It's instructive to take this interpretation the other direction: what can dreams, and the interpretation of dreams, tell us about creation?
Going back to Genesis - it's speech that creates, but of course, speech is impossible without ruach/air (anthropomorphically). Further, the creation of a thing is simultaneously annihilation of other things: I can only speak one word at a time, and by speaking, I choose what to bring forth into the world, and also, what *not* to bring forth.
So ruach can be thought of as pure potentiality, all of the possible things that can be made manifest via speech. Ruach hovers over the waters as potentiality hovers over the chaos. (If this whole analogy is starting to sound like wavefunction collapse and the translation from the quantum realm to the classical, I don't think that's accidental).
Our modern understanding of dreams is that they're without meaning in and of themselves; the images of a dream emerge from the random firing of neurons, which our narrative function desperately attempts to convert into a story. Using the language above, the images of a dream are as the waters of chaos, with potentiality hovering over; the interpretation is the creation of meaning out of the chaos.
All of this exploration yields two observations on the nature of prophecy:
* the prophet, like the interpreter of dreams, steps in to speak/create when we are unable to do so ourselves. Typically our own selves narrate the random images of our dreams, but when we are unable to do so, we need a third party to construct the interpretation for us
* the prophet, being filled with ruach, is also able to perceive a greater range of "potentiality". Looking at the world, the prophet sees beyond the clear contingent paths, and instead sees the entire range of what could be. It's from this potentiality that the prophet can call for everything from teshuva to tzedakah, as the deficiencies of what "is" stand in stark contrast to what "could be" (even if what could be is highly unlikely, probabilistically)
Could one read Qohelet 11:1, "Shalach lachmeicha al p'nei hamayim", as likening the spirit of generosity-- the spirit that casts bread "upon the face of the waters" in the long term expectation of a return-- to the ruach Elohim?
It's instructive to take this interpretation the other direction: what can dreams, and the interpretation of dreams, tell us about creation?
Going back to Genesis - it's speech that creates, but of course, speech is impossible without ruach/air (anthropomorphically). Further, the creation of a thing is simultaneously annihilation of other things: I can only speak one word at a time, and by speaking, I choose what to bring forth into the world, and also, what *not* to bring forth.
So ruach can be thought of as pure potentiality, all of the possible things that can be made manifest via speech. Ruach hovers over the waters as potentiality hovers over the chaos. (If this whole analogy is starting to sound like wavefunction collapse and the translation from the quantum realm to the classical, I don't think that's accidental).
Our modern understanding of dreams is that they're without meaning in and of themselves; the images of a dream emerge from the random firing of neurons, which our narrative function desperately attempts to convert into a story. Using the language above, the images of a dream are as the waters of chaos, with potentiality hovering over; the interpretation is the creation of meaning out of the chaos.
All of this exploration yields two observations on the nature of prophecy:
* the prophet, like the interpreter of dreams, steps in to speak/create when we are unable to do so ourselves. Typically our own selves narrate the random images of our dreams, but when we are unable to do so, we need a third party to construct the interpretation for us
* the prophet, being filled with ruach, is also able to perceive a greater range of "potentiality". Looking at the world, the prophet sees beyond the clear contingent paths, and instead sees the entire range of what could be. It's from this potentiality that the prophet can call for everything from teshuva to tzedakah, as the deficiencies of what "is" stand in stark contrast to what "could be" (even if what could be is highly unlikely, probabilistically)
Could one read Qohelet 11:1, "Shalach lachmeicha al p'nei hamayim", as likening the spirit of generosity-- the spirit that casts bread "upon the face of the waters" in the long term expectation of a return-- to the ruach Elohim?