Parashat Vayetze 5785 – 12/07/2024
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.
Bereshit 28:10-32:3
I’d like to wrap up our consideration of Gd’s “riding on the highest heavens.” Rambam writes:
Similarly the deity, may His name be held sublime, is the mover of the highest heaven, by whose motion everything that is in motion within this heaven is moved; at the same time, He, may He be exalted, is separate from this heaven and not a force subsisting within it. Accordingly the Sages interpreting His speech, may He be exalted, The eternal Gd is a dwelling place , say in Bereshit Rabbah: He is the dwelling place of His world, [whereas] His world is not His dwelling place.
This is as we have stated – everything exists as a virtual fluctuation within Gd’s nature. Gd encompasses not only the highest heavens, but all the rest of the heavens and the sublunary world as well. As we discussed, we picture Gd as moving the highest heaven, which in turn moves everything “below” it. In truth, all these levels are interpenetrating, the levels being levels of abstraction, of subtlety. So Gd actually rides on all of creation, because He is transcendental to it all, yet He controls it all.
Rambam continues:
Consider it, and it shall become clear to you how they explained His relation, may He be exalted, to heaven: that it is His instrument by means of which He governs that which is existent. For whenever you find that according to the Sages, may their memory be blessed, there exists one thing in one particular heaven and another thing in another, the meaning of the passage is not that in that particular heaven there are to be found bodies other than that heaven, but that the forces generating the particular thing in question and safeguarding its order come from that heaven. A proof of what I have said to you is their saying: Aravot – that in which [exist] righteousness, right-dealing, justice, the treasures of life, the treasures of peace, the treasures of blessing, the soul of the righteous ones, the souls and the spirits that shall be created in the future, and the dew by means of which the Holy One, blessed be He, will revive the dead.
Here it appears that Rambam is defining the characteristics of the heavens. Each heaven has various characteristics, but these are not bodies – that is, not anything physical – rather they appear to be laws of nature that generate the thing or “safeguard its order.” In other words, the heavens are the subtle layers of creation which are non-physical. The laws of nature exist on these subtle levels and are what control the evolution of the physical world. This is in contrast to the medieval view of the heavens as a set of spheres with various bodies (sun, moon, planets and stars) in them, although these bodies were not considered to be physical.
This view is quite different from our modern view of the cosmos. In our view, all the heavenly bodies are physical objects, as is the earth itself. Different types of objects behave differently – stars fuse hydrogen into helium and emit heat and light. The planets sometimes support life, sometimes not. But all of this is physical, governed by the same laws of physics and chemistry that govern terrestrial life. In other words, in the modern view, heaven is not “up there.” What is up there is the same, generally speaking, as what is “down here.”
Under this conception, the heavens are actually home to the different laws of nature that govern the physical world. These laws of nature are also hierarchical. For example, Newton’s laws of motion are remarkably effective for predicting the motion of cars and bobsleds, the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun. When it comes to very small phenomena however, these laws break down, in some cases spectacularly so. For small phenomena, like the structure of atoms or superfluidity, we need to invoke quantum mechanics. The Correspondence Principle tells us that as the phenomenon under consideration scales up to larger and larger sizes, the laws of quantum mechanics. By the same token, on the scales of large distances and large masses, Newton’s laws (including gravity) break down and must be replaced by Einstein’s General Relativity. Again, there is a Correspondence Principle that requires the prediction of Einstein’s laws to shade back into Newton’s laws in the limit of terrestrial-sized distances, times and masses.
This description is as Rambam has described – the laws of nature are what are actually “resident” in the heavens – that is, in the levels of creation that are subtler than the physical world and control the physical world. From the heavens, Gd controls the whole structure, gross and subtle. In Jewish thought, Gd controls the world by means of angels. Some contemporary rabbis have described angels as being laws of nature, which are the mechanism that modern science would recognize as the way Gd controls the world. R. Akiva Tatz stated the “gravity is an angel.” And the Talmud says that every blade of grass has an angel in charge of it that urges it to grow. And where do these angels reside? In heaven. I think this brings the picture full circle, so I will end here, except for one more observation.
The Sanskrit word devata is generally translated “god.” Maharishi always insisted that the devatas were laws of nature. Perhaps when we think about the “gods” we rather should think about the angels / laws of nature – I think that according to Maharishi that would be a more accurate rendering of the Sanskrit.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayetze
“Vayetzei” means “and he left”:
This parshah begins with Jacob’s mother sending him to her brother in Haran. On the way, he has a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder, Gd above the ladder, telling him Gd will bless him, make him a great nation, be with him.
audio reading of Parshah Vayeitzei: http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3481592/jewish/Vayeitzei-Audio-Recording.htmt.
The Torah tropes (tone patterns) in the recitation, ascending and descending tones, give the joyous feeling of ascending and descending Jacob’s ladder—the Ladder to Full Awareness.
I draw on sources such as chabad.org, kabblahonline.org, and Wikipedia plus my memory and intuition to discuss the Kabbalist view of the dream and of the nature of prayer and also give some questions I have about the parshah which I hope we will explore together as time passes.
The common Kabbalist view of the ladder is that it represents prayer enabling us to ascend from our material world to increasingly unmanifest worlds, and eventually to intimacy with Gd. This view derives particularly from the Zohar, one of the foundational texts of Kabbalah. The Zohar’s view is that it represents the four worlds, stages of manifestation (Atzilut, Beriyah, Yetzira, Asiyah) ranging from the most unmanifest, most heavenly, to the most manifest, most physical. Prayer is the means through which we ascend to come close to Gd, to join with Gd, Who stands above the worlds, Who is One, within Whom all multiplicity exists as expressions. These four worlds – and a fifth, Adam Kadmon, more subtle still, are mentioned in Isaiah, 43:7, and are considered to be stages of materialization within Gd.
Asiyah is the physical world, the world of action.
Higher than this, is Yetzirah, the world of formation, and Beriyah, the world of creation.
Still higher is Atzilut, the world of intimacy.
Lurianic Kabbalah precedes Atzilut with Adam Kadmon, (The Primordial), which includes all potential creation in latent form.
How is prayer the means to ascend this ladder and to go beyond the veils with which Ein Sof (Gd, the Endless One) pretends to hide?
One fundamental kabbalist view of prayer, according to livingwisdom.kabbalah.com, is given in Genesis when Gd gives Adam the power to name all beasts and fowls and thus to become master of the power of words and master of the world the words describe.
The prayers in our siddurs (prayerbooks), the prayers of our services, are primarily praises of Gd, expressions of gratitude through which we increasingly appreciate Gd in subtle and subtler, more and more complete ways and thus ascend the ladder to be One with Gd, “standing above.”
Types of Jewish Prayer: List of Jewish prayers and blessings – Wikipedia
I hope that, with open hearts we will use prayer today and every day, to climb the ladder and return to Oneness.
Baruch HaShem
Questions:
1.What gave Jacob confidence that the dream was not merely a dream but a communication from Gd to him?
2.Why did he place a stone at his head?
3.Gd is Omnipresent: why should Jacob be surprised that he is in the place where he slept?
4.Why does Jacob say, “If” the Lord will be with me?” Since he is confident that Gd is present where he is and has told him Gd will be with him, why does Jacob say “If?”
5.Since Jacob concluded “God is here and I did not know it: this is the gate to heaven,” did he go through it?
Baruch HaShem