For several weeks I’ve strayed from the Torah portion and chose to write about other things. But time and Torah wait for no woman, and suddenly I found myself catching up to the weekly readings and thinking about Joseph and his dreams.

I’ve never had much faith in the veracity of Joseph’s dreams and the ones he interpreted. They’re just too perfect. It’s like the difference between the confused feeling you have when you first wake from a dream, and the way you tell the story to someone else later in the day.

I could be wrong. There could be people who really do waken with the dream fully formed, sending a clear message. Not me. I surface slowly, remembering snippets that I gradually piece together.

Last night my dream had to do with making lists. And being kind. And picking up after someone else’s dog.

And you know what? That’s what Joseph did too. He kept track of things that other people valued. He did hard work without complaining. Bad things happened and he kept going.

After he interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams about times of plenty and times of famine, Joseph gave him some advice: “Now therefore let Pharaoh select a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt,” and he told Pharaoh exactly how to plan for the famine that would come after the years of plenty.

In reply, Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the spirit of God is?”

That was Joseph’s strength. He understood that inevitably bad times can come after good times, and that strong leadership would be needed during the years of plenty.

And he understood that he had a God-given gift.

No one knows exactly why we dream or how our dreams come to be. They can guess, but that’s the best anyone can do. Even Sigmund Freud had to admit that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

But we can find grains of our own truths in our dreams. As a youth, Joseph dreamed that he would be a leader. Pharaoh dreamed that events he did not understand could be disastrous, and he sought a leader to help.

Whether their dreams were “real” or written by humans who wanted to tell a story, they remind us that our dreams matter — especially our waking dreams. Some dream of being leaders. Some dream of being helpers, the ones who want to help people learn and the ones who want to support others’ health.

My dream has been to serve. Sometimes that means picking up after people, and yes, dogs. Sometimes it means creating classroom materials that I can use to help people learn. And almost all of the time, it means trying to be kind.