In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeishev, Joseph shares his dreams with his brothers. He thinks he’s simply telling them what he saw. But they hear something entirely different. His dreams stir up all the old hurts in the family: competition, favoritism, the fear of being overlooked. Their reaction reveals more about their own pain than it does about Joseph himself. 

Before they throw Joseph into the pit- to be sold into slavery, they call him “the dreamer,” not as a compliment but as a dismissal. Yet the name hints at something deeper: Joseph has always been someone who can sense possibilities before others can see them.

The Talmud teaches, “A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not read.” Each dream holds meaning only when we choose to open it. And each of us knows what it feels like to be the dreamer; to sense something hopeful or something difficult long before anyone else understands. Sometimes that gift is met with warmth, and sometimes it is met with misunderstanding or resistance.

Hanukkah arrives right in the middle of these themes. It asks us to look again—at the dark, at our doubts, at the sparks we’re not sure anyone else can see—and to make room for light anyway. The Maccabees were dreamers, too; they believed in something larger and brighter than their circumstances suggested. Their courage was to trust the dream long enough for others to join them.

As we light the candles this year, may we honor the dreams within us—the ones that guide us, challenge us, heal us, and invite us into deeper connection. May we learn to open the “letters” of our own lives with curiosity and compassion. And may we greet one another’s dreams not with fear, but with the warmth, generosity, and community that KI makes possible every single day.

Wishing you a Hanukkah filled with light, meaning, and the courage to keep dreaming.