Parashat Lech L’cha 5783 — 11/05/2022
Beginning with Bereishit 5781 (17 October 2020) we embarked on a new format. We will be considering Rambam’s (Maimonides’) great philosophical work Moreh Nevukim (Guide for the Perplexed) in the light of the knowledge of Vedic Science as expounded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The individual essays will therefore not necessarily have anything to do with the weekly Torah portion, although certainly there will be plenty of references to the Torah, the rest of the Bible, and to the Rabbinic literature. For Bereishit we described the project. The next four parshiyyot, Noach through Chayei Sarah, laid out a foundational understanding of Vedic Science, to the degree I am capable of doing so. Beginning with Toledot we started examining Moreh Nevukim.
Bereishit 12:1-17:27
Having dealt extensively with the word “foot” (very appropriate for Lech L’cha), Rambam now moves to an emotional word, the word for “sorrow”:
Sorrow [‘aseb] [RAR: with an aleph. The same word with an ayin means “herbage”] is an equivocal term. It is a term denoting pain and aching: In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. It is also a term denoting anger: And his father had not caused him to be sorry at any time, which means that he had not angered him. For he was sorrowful for the sake of David, he was angry for his sake. The term also denotes contrariety and disobedience: They rebelled and caused sorrow to His holy spirit; And cause Him sorrow in the desert; If there be in me any way of causing sorrow; Every day they cause sorrow to my words. In accordance with the second or third sense it is said: He sorrowed unto His heart. In accordance with the second sense, the interpretation of the verse would be that Gd was angry with them because of their evil action. As for Scripture saying, unto his heart, it uses a similar expression in the story of Noah, namely: And Gd said unto His heart. Hear its meaning. The matter with regard to which it is said of a man that he said in his heart or said unto his heart is a matter to which that man does not give utterance and that he does not tell to somebody else. Similarly, it is said of every matter willed by Gd of which He does not speak to a prophet at the time when He accomplished an act corresponding to His will in this regard: Gd said unto His heart. It is thus likened to the human matter in virtue of the continual use of the rule: The Torah speaketh in the language of the sons of man. This is clear and manifest. Inasmuch as it is not made clear in the Torah with regard to the disobedience of the generation of the flood that an envoy of Gd was sent to them at that time, nor that prohibitions were imposed on them and that they were threatened with destruction, it is said of them that Gd was angry with them in His heart. Similarly in regard to His will that there should not be another He did not say to a prophet at that time: Go and inform them of this. For this reason it is said: unto His heart. As for the interpretation of the passage, He sorrowed unto His heart, according to the third sense, its meaning would be as follows: man went contrary to the will of Gd regarding him. For the term heart is also used to designate the will, as we shall make clear when treating of the equivocality of the term “heart.”
Rambam identifies three meanings of the root aleph-sin-bet:
- Sorrow, pain, aching
- Anger
- Contrariness and disobedience (in American, “cussedness”)
It appears that all of these meanings are equally inappropriate when applied to Gd – they are all very human emotions that reside within the human heart. Gd, of course, cannot be said to have a heart, or any other bodily part, because Gd is not a composite being. (Neither can we say that Gd is heartless of course! Gd is as transcendental to the heart as He is to space, time and objects.)
There is one linguistic point here that I would like to touch on, and that is Gd’s “speaking to His heart.” The idiom “to speak to one’s heart” is the Hebrew equivalent of “saying to oneself” – that is, mental activity, thought, that is kept within oneself and not expressed to anyone else. Now there are certainly instances where Gd expressed Himself to a human being – all of Torah is Gd’s expression to Moshe Rabbeinu, and all the prophetic books are Gd’s expressions to the different prophets (and these are just the literary prophets – there were many thousands of prophets in Israel, but they only spoke to specific circumstances of individual people). And Gd seemingly debated with himself before deciding to tell Avraham about the impending destruction of S’dom and its sister cities, before allowing Avraham to bargain with him to try to save the cities. There are other times (see Rambam’s examples) where Gd acts without disclosing to anyone that He intends to act, not revealing what actions those involved might do to avoid Gd’s actions.
There is another time when Gd speaks to Himself, and that is during creation, where there was no one else to speak to. This is certainly true of the first day of creation, when Gd says, “Let there be light” and light appears. If we don’t accept that the angels were created on the first day, then until Gd seems to consult others explicitly (“Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”) all the statements during the 6 days are Gd speaking to Himself.
