Chol haMo’ed Sukkot 5783 — 10/15/2022
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.
Rambam now turns his attention back to anthropomorphic terms as applied to Gd.
Foot [regel] is an equivocal term. It is a term denoting a foot [RAR: Rambam uses the Arabic word here]. Thus: Foot for foot. [RAR: This is part of the “eye for an eye” passage.] It also occurs with the meaning of following. Thus: Go thee out and all the people that are at thy feet – the meaning of which is, that follow thee. It is likewise used in the sense of causation. Thus: And the Lord hath blessed thee for my foot [RAR: Gen 30:30, generally translated with my arrival or with my coming – in both cases the connection to foot being obvious] – I being the cause, that is to say, for my sake. For when a thing exists for the sake of some other thing, the latter is the cause of the former. This meaning is frequently employed. Thus: For the foot of the cattle that goeth before me and for the foot of the children [RAR: Gen 33:14, generally translated as the pace of the cattle etc.] Accordingly when Scripture says: And His feet shall stand on that day upon the Mount of Olives, it signifies thereby the establishment of the things He has caused – I mean of the wonders that will then become manifest at that place and of which Gd, may He be exalted, is the cause, I mean the maker. This interpretation was adopted by Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him. He translates: And He will manifest Himself in His might on that day upon the Mount of Olives. In a similar way he translates every part of the body having the function of grasping or moving by the terms His might, for all of them are intended to signify actions proceeding from Gd’s will.
Foot has its plain meaning with relation to creatures, and there is no problem with that. Feet are what we walk with, feet are our connection to the ground, our feet are the basis of our stability, etc. These are the basis of the figurative uses that Rambam brings out. First, he focuses on causality. In the first verse he quoted, Ya’akov is pointing out to his crooked father-in-law, Lavan, that Lavan had been a poor man, with scraggly flocks, prior to Ya’akov’s arrival. When Ya’akov came, Lavan’s fortunes turned around and he became wealthy. (Lavan was soon to lose most of his wealth to Ya’akov, despite Lavan’s every attempt to cheat him of his wages.)
Now Ya’akov’s arrival was a temporal event – at some point he just shows up in Haran, asks for Rachel, gets Leah, works for 14 years for them both, makes Lavan rich, then works for 6 years for himself and wins back most of Lavan’s wealth. Nonetheless, Rambam translates foot in terms of causality: I being the cause, that is to say, for my sake. For when a thing exists for the sake of some other thing, the latter is the cause of the former. Now in the way we normally think, logical causation and temporal/physical causation are two different things. Logical causation is the basis of syllogism: if A then B, a is an A therefore B applies to a as well. Temporal/physical causation, on the other hand, is the kind of cause-and-effect relationship we find, for example, when our child bats a baseball through the neighbor’s plate glass window. This kind of causation requires a time sequence, because our intuition very strongly tells us that the cause must be before the effect. This is why, according to classical Special Relativity, causal pairs of events (space-time points) can never be simultaneous in any frame of reference – if they were, event A would be prior to event B in some frames of reference, and B would be prior to A in others.
Now the trouble comes when we try to apply these notions of causality to Gd. Gd is obviously transcendental to space and time, and therefore to causality, even though, from our perspective, Gd is the ultimate cause of all existence. So, for example, Torah begins: When Gd began to create heaven and earth … (This is the way Rashi renders the verse.) What does it mean when it says “When”? Generally we use “when” in a temporal sense, to specify a particular time. In our case there is no time – time had not been created yet (the sun and moon were not created until the 4th day, as Clarence Darrow famously reminded William Jennings Bryan in 1925). So perhaps our “when” should be considered a “logical when” – the beginning of a logical sequence of events rather than a temporal sequence. Unfortunately, it is very difficult, for me at least, to separate a logical sequence from a temporal sequence. After all, a logical sequence is generally actualized as a temporal one: step 1 precedes step 2 which precedes step 3, etc. Unless our awareness is stationed in the transcendent, we can’t picture sequences except in time.
