Vayayshev

 Joseph is the dreamer.  

At once, it is a gift and a curse.  It is a gift because the dreams are prescient.  Each one accurately predicts the future.   Joseph prophesies.  Who would not covet the ability to be privy to what will happen tomorrow?

 It is a curse because Joseph is oblivious to the meaning and import of his dreams.  Innocently, Joseph approaches his family and does not flinch from sharing details of a prophesy that has them groveling before their younger sibling.  His brothers realize the gravity of the dream; they recognize the gift and use it as a weapon against him.   Jacob, the father, also understands Joseph’s gift.  Even as he rails against the implication of Joseph’s night visions, he ‘guards what Joseph has spoken.’   

As years pass Joseph changes.  Almost unnoticed Joseph is transformed from dreamer to interpreter of dreams.  Does Joseph even have dreams anymore?  We do not know.  Now Joseph reads meaning into other people’s dreams.   No longer the dreamer, now Joseph is truly the “master of dreams” as he accurately interprets the Pharaoh’s nightmares as well as his fellow prisoners in the dungeons of Egypt.  The dreaming theme is a thread that wends its way through the many layers of Joseph’s life.

Yet, there is another more idiosyncratic, recurrent theme in Joseph’s years, the pit.

First off, what was this pit?  Holes in the earth generally do not appear by themselves.  Where did the pit come from?  The pit was one of many wells dug by Jacob in his search for the desert elixir, water.  Used by his shepherds, drunk by his children in the field and used to irrigate the crops this well was an essential lifeline.  

Seeing the “dreamer” approach them the brothers contemplated murder.  At the last moment an idea seized Reuben.   Instead of fratricide there was a cleaner way to get rid of the nuisance.  Reuben turned to his brothers as Joseph came toward them.   “My brothers, instead of killing him, why not throw Joseph into one of the dry pits?  Our fathers dug many wells without finding water.  There is one here!”  God, knowing what the brothers would plan kept the water level from rising.  Only after Joseph was sold to the passing merchants did the Holy One allow the waters to rise to their natural level. Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg

Second, why does the usually terse Torah state, “The pit was empty.  There was no water in it.”  Of course there was no water in it.  It was “empty!”  

Rabbi Acha interprets this to mean that “no water” means there was no Torah.  Yalkut Shimoni  Not only was Joseph callously thrown into a dank pit but he was deprived of Light while there.  Joseph miserably sat in the pit for two days with no “water” to nourish his soul.

14. from the dungeon. Heb. מִן-הַבּוֹר, lit., from the pit. From the prison, which was made like a sort of pit, and so every [instance of] בּוֹר in the Scriptures is an expression of“pit.” Even if there is no water in it, it is called בּוֹר, fosse in Old French, a pit. and he shaved. in honor of the throne. — [from Gen. Rabbah 89:9]

 

The Hebrew word translated "Pit" is often used as a title for Sheol (see Ps 30:9; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4); see Sheol

 

Thought:

> There’s a midrash: Later in life, on the day that Joseph buries his father, Jacob, he comes across this pit, the pit into which his brothers threw him. And leaning over it, and peering into the darkness he says this blessing: 
Baruch ata adonai, sh’asah li neis bamakom hazeh 
“Blessed be God who made me a miracle in this place.”