The Power TO Dream

It happened not too long ago. I was sitting in my basement, looking around at my makeshift office, when, suddenly and unapologetically, a wave of realization and awareness came crashing down on my unsuspecting self. I was caught in a title wave of rinse and repeat without any knowledge of how I got stuck in this temporal time loop. It wasn’t due to COVID or the impacts of the pandemic. It started long before and the pandemic just helped me acutely feel what was happening around me. I finally realized that I had stopped dreaming of what could be and had been ensnared by what was and would be.

While many were reorganizing their homes, learning new skills and messing around with sourdough, I made a decision of my own. The world I inhabited, the world that I saw around me, was not the world I had hoped, prayed and envisioned my children growing up and impacting. Far from the political landscape at the time, I worried about the manner in which we were modeling for our children, how schools were impacting their desire to dream big, to be inspired to take risks and embrace the learning that comes from such risks, falling, brushing themselves off and trying again. Had we lost that desire in ourselves that our children could barely recognize the lingering flicker inside us? Something had to be done.

I began to fanatically chose “What would it look like if” versus the“It will be what it is” way of thinking as I voraciously consumed dream content from every realm — religion, philosophy, leadership, education and the world around me. It helped shape my understanding that many of our children are growing up in a world where they are being told dreams are for the rich, the privileged, the upper class etc. For us less fortunate, whether due to our socioeconomic status, race, religion, or sexual orientation, we are left to graciously accept the scraps that life offers us and to be thankful for even that. That simply would not do.

In the book of Bereishit (Genesis) Chapter 37, we are introduced to one of the most famous sibling rivalries known to humankind — Yosef (Joseph) and his brothers. Yosef shares two versions of the same dream depicting a world where he is worshipped by his brothers. As their hatred for Yosef’s arrogance consumed them, the brothers sell him as a slave in Egypt where he ultimately is jailed after a series of unfortunate events transpire. While in jail, he finds a potential way out through the interpretation of the dreams of two of his fellow cellmates — the Pharoah’s baker and wine maker. His hopes are dashed and ultimately spends another year in jail before being released.

Finally, Yosef is set free and builds himself up to becoming second in command in Egypt. After a famine that forces his brothers to Egypt to purchase food, he sets up events to properly reveal himself to his brothers and mend the broken relationship with them for then and the future generations there after. What I find fascinating is Yosef’s emotional growth while in jail. Throughout his entire incarceration, even in the face of one failed “get out of jail” card after another, his hope for redemption, reconciliation and renewal never wavered. How is it in the face of his single greatest challenge that his capacity for hope only grew?

I first stumbled upon Simon Sinek’s work when I saw his famous TEDtalk titled How Great Leaders Inspire Action. Simon had a simple idea at the time. He called it the “Why.” The “Why” represented an individual’s core source of passion and inspiration. It was the mechanism with which one individual connected to another, where a movement was born and nurtured, and where loyalty and dedication was bred. Yet, it took almost 10 years and a pandemic, for Simon to connect this construct to something even more powerful — the power of optimism.

During the pandemic’s early stages, we saw a surge of podcasts swarm the channels. It seemed like everyone was capitalizing on the ability to connect with anyone and everyone on topics meaningful and worthwhile to converse in. Simon began one of his own which I found to be eerily familiar. In his podcast entitled, A Bit of Optimism, Simon connects with a cadre of unique and intriguing personalities from entrepreneurs, business gurus, inspirational leaders and everyone in between. The common theme throughout? The notion that optimism, the sincere and real belief that while the current reality may look bleak, there always remains a shimmer of potential, if tapped into and cultivated, to achieve beauty and greatness.

Some have called it “pivoting.” Some (my wife being one of them) have called it delusional and unrealistic. I, like Simon, believe that optimism is not irrational, nor is is blind positivity. In a recent tweet, Simon defined optimism as “the underlying belief that the future is bright, but it is not a denial of the current state.” That struck me as peculiar — how can one be open to a bright future when they are mirred in the darkness of the present moment? What was Yosef’s trick in reaching the same goal that Simon maps out thousands of years later? What are we missing?

In a recent blog that I wrote for the Times of Israel, Letter to an Old Friend, I encapsulated my initial reaction to the news of the untimely and far too soon death of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z’’tl. Rabbi Sacks, a world reknown author, speaker, TEDtalk presenter, Lord and former Chief Rabbi of England, was much more than that to me. He was a teacher, a mentor, a guide and a friend. Yet, I never met him.

Rabbi Sacks wrote a weekly pamphlet that I have been religiously reading for the better part of 15 years. Why? Each week, regardless of the absurdity of the notion, I felt as if Rabbi Sacks was writing directly to me and for me. Countless ideas, philosophies and concepts were introduced to me through his writings, his blogs, books and videos. Yet, it was not until his death and reading his second to last book he published, Morality, did I finally pinpoint the true and real explanation to why I felt so close to a man I had never and would never meet.

Rabbi Sacks was a man of faith. Not the kind who spoke about it, preached it but never truly, deeply felt and experienced it. He spoke of faith as a means to create space for difference, space for variety, space for dreams, space for imagination and innovation, space for each person to grow in a world where they are valued and seen not in spite of but for their uniqueness.

In stumbling upon this grand notion of faith, I came to the realization after countless nights of contemplation in my basement office, that dreaming is a magical cauldron conjuring the powers of hope, optimism and faith to provide the brave souls willing to consume it with the ability to acknowledge their present state, define a future that is brighter and brings more beauty into the world, and dream of what that canvas would require to make it a reality.

When we are given the power to dream, the power to believe in the unknown and not yet realized, when we live such a life that our children are able to experience this through us then, and only then, can we know that our future is bursting with abundant greatness and beauty.

Don’t believe me? Well, perhaps Nike and Colin Kapernick can remind us all not “to ask if (y)our dreams are crazy, ask if they are crazy enough.”