על החלומות, ספר ב א׳On Dreams, Book II 1
א׳
1[1] In setting forth the third kind of God-sent dreams we may fitly summon Moses to our assistance, that, as he learned when he did not know, he may teach us too in our ignorance regarding their tokens, by throwing light on each. This third kind of dreams arises whenever the soul in sleep, setting itself in motion and agitation of its own accord, becomes frenzied, and with the prescient power due to such inspiration foretells the future.
ב׳
2[2] The first kind of dreams we saw to be those in which God originates the movement and invisibly suggests things obscure to us but patent to Himself: while the second kind consisted of dreams in which the understanding moves in concert with the soul of the Universe and becomes filled with a divinely induced madness, which is permitted to foretell many coming events.
ג׳
3[3] In accordance with these distinctions, the Sacred Guide gave a perfectly clear and lucid interpretation of the appearances which come under the first description, inasmuch as the intimations given by God through these dreams were of the nature of plain oracles. Those which fall under the second description he interpreted neither with consummate clearness nor with excessive indistinctness. A specimen of these is the Vision that appeared on the heavenly stairway. For this vision was indeed enigmatic, but the riddle was not in very high degree concealed from the quick-sighted.
ד׳
4[4] The appearances of the third kind being more obscure than the former, owing to the deep and impenetrable nature of the riddle involved in them, demanded a scientific skill in discerning the meaning of dreams. Accordingly all the dreams of this sort recorded by the lawgiver received their interpretation at the hands of men who were experts in the aforesaid science.
ה׳
5[5] Whose then are the dreams? Does not everybody perceive that they are those of Joseph, those of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and those which the chief baker and chief butler themselves saw?
ו׳
6[6] It would seem fitting always to begin our teaching with those which come first; and first to come are those which Joseph saw when from the divisions of the universe, two in number, heaven and earth, two visions were presented to him. From the earth came the dream of the reaping. It runs on this wise: “Methought that we were binding sheaves in the midst of the plain, and my sheaf rose up” (Gen. 37:7). The other has to do with the zodiac: “As it were the sun and the moon and eleven stars worshipped me” (ibid. 9).
ז׳
7[7] On the former dream an interpretative judgement is pronounced in a tone of vehement menace to this effect: “Shalt thou indeed be king over us? or shalt thou indeed be lord over us?” (ibid. 8). The latter dream again incurs well-merited displeasure: “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren come to bow down to the ground to worship thee?” (ibid. 10).
