PROPHECY, HOWEVER, always has meaning, but not because it is free of symbols. In Maimonides' words: "Messages made known to a Prophet in the prophetic vision may come in the form of a visual parable [i.e., a symbol], with the correct interpretation of the symbol immediately engraving itself on the Prophet's heart.... Sometimes the Prophet records only the symbol... All Prophets prophesy with symbols and puzzles" (Yesodei ha-Torah 7:2).

Prophetic visions, such as Jacob's ladder or Jeremiah's staff, are symbolic references to the presence of G-d. They are vehicles of G-d's transmission of His message, especially in its highest, unutterable form. The message is innate in the prophetic symbol, just as a message is innate in a mathematical symbol. One need only know how to read, for example, a plus or minus sign. The same is true of the symbols in Prophets' dreams.

The Joseph story is the longest in Genesis, stretching across 11 chapters and three Torah portions. The story begins with Joseph's dreams. If understood as prophecy, these dreams constitute an exegetical key to much of the narrative. If understood as Divinely revealed symbols with clear meaning, rather than confusing personal messages, these dreams render many of the otherwise baffling twists and turns in the narrative coherent. The narrative is riddled with puzzles.

But first, the basic story line: Joseph's jealous brothers contrive to sell him down to Egypt and deceive their father, telling him Joseph was killed by an animal. Joseph ends up in Pharaoh's court; is thrown into a dungeon after being falsely accused of having designs on the wife of Potiphar (Pharaoh); interprets two dreams of Pharaoh's chamberlains in the dungeon; is released to interpret two dreams of Pharaoh; is, as a reward for interpreting these dreams wisely, made viceroy of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.

In interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, Joseph foretells a worldwide famine and is appointed to prepare large granaries in advance. Joseph's brothers, like everyone else, are caught in the famine and come from Canaan to Egypt to buy grain. Here we reach the puzzles that punctuate this week's Torah portion. Joseph's two dreams are the exegetical key to understanding why Joseph subjects his brothers to multiple levels of abuse as they appear before him to buy grain.

SPECIFICALLY, why does Joseph, immediately upon seeing his brothers, call them spies (a charge thrice repeated)? As his brothers offer the seemingly innocent response that they are ten brothers, with another back in Canaan (Benjamin) and another "gone" (Joseph), why does Joseph tell them they will never leave Egypt unless their younger brother appears before him? Why does Joseph tell them they need to send one of their own to fetch Benjamin and, meanwhile, to sit in jail? Why does Joseph then lock them all up for three days, but change his mind, take one brother hostage, give the rest grain and let them return to Egypt to fetch Benjamin?

The clue is in the first verse of Joseph's meeting with his brothers. "And Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamt about them, and he said to them, 'You are spies!'..." (Genesis 42:9).

Joseph remembered his dreams. In his first dream, Joseph saw himself and his brothers binding sheaves in a field. Suddenly Joseph's sheaf rises and his brothers' sheaves gather around it, then bow down to it. The second dream is similar, but with a significant change in detail. Joseph saw the sun, moon and 11 stars bowing down to him. Here, in the second dream, the number of the brothers bowing down to him is specified.

As prophecies, these dreams must come true. Joseph's brothers must bow before him, all 11 of them. Therefore, when Joseph's brothers first appear before him in Egypt and only 10 bow down (because Benjamin is back in Canaan), the prophecy is unfulfilled. Benjamin must appear and bow, too.

We reach the key to Joseph's apparent abuse. He must impose a set of conditions, no matter how harsh, that will make the dreams come true. Joseph accuses his brothers of spying because this will keep them from snooping around Egypt and discovering his identity. Joseph imprisons his brothers to intimidate them -- to make certain they will return with Benjamin. To prevent the effects of his intimidation from wearing off when his brothers are back in Canaan, Joseph changes his tactics and takes one brother hostage. Now his brothers have no choice but to return with Benjamin when they need more grain. Then all 11 brothers will bow down to Joseph and fulfill his prophetic dreams.

JOSEPH IS COMMITTED to inevitability. Because his dreams are prophecy, they must come true. Was Joseph, then, a revolutionary?

Sir Isaiah Berlin has written how two opposite conclusions flow from the idea of inevitability. The conservative conclusion maintains that historical inevitability is comparable to a river, which is "useless and perilous to resist or deflect, and with which you [can] only merge your identity." The radical conclusion -- Joseph's? -- maintains that although history, like a river, is a rushing force that cannot be controlled, the individual may nonetheless perceive the direction in which history is moving. He may sense "the pangs of [the] new world struggling to be born"; "the crust of the old institutions... about to crack under." His perception may lead him to identify with the inevitable revolutionary flow and therefore to murder anyone who resists, and therefore impedes, the inevitable, glorious future.

On the ideal of hastening the inevitable triumph of the proletariat, Soviet Communism's Stalin justified the murder of millions of peasants and "counterrevolutionaries"; on the ideal of hastening the inevitable triumph of the master race, Hitler justified the murder of millions of Jews and others. Totalitarians of both the left and the right committed history's worst crimes all because of a beautiful, inevitable future. Was Joseph -- who manipulated his brothers to hasten a prophesied, inevitable future -- also a totalitarian? Did Joseph play with fire? Is prophecy dangerous?

Joseph differed from totalitarian dictators in two senses. First, Joseph never lost his human qualities. In dealing harshly with his brothers he never resorted to violence; for Joseph there were no irreversible means (murder, permanent imprisonment, permanent exile) that justified the ends. He was harsh, but not irreversibly so. Second, Joseph never brutalized the present for the sake of a future. Joseph's harsh behavior was designed to restore peace to his family in the present; he sacrificed no one for an imagined (and imaginary) future.

IS PROPHECY DANGEROUS? If so, it is not because Biblical Prophets were totalitarians. Only Joseph intervened to actualize his prophecies and, as we have seen, his harshness did not compromise his essential humanity. Other Prophets did hammer at the social order, but not to hasten or even predict its inevitable disintegration. Prophets railed against injustice to cure it peacefully, not to end it dangerously. Their intent was to stir self-scrutiny, to arouse Israel to remedy injustice. Prophecy was dangerous only when Israel failed to heed Prophets' warnings and G-d, indeed, overturned unjust societies.