Such an active ‘positioning’ in the game of life turns the tables on reality and asserts my subjectivity upon the world whose objectivity sways in doubt. The objective world suddenly appears always incomplete and receptive to my acting upon it. While it may still determine me, I can also determine it. Nothing is fixed.

3) The final and highest level of play completely reverses roles. The other player may think that he or she is making a move freely and autonomously without interference from me, but in essence I am playing both sides of the board. I am thinking so far ahead that I am able to stage setup after setup whereby the other player does exactly what I want him or her to do. In effect, I am programming their every move, often without them realizing it. On the meta-chess board of reality, this level of playing skill turns the human actor into the engine of change that transports the vehicle of the world to his or her intended destination. Playing with minimal opposition amounts to a person being empowered to redefine reality at will. The world will be the way it will be because that is how I say it will be. Reality as dream follows after the interpretation that consciously determines it.

In the case of Yosef/Joseph, he is not reacting to the preset meaning in the dreams. No message is crystalized that he must hack into and reveal. Nor is he simply giving a push to a pre-existing set of meanings so as to tip them in the direction of signifying what he desires. In Chassidut, the exalted stature of Yosef/Joseph comes from his soul root which lies above the Great Chain of Being. While in this world, he is not bound by this world or ensnared in any of the kinks of the Chain. His wondrous ability reflects his soul’s origin in the spiritual aspect of Creation known as the ohr ha’sovev kol almin or ‘the light which surrounds [like the Samech] all worlds.’ Able to circumnavigate all worlds without getting anchored in any one in particular, Yosef/Joseph transcends the objective limits of the natural world. He de-stratifies reality toppling all of the old hierarchies. For him the supernatural is natural. External ‘reality’ cannot keep up appearances. He sees right through it or more specifically he perceives the code language that generates the illusion of external reality which clues him into the fact that it’s all a dream simulation.

With the coding language within reach and with sufficient proficiency in not only reading but writing in it, Yosef/Joseph essentially collapses the distinction between reading and writing. As he reads, he writes. The dream means what he says it does, not because it always already meant that (and he just was privy to the secret which he is now revealing), but because his act of interpretation reorders and completes reality. Reading becomes rewriting. As with a quantum system, where the very act of measurement changes what’s measured, Yosef’s/Joseph’s own blend of conscious determination assembles and adds to any objective kernel of truth and pops it into a shape of his self-styled design.

If the two sides of the chess board are the inner subjective world verses the outer objective one, Yosef/Joseph knows the quantum mechanics of reality allows the conscious mind to influence both sides simultaneously. Prior to speaking/measuring (the letter Peh or ‘mouth’) only experiences an as-of-yet unclarified and undifferentiated ‘night of the world’ as symbolized by the circle (and ‘literalized’ by the Samech). The mouth leads the free associations which spin the circle of the Samech according to its intent, thereby joining together all of the fragmented pieces of our dream-reality.

One of the most extensive meditations on dreams in relation to Yosef/Joseph can be found in a Chassidic discourse of the Mittler Rebbe (Torah Chaim: Bereshit 282d-289d) where he tackles the inner significance creating reality through interpretation. Acknowledging that the ‘reality’ of the dream goes hand in hand with the ‘dream’ of reality, the Mittler Rebbe launches his reflections from the verse wherein Yosef/Joseph receives his blessing from his father Yaakov/Jacob (Genesis 49:22): “Yosef is a fruitful son, a fruitful son upon the well….” Honing in on the word “porat” [פרת] which traditionally translates as ‘fruitful’ and idiomatically implies ‘creativity,’ he exposes a number of encoded permutations of the root letters (note that the word also leads with the vowel holam which once again means a ‘dream’) whose juxtaposition unravels the key tensions in the precise nature of his creativity.

Yosef/Joseph is not merely the artistic type. His profound creativity entails the production of reality itself. When Rochel/Rachel named him in Genesis 30:24 the syntax of the verse at first glance reads: “…[May] God [Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei] add to me another son” wherefrom we glean that the Yud-Samech-Peh (Feh) or ‘yosef’ [יסף] means ‘addition.’ In this rendering of the verse, an extra child is given or ‘added’ by God to his mother. Yet, syntax in Hebrew always remains multivalent. The ‘adding’ can also be unto the Divine name itself, the Tetragrammaton which means ‘Being’ or ‘Reality.’ With this twist, a radical new reading emerges out of the phrase: Yosef/Joseph represents the ‘superadding’ of new dimensions onto Reality. He is ‘above’ the Great Chain of Being which is embodied in the Divine name Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei with each letter as one of its links. We might put forth that he personifies the Reality above Reality or that which is ‘beyond’ Being (we could even enlist the Greek word that appears in the writings of Plato hyperousia as the term for that which is ‘beyond’ (hyper) Being (ousia).

As that which transcends Being, Yosef/Joseph nonetheless descends into the ontological realm. He adds to it. Being is not closed but open. That which does ‘not-yet’ exist (like the philosophic category of the ‘Not-Yet’ in the thought of philosopher Ernst Block) can be added to what already exists which introduces the complex dynamic of the Being of Becoming and the Becoming of Being. Just as our world undergoes continuous Creation something from nothing at each and every moment, so too the appearance of this Divine name shines to us anew. Novel revelations of Divinity accompany the guaranteed freshness of our universe. Constant influx of additions and amendments to the world unseal the ‘objective’ as something existing in and of itself and grant us access to the process of world-forming itself. We add to the picture of the dream, co-creating in emulation of the Divine speech-act of Creation through our words of dream interpretation.

Fruit, as the image of creativity, extends the creative process indefinitely: from the seed to another tree, to another fruit and seed, to another tree ad infinitum. Besides this endless creative process or recursive function, the same letters Peh-Reish-Tav or ‘porat’ (fruitful) can also be rearranged to spell Peh-Tav-Reish or ‘po’ter’ [פתר] meaning to ‘interpret’ as in the expression ‘pitron cholamot’ an ‘interpreter of dreams.’ Thus, the specific manner in which Yosef/Joseph surmounts a present reality comes from his rendering that reality as a dream and then augmenting it or adding to it via his interpretation. Change the world!–all you need to start is to change you interpretation. At a certain point the creation of the dream and the creation of the dream interpretation and the Creation of the world all intersect.

As to the detailed technique for accomplishing this, the Mittler Rebbe cites a third permutation of Tav-Peh-Reish to yield ‘tofer’ [תפר] whose root means one who ‘sews,’ a ‘tailor’ or ‘seamstress.’ The capacity to take the disjoined pieces of the fabric of our experience (the one’s that do not naturally fit together and thus seem dreamlike) and stitch them together is the most profound image of the dream interpreter. The way in which I sew it all together, my interpretation as a piecing together of an incomplete reality where the connections are made at non-linear intervals based on my intentional insertions, mends my world and offers it wearable and fitting significance. The plasticity of the tread (while linear under tension) follows the semi-circular motions of my hand (carving half the Samech from above the cloth and half from below) until my reality has been made whole. While I may have not made the cloth nor cut it up, I am enjoined to take it in hand and provide from the inner aspects of myself the thread of thought that is spoken through the eye of the needle until my life and my world have been made consciously complete. Thus, we can comprehend why the word for rectification (tikun) also refers to garments. Suiting up (perhaps like superman) may be all that’s needed to fix the world.