VaYeshev: Hold Fast to Dreams

Parashat VaYeshev finds Jacob finally settling down for a bit.  VaYeshev literally means, "and he dwelled." But just as soon as we are told that Jacob has established his household, we also learn of family tensions, consistent with the drama we have seen throughout Genesis.  In this case it is seventeen-year-old Joseph who has aroused the ire and jealousy of his half-brothers.

Joseph's chief crime/ annoying trait, as far as his brothers are concerned, is that he is literally and figuratively a dreamer.  He has dreams, he talks incessantly about them, he believes that they will come true, and he seems to anticipate that the dreams foretell that he will attain a higher status in life than the rest of his family.  Of course, the latter idea does come to fruition, but neither Joseph and his brothers are conscious of what the future holds at this juncture.

So, as has often happened throughout our history to those with unpopular dreams, the brothers conspire in an effort to silence Joseph and divorce themselves from his annoying dreaming.  But their efforts actually set in motion a course of events that will ultimately help Joseph's dreams come to fruition.

The poet Langston Hughes wrote a poem called "Dreams" in the shadow of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.  It declares, "Hold fast to dreams/ for if dreams die,/ life is a broken-winged bird/ that cannot fly. / Hold fast to dreams / for if dreams go / life is a barren field, / frozen with snow."  Hughes reminds us that life devoid of dreams is meaningless, and that we must continue to dream and imagine, even if the end goals of which we dream seem at first to be unattainable.

The Jewish musical group Kol B'Seder (Rabbi Daniel Freelander and Cantor Jeff Klepper) turned Hughes' poem into the chorus of a song (also adding some text from a Yiddish author who used the pen name "Yehoash"), which became popular within NFTY (the North American Federation of Temple Youth).  Like Hughes' poem, it reminds us to keep dreaming, to continue imagining a brighter future.

Please note, I do not own-- nor do I claim to own-- these songs.  Copyrights are held by the various artists.  I include them here for illustrative purposes.
Hold Fast to Dreams- (VaYeshev, Genesis 37:1-40:23)
Music and lyrics by Cantor Jeff Klepper and Rabbi Daniel Freelander, based on poetry by Langston Hughes and Yehoash.  Performed by Kol B'Seder.  The song appears on "Snapshots: The Best of Kol B'seder, Volume 1," which was released in 2004 and is the version heard here.  I have not been able to locate original album information.