G-d gave us two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and ten fingers – but only one tongue. From this we can learn that there is much more to be gained from using our five seG-d gave us two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and ten fingers – but only one tongue. From this we can learn that there is much more to be gained from using our five senses to learn about the world than hours of uselessly selling ourselves.

Once again, we encounter Joseph. Joseph was an excellent listener. His ability to interpret dreams was based on his listening abilities and perceptive capacity to pick up all elements of symbolism inherent in the telling of the dream-story.

Dreams have been used a lot by contemporary psychological schools of thought beginning with Freud. But Judaism notes that most dreams are random nonsense – the highways of the mind criss-crossing and ‘resetting’ themselves. But we are also taught that one sixtieth of a dream is true prophecy, meaning that in all dreams there are kernels of immense truths that our soul perceives in the body’s unconscious state of sleep.

So, some dreams provide channels of communication with the dear departed, sometimes warning of impending dangers. Other dreams reflect a state of stress and anxiety that needs dealing with or it can lead to self-destructive behaviours.

But in the main, dreams are distortions of insights that the soul receives by being on a higher ‘out-of-body’ plane. Being distortions, we should not place much stead in them. But even the code of Jewish law notes that for certain dreams we need to fast or give charity as the dream foretells a possibility of negative outcomes which fasting and charity can neutralize.

Joseph had the amazing gift of being able to decipher the symbols within a dream and associate these with the ‘one sixtieth’ of prophecy within the dream. He made it look easy. But he was a gifted expert. So, don’t you go and try it.