I think that there is a profound idea here about prophecy, revelation and cognition. In Jewish tradition, and I believe in Christianity as well, we tend to externalize Gd. That is, we think of Gd as a being outside of ourselves, with whom we communicate more or less in the same way we would with another human being, except perhaps that we’re under no illusion that this is a peer-to-peer communication. “Noah, how long can you tread water?!” Thus we speak of prophecy as a communication to the prophet from Gd Who is situated outside the prophet, and the prophet hears, or sees and hears, whatever it is that Gd is telling him.
The Vedic approach, which is based on the study of Consciousness, tends to view the communication between the infinite and the individual in terms of cognition, which comes from inside one’s own fully developed consciousness. In this view, Pure Consciousness is the fundamental “stuff” of creation; its internal, virtual vibrations are what we perceive as the forms and phenomena of creation. We can experience this Pure Consciousness internally, subjectively, and eventually, when our consciousness has been purified enough, experience the internal, virtual vibrations as vibrations of our own subjective awareness. This is Vedic cognition, or, we might say, this is Gd within us speaking to us.
I don’t mean to imply that these two approaches are opposed to one another, but rather that they are complementary. To paraphrase Chevy Chase, “I’m Gd and you’re not” – Gd is the Other we meet pervading all creation, yet He also dwells in our hearts. What is certain is that Gd speaks to each one of us, all the time, and it just requires us to settle down so that we can really listen and hear what we are being told.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Lech L’cha
Genesis 12-17:27
Audio-recording of Lecha:
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3481585/jewish/Lech-Lecha-Audio-Recording.htm
Genesis 17,1: “And Abram was ninety-nine years old, and Gd appeared to Abram, and He said to him, “I am the Almighty Gd; walk before Me and be perfect.”
Torah tells us that Noah walked with Gd, was righteous and perfect but Torah doesn’t tell us how this came about; with Abram we can see what he did after Gd’s command and we can draw some tips about how we may also walk before Gd and be perfect. The deepest activity is the literal meaning of the name of the Parshah: “Lech Lecha” means “Go to yourself.” It’s not usually translated that way but the Lubavitcher Rebbe writes this:
Lech Lecha: Go To Yourself
This is usually translated as “Get thee out (from your country and your birthplace and your father’s house….)” But it literally means, “Go to yourself.” “Going” has the connotation in Torah of moving towards one’s ultimate purpose—of service towards one’s Creator. And this is strongly hinted at by the phrase, “Go to yourself”—meaning, towards your soul’s essence and your ultimate purpose, that for which you were created. chabad.org (Source: Likkutei Sichot, Vol. V pp. 57-67)”
This view of the Lubavitcher Rebbe resonates beautifully to most, perhaps all, of our Beth Shalom Congregation. “Go to your Self,” your universal, unbounded, Self is the first step in acting so that we walk before Gd.
What does it mean to “walk before Gd”? The primary commentator on Torah is Rashi, and Rashi says it means “serve Me, cleave to My service.” The Rebbe looks at it the same way so we can be very confident in this guidance.
Whenever Abram was commanded by Gd, he did what Gd commanded. To Abram, Gd appeared in visions: Abram must have been very close to walking with Gd in order to trust Gd’s command. leave his home and “go to a place which I will show you.” I personally don’t feel that confident that I can trust visions or voices and so I am left with cleaving to Gd’s service by doing the ordinary things that good people everywhere do: honor my religion, do my best to be healthy, happy and to share my happiness with others through work with organizations I respect so I can attune myself to Gd through service to people I feel are wiser, more experienced than I and at least one of whom who I feel may be walking with Gd.
What did Abram do to be perfect? Prior to this command of Gd to leave his homeland, Abram had already come to the conclusion that all creation was made by One Creator, Gd, and he and Sarai spread the word and brought many to share this belief – and perhaps a taste of the experience.
Parashat Lech Lecha tells us that, after leaving his homeland to go to an unknown place, Abram continued to spread the word of monotheism and to build altars to Gd. From this we learn the very important message that we should share what we know, especially what we know by experience, and that Gd, as it says in Kaddish, is “beyond any words to describe” so simple acts of reverence, such as offering prayers, building altars, and temples are ways to grow in our ability to walk before Gd and with Gd and to be perfect.
