Joseph is a visionary; a man with a powerful capacity for imagining a future entirely unlike the reality before him.

In Parashat Miketz, he skillfully interprets Pharaoh's dreams: in cows and sheaves, he sees seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.

Wise Planning

However, this ability to imagine the impossible was necessary, but ultimately insufficient to avert agricultural and humanitarian disaster not only for Egypt, but the world (Genesis 41:57). It was the plan that Joseph presented, after all, that "pleased Pharaoh and all his courtiers" (Genesis 41:37).

What was so compelling about Joseph's plan? Joseph's proposal earned him the honorific "discerning and wise" because he went beyond promises to alleviate hunger and famine; he managed to prevent it through careful planning, storing, and withholding from the Egyptians