Turning a Lake into Yoghurt http://img159.imageshack.us

There is a sufi story (some people swear this is a true event but it is just a story) that a man was sitting by a lake and slowly putting a little bit of starter yoghurt into it. Some people came by and he looked up and looked at them a bit sheepishly and said “I know, I know this little bit of starter yoghurt won’t change the whole lake into yoghurt.”  He paused but then suddenly his eyes lighted up and he said “But my friends just imagine if it did make the whole lake into yoghurt! What a wonderful thing that would be!” …………. It is ok to dream a little.

My dream about the Palestine issue is to have peace there. The ‘starter yoghurt’ for this is ‘reason’. To keep asking “if they can have make peace in South Africa why can’t you?”…

josephs-dream-7-fat-cow-7-lean-cows credit:globalrecordings.net

The recent economic turmoil reminded me of a few months back in our monthly Torah/Qur’an scripture study when we were studying the narratives of Prophet Joseph (Our year and half old group is composed of Muslims led by Dr. Waheed Rana and Jews from Temple Israel led by Rabbi Mark Shook, who is also a contributor to the Civil Religon Blog). Comparing and contrasting the two narratives, with aid from two able scholars, was delightful.

But what came to mind was the interpretation by Joseph of Pharaoh’s dream of 7 lean cows devouring 7 fat cows (a story which is in both scriptures). Joseph correctly interpreted the dream as signifying that there will be 7 years of good harvest followed by 7 years of famine and that to prepare for the 7 hard years every year a portion of the harvest should be stored away. The Pharaoh upon hearing the interpretation…