בס"ד
Parshas MiKetz opens with Pharaoh experiencing a horrible nightmare. In it he sees seven lovely healthy cows that are then eaten by the worst looking cows he's ever seen. Even so the seven horrible cows still look as horrible as ever. Pharaoh is so shaken that he wakes up. Even so he falls asleep again and has another bad dream similar to the first. Again he is by the Nile River and sees seven beautiful ears of grain on one stalk. They in turn are eaten by seven emaciated ears of grain, blasted by the east wind, but also continue to look as miserable as ever. Pharaoh wakes up covered with goosebumps and palpating.
In the morning Pharaoh sends for his mystics and wise men but they all more or less give the same unsatisfying answer. When things start to get ugly, Pharaoh's butler speaks up and says while he was in jail he and another inmate had a very unsettling dream. He then intimated that Yosef really had ruach hakodesh (divine inspiration - רוּחַ הַקוֹדֶש) and properly interpreted the dreams.
Pharaoh rushes to have Yosef brought before him. Yosef explains that the Powers that Be (הָאֱלֹקִים) are telling Pharaoh that Egypt will experience seven years of great prosperity followed by seven years of severe famine. The famine will completely consume the land and that the years of prosperity will be forgotten. The doubling of the dream is meant to tell Pharaoh that the dream is really from G-d and the onset is imminent. He then advises that food be set aside during the good years so that total disaster can be avoided when the bad years come.
Pharaoh and all of Egypt are impressed. Pharaoh immediately makes Yosef prime minister, gives him the daughter of the high priest in marriage, and calls him Tsafnat panayach (צָפנַת פּענֵחַ) meaning "he who perceives the hidden". When riding his chariot the crowd shouts avraych (אַברֵך) meaning "I will bow or bless" and "tender father of Pharaoh".
Yosef promptly creates a system to store food and after seven years a worldwide famine breaks out. The famine is so severe that progressively the people give their money, livestock, and land to Yoseph in exchange for food. After the people sell themselves as slaves to Pharaoh, Yosef gives them seed to plant and the famine ends (see Exodus 47:19 and 23).
In Biblical times there was a vizier to Pharaoh called Imhotep who many say is Yosef. If true, this yields an Egyptian perspective to this story. The main source is an inscription in stone called the Famine Stela. It does not mention seven years of plenty. Rather it starts during a very horrible famine that shows no signs of ending. Pharaoh Djoser asks Imhotep, who is described as the principal cantor in the formal religious establishment, to inquire of a solution from the spiritual world. Imhotep does so and returns to Pharaoh.
Imhotep explains to Djoser that there is an almost forgotten god of Egypt called Khnum. Pharaoh is advised to go to his temple and learn it's lore. After doing this Djoser makes purification, a secret procession, and presents an offering.
Pharaoh then has a dream in which Khnum appears to him. He is pleased with Pharaoh's service and tells him that he is the master of creation, father of Gods, and gives him the following message. "I will make the Nile swell for you, without there being a year of lack and exhaustion in the whole land, so the plants will flourish, bending under their fruit . . . The land of Egypt is beginning to stir again, the shores are shining wonderfully, and wealth and well-being dwell with them, as it had been before". The dream comes true and the famine ends.
It would seem that the lesson of this combination is that Yosef's prophecy of seven bad years was not rooted in nature, rather it would take seven years of horror for Egypt to accept that there is a single creator of all. And it is this insight that ended the famine.
לע"נ האמא מלכה בת חיים ז"ל נלב"ע טז ניסן תשנ"ח
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