Modern physics has some insights to offer in this sphere, and I will take them up next week, when we begin the cycle of Torah readings again with Bereshit, and begin the third year of our discussion of Rambam.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parshiyyot V’Zot HaBerachah and Beresheit
”V’Zot Ha Beracha” means, “And this is the blessing.”
Before we consider this blessing on the level of meaning, let’s consider that Torah is beyond language, beyond verbal definitions and grammar – it is the fundamental liveliness of Gd. On our level of life, of awareness, the sound value of Torah comes closer to the transcendental and all-pervading quality of Torah. From this standpoint, here are two sources to listen to the beginning of Beresheit: the first is traditional; the second is creative.
1. Beresheit 1-8 with cantillation: Very sweet, easy to listen to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa_g1QOt9y0. Very lively.
2. Award-winning singer Noa sings Beresheit with Philarmonic Rishon Le Tzion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYKMWtOlHVE.
Consider Beresheit the seed of Teshuvah — return to Oneness – and V’zot HaBeracha, the last parshah of the Chumash, the fruit: Do we see in these parshiyyot and in our lives that the seed has borne its intended fruit? If we take these parshiyyot on the plain level of meaning, no: the children of Israel (that’s not only a long time ago but today and in all times) have not yet entered the Promised Land, and Moses, the great leader, never will.
But perhaps we can say that Moses, one of the guests that visits the sukkah during Succoth, has entered Gan Eden, as tradition has it – not the terrestrial Garden of Eden from which Adam and Eve were evicted but the Heavenly Garden of Eden in which Gd is enthroned and explains Torah to the residents. Explaining Torah is not just a matter of Gd talking to people but giving the Direct Experience that Torah, Gd and all Gd’s details are One. From this standpoint, Moses and all those who enter Gan Eden have been restored to Oneness and so the seed of Beresheit has borne fruit though V’Zot HaBrachah doesn’t say so.
Later in Beresheit, we see Enoch mentioned as walking with Gd – definitely return to Oneness. Then Noah is called a righteous person, one whom Gd trusts to maintain life on our planet when the rest of humanity, due its wickedness, is destroyed in the flood. So even early in Torah, even taken on the level of meaning, we see examples of the fruit of the seed appearing: people who walk with Gd, who are righteous.
Also, very importantly, Gd’s Torah, One with Gd, flowed though Moses — what wonderful fruit. Punctuated by the Word, the Command, the Kiss of G-d’s mouth which Parashat V’Zot HaBrachah tells us Moses was the way Moses died. Dying by the Touch of Gd is certainly entering the Promised Land.
Before he died, Moses, man of Gd, servant of Gd, gathered all the tribes together and spoke to them first as one, as the Children of Israel, giving them the command to obey Torah; then he gave specific blessings to each tribe. This is revealing first unity, then the diversity within the unity. This is action that in its Fullness, restores each individual in a community to unity with the community while retaining the special individual role. Symbolically, this gives the Blessing of Oneness on all its Detail.
So, the Five Books of Moses end with ripe fruit.
• Having considered the fruit, let us consider the seed which is contained within the fruit and to which we return as on Simchat Torah we begin again reading Beresheit. Beresheit begins in Hebrew:
“Beresheit bara Elokim et HaShamayim v’et Ha’aretz…” The way this is commonly translated to English, Beresheit reads: “In the beginning, Gd created heaven and earth…”. Since Gd is Beginningless and Endless, this cannot be true.
The way the ArtScroll Chumash and chabad.org translate it, it reads, “In the beginning of Gd’s creating the heavens and the earth…”
This is better and according to scholars more grammatically correct but still puts Gd in time and the reality is that time is a role Gd plays in pretending to be limited.
Gd is always One, Wholeness in Detail, so let’s see if we can find a meaning for “beginning” that honors this.
One way is that it refers to any point in the infinite liveliness of Gd because at any point, separation and unification are always going on, and so at any point heaven and earth are always being separated and united.
