Allowing Everyone a Chance at the American Dream
These remarks were made at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh on December 12th, 2020 after reading the Torah passages describing Joseph’s dream that got him in trouble with his brothers and his later dream interpretation in Egypt.
A discussion of the Torah reading is followed by comments on restoring the opportunity for everyone to achieve the American dream.
This week’s Torah portion, and the next one, deal with dreams. First, there are Joseph’s dreams that his brothers and father interpret as Joseph believing that they should bow down to him. Then, there are the dreams he interprets for the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker while he is in prison. And finally, in the next week’s Torah portion, Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh.
There are some interesting details of these dreams. Most important, they all are consequential, and they come true. The first dreams prompt Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery, but eventually the brothers do bow down to him when they fearfully encounter him as a leader in Egypt. The dreams Joseph interprets to the baker and the cupbearer also come true. Basically, Joseph says that Pharaoh will lift up their heads, a phrase with two meanings. They do get sprung from prison. The cupbearer’s head is lifted up, in the sense that he is restored to his prestigious role in Pharaoh’s household. The baker does not fare as well. His head is removed and lifted up for display.
Many English translations use different language for Joseph’s interpretation of the cupbearer’s dream than the baker’s, but the Hebrew is identical — yee’sah et rosh’cha — he will lift up your head. This is one of many puns in scripture, as Robert Alter points out in his commentary.
Finally, in next week’s portion, Pharaoh’s dreams are interpreted by Joseph as a warning to stock up on food before a famine, something done and needed. Pharaoh acts on those dreams, and famine is averted.
Now, in the time of these events, dreams were considered portentous, signals about something out in the world, past or future. Sometimes, the meaning was obvious, as with the dreams that Joseph’s brothers and father reacted to. Sometimes, they required expert interpretation. In Pharaonic Egypt, it was believed that one needed to study and apprentice for a long time to become an expert dream interpreter. So, it seemed quite miraculous to Pharaoh and his court that Joseph, lacking academic credentials, could interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. Critically, though, dreams were seen as portending a possible future, one for which the dreamer might prepare.
A few millennial later, Sigmund Freud reinforced the idea that interpreting dreams might require expertise or practice, and he added the idea that dreams could be about what is inside the head rather than what is outside in the world. One sometimes can envision a possible personal future and then prepare for it.
I suggest that here in America, we have connected the dreams about the world and the dreams triggered inside our heads through what we call the “American Dream.” Anyone, we were told in school, if they work hard, can achieve at least a solid middle-class existence.
But, when we say anyone can achieve the American Dream, we are ignoring today’s reality. We have learned, sadly, that skin color, ethnicity, and gender can impose barriers to achieving one’s dream by working hard. Moreover, we now have an economic system that makes it impossible for many people to act on their dreams.
To act on a dream for self-improvement, one needs a little bit of predictable time, a little bit of money, and some backup from family and community. Heroic efforts can overcome lacking some of that, but not all. If your job has been eliminated and you have been pushed into the lower end of the gig economy, you lose a lot of the needed reserve for self-improvement. You must work more hours for less pay, and you must work when someone wants something done, not at predictable hours. Often, the wages are too low to support a family, so any partner you have in child raising also must spend all waking hours “on call.” For many, childcare responsibilities and work leave no time for realizing dreams. Schools do not help with the childcare burden. They are open on days and at hours set for school, government, and taxpayer needs, not to help workers. Earnings in the gig economy often are too low to leave any funds for tuition, transportation to a class, or other costs of self-improvement. You cannot save for the future when you do not have enough to pay the rent.
If we want to assure that all people can do what Pharaoh and his empire could do — respond to their dreams and thereby assure a better life through hard work — we need changes in our society. There are different paths to making it possible for all to work hard to respond to their dreams, but we need to decide, as a society, to pursue one or more of those paths. We might change corporate incentives so it isn’t more expensive to hire someone than to automate away the job, or to make that job a reliable job with decent hours and wages than to rely on “independent contractors.” We might choose to expand school hours to help overcome childcare problems. We might work to remove barriers to stable family arrangements and perhaps even provide support for partners who share child raising. We might explore public or private opportunities for affordable time off for reskilling. We might provide those in need with a credit or voucher to use for reskilling themselves.
The people who cannot, even with hard work, achieve their dreams are often not able to attend worship communities regularly either; the barriers are the same. So, it is a reasonable approximation to say that those of us who can gather, virtually or in person, for Shabbat are the lucky ones. It is our responsibility to push for changes to schooling, training, taxation, and labor policies that allow everyone to achieve dreams through hard work.
Most of us feel blessed that our dreams have been achieved rather nicely, that we have received what we have earned through our efforts. I certainly never expected some of the nice things that have come my way over my 75 years just because I acted on my dream of becoming a scholar. But, not everyone had the opportunities that came from my father having a good engineering job that he could get because the GI Bill covered his college tuition, he worked full time while also a student, and we could share housing with my grandparents. I may have had to share a small bedroom with two brothers, but my parents could, with very hard work, achieve their dreams and that then allowed me to achieve mine.
Today, we live in a world where many who are blocked from achieving their dreams are becoming bitter and even wondering whether it might be time to cast the lucky ones like us into a pit like Joseph’s brothers did with him when they felt frustrated. Or, they are deciding that the cause of their frustration is another racial or ethnic group. This has produced huge divisions in our society. We cannot heal those divisions by declaring those with frustrated dreams to be losers. Rather, it is our responsibility to remove barriers, so all people have a chance to join us as winners, as people able to act on their dreams.