When a famine caused him and Sarai to leave Canaan (the land where Gd promised him he would make him a great nation) and go to Egypt, this may have seemed like an exile but the Rebbe comments that it was an exile with a purpose: it gave Abram an opportunity to serve Gd by spreading the word of One Gd to a people who worshiped only partial values of Gd.
While in Egypt, Abram told Sarai to say that she was his sister, not his wife. He did this because he thought otherwise, he would be killed.
Few of us are likely to be in such an extreme situation but we may take it that a lie to save our life, if we are otherwise innocent of any crime, is a way of serving Gd and being perfect.
In Egypt, Abram and his nephew, Lot, acquired many possessions, including cattle, which they took to Canaan. In Canaan their herdsmen quarreled. Abram and Lot decided to separate. Though physically separate, Abram and Lot were close emotionally: Love kept them together as we can feel even though separate physically from family and friends with whom we share love and Love.
From this we can learn, that if we have no other way to create harmony, separation is a valid way to create harmony, which is the essence of serving Gd. In a deeper sense.
Lot moved to plains near Sodom, an evil kingdom. Why did he move so close to an evil kingdom? A good question for further research and intuition. Sodom was attacked and Lot was captured when the city was captured: Abram took his trained men, though they were only few, and pursued the army holding Lot, defeated them, restored Lot’s possessions to him and restored four kingdoms, including Sodom, to their kings. Why did he restore evil kingdoms to their kings instead of taking them over and guiding them to righteousness? A deep mystery! But we can learn from Abram’s victory that we should be concerned with following right action as a way of serving Gd and not be afraid that our resources are too small: Gd protects those who serve Him.
Abram refused to accept any recompense from the King of Sodom for restoring his possessions to him. His reason: he did not want the King of Sodom to be able to claim he had made Abram rich. A traditional explanation of Abram’s reasoning is that he wanted it to be clear to everyone that any accomplishment of his was through Gd: it was not Abram who defeated the armies, it was Gd; it could not be through evil hands such as those of the King of Sodom that he would acquire possessions but only through the Hand of Gd. Certainly we can be kind to even those who are evil – our kindness will give them a softening of heart and they will become less evil. We certainly should refuse to accept any compensation from them – there is a saying “The gifts of the evil do not bring blessings.” Certainly we can recognize that any accomplishments of ours are Gd’s Gift to us.
Abram is blessed by Melchizedek, who was a king but also a priest of the Most High — this means Melchizedek was not only a monotheist in belief but also in experience.
Enough experience of Gd to serve as Gd’s priest, and to be referred to more as a priest than as a king. We too, can put One first and material possessions second so that we are protected by our sense of proportion and serve Gd first.
And we can read Torah, listen to Torah, read from the Siddur, attend services at the Synagogue, as ways to raise ourselves up to direct experience and to priestly service, whatever our actual roles are in life.
Abram tells Gd, when Gd says his reward for this action will be great: Of what use is this to me since I have no son to inherit? And Gd responds: you will have a son and be a mighty nation, more than the stars. From this we learn that service to Gd can include asking Gd to redress a situation we feel is amiss: we can pray for help, we can ask simply and Gd responds. To Abram, He responded clearly; to us, perhaps not so clearly but we need to be alert to the response.
Abram’s son, Ishmael, is born with Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, and Isaac is born, with Sarah.
From this we learn that when we serve Gd, we raise ourselves up, and what Gd promises, Gd delivers. Trusting Gd is very important and when we are not able to experience Gd directly, trusting our Traditions, especially Torah, is very important.
Gd tells Abram to circumcise his son and that all males of the community shall be circumcised as a Covenant with Gd. From the Babylonian Talmud we learn that through circumcision Abram became sanctified. He became not merely a physical person fathering physical children but a spiritual person fathering spiritual children, protecting Gd’s Spiritual Wisdom and spreading it in its purity.
We can treat circumcision not merely as something physical for males, but something everyone, males and females, can do: cut off anything that binds us only to the physical and thus rise to be spiritual: to walk before Gd and become perfect as Abram did, and Sarai did: Abram became become Abraham, father not only of Isaac and Ishmael but of nations and Sarai became Sarah: princess not only of Abram but of all souls.
Baruch HaShem!