Within every point is the Whole Unbounded Ocean of Gd everything is always going on everywhere, in sequence and also in simultaneity. To Gd, Gd is always Totally Present, Infinitely Lively, Infinitely Silent, Omnidirectional, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omni-joyful, Omni-loving, and so the idea of beginning is just part of Gd’s “let’s pretend” to be limited.
In addition, Wikipedia notes that not only is “bara” a verb that is only used in reference to Gd but it doesn’t mean “create”, it means “differentiate/separate, assign roles to”. From this standpoint, heaven and earth though they are always One, are perpetually separated/distinguished/ from each other and given special roles. So Beresheit refers to the beginning of distinguishing “heaven”, the inner, subtle, abstract level of the details of Gd, from “earth”, the concrete aspect.
Jeff Benner (ancient-hebrew.org) translates “bara” as “shaped”: from this standpoint, there is neither creating nor separating, there is only refining what already exists.
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, in his “Body, Mind and Soul: Kabbalah on Human Physiology, Disease and Healing”, notes that “create” and “heal” in Hebrew have the same root: b-r-a: from this angle, we can say that the beginning of Torah is always the beginning of healing, of return to Wholeness. This is healing individual humans of their limits and restoring us to our unlimited status as impulses of One, restoring us to our status as the Full Ocean of One functioning through our individual personalities and bodies and also through all impulses of One.
What a Joy to Be Restored to full memory of the reality that only One exists and we are This!
So, creation, healing is eternal, as Torah, the fundamental liveliness of Gd – beyond language, grammar, definition, Gd conversing with Gd – is eternal, never beginning or ending yet always New.
And there are surely many more interpretations of “Beresheit Bara Elohim” everyone’s: intuitions will add to the cornucopia.
On the ordinary human level of awareness, this variety of interpretations is consistent with the way we experience life. We are always evolving and seeing more completely. As we rise to higher levels and to Consciousness beyond levels – the Wholeness within which all levels exist – we are able to see the usefulness of each interpretation.
We humans are individual impulses of Gd who pretends to be limited for the fun of playing Hide and Seek, Peek-a-Boo in us, so Gd, pretending to be we limited souls, can have the fun of seeking as us, and Gd as Gd, can have the pleasure of Hinting and Revealing, through Torah sounds, Torah stories, Torah mitzvah and whatever way Gd Wishes.
In this game, this Game, little by little, and also suddenly, we are returned to Wholeness by Gd’s Grace Revealing.
Gd dissolves the veils of limits and reveals to us that Gd is All, within us and all around us, everywhere, One without a Second.
And this can happen with any sound of Torah, any word, any parshah, even the last one as we suddenly See and Know the Truth within the Stories.
And it can happen Now! And any Now! Wherever we are and whatever we’re doing.
Because Torah in a written book is only the most infinitesimal aspect of Torah as One with Gd, Torah can hint to us and reveal to us when we’re eating breakfast, walking down a street, snoozing — at any time, any place.
Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as well as the serpent, are within us, ready to be clearly experienced as Omnidirectional, All-in-All Points of One, and the duality between Gd and the uncreated creation, is ready to be experienced as the Fun of Gd, always within Gd as One.
So, too, are all the details of Torah as the Book and Torah as Gd. Beresheit is a good seed that bears good fruit in V’Zot Haberacha and it is also the Fruit that sprouts to become all the Books of Torah and to loop back to itself with V’Zot HaBeracha.
• Let\s continue doing our best to tune to Gd/Torah with “Be still and know!”; with “to love Gd with all our heart, all our soul and all our might,” with “love our neighbor as our self,” as our Self. As we do. we see, hear, taste, touch, smell the Beauty of Gd in every leaf, every sound, every bite of food, everyone and everything, everywhere.
Sukkot/Hoshanah Raba/Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah are special times of Joy to make our tuning more charming, delightful, effective.
Very encouraging!
Let’s keep on tuning.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
Baruch HaShem