Parashat BeHa’alotcha 5781 — 05/29/2021
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.
Bamidbar 8:1-12:16
I hope you all had a wonderful Shavuot and enjoyed our little interlude with R. Sacks. Now that we have traversed a gap in our study of Rambam, I’d like to turn to al-Fārābī’s political philosophy – what constitutes an ideal society and how do we get there from here.
To start, I’d like to return to another statement about the intellect and look at it from the perspective of Vedic Science. Prof. Pines writes:
As al-Fārābī points out in the same treatise (pp. 8-9), the intellect with which Aristotle is concerned in the Book of Demonstration is the psychic faculty that enables man to obtain certain knowledge of true general and necessary premises not by means of thought and reasoning but either because of his inborn disposition (i.e. a priori knowledge), or from his youth onwards, or without being aware in what way he acquired this knowledge. These premises constitute the principles of the speculative sciences.
It is clear from this passage that the definition of intellect is specifically not what we commonly think of as intellect nowadays, i.e. the faculty of “thought and reasoning.” Rather, it appears to be that faculty that knows from inside ourselves (intuition if you will) because of our “inborn disposition (i.e. a priori knowledge).” This a priori knowledge is structured in our consciousness, because our consciousness has the same structure as the universe. We are the universe in a holographic kind of way. We think of our consciousness as something purely subjective, but consciousness has its objective aspect as well – it is Pure Being, the Unified Field at the substrate of creation. Said another way, Pure Being expresses itself both as objective creation and as the subjective world as well; since they both arise as expressions of the same “thing.”
I might point out that the history of Physics has demonstrated over and over again that when two things that are separate on one level, interact with one another, it means at a deeper level they are two aspects of one underlying reality. A simple example is the electric field and the magnetic field. Each one was discovered separately; each has its own dynamics. In the mid-1800’s Faraday discovered that a changing magnetic field produced an electric field, and conversely, a changing electric field produces a magnetic field. James Clerk Maxwell followed these discoveries up with a set of equations that describe the behavior of the electromagnetic field, one aspect of which appears as the electric field, another aspect of which appears as the magnetic field, and another aspect of which is the interaction between the two.
I bring this up because on the surface we see consciousness and matter as separate things, yet we know that they interact. When I see something, photons bounce off the thing and into my eye, where they trigger electrical activity in the nervous system, including the brain. This activity somehow gets transformed into a mental image of the object, which exists in consciousness, and hopefully corresponds with the “outer” reality. Similarly, if I have an intention to do something (e.g. raise my arm), that is an event in my consciousness. Somehow that gets transformed into electrical activity in the nervous system, the muscles get activated and the arm goes up. There is the subtler phenomenon of quantum measurement, but there is no need to get into that for this consideration.
Since the inner world of consciousness and the outer world of objective creation are so tightly linked, it is not a stretch to think that they are two aspects of one underlying reality. This field has to have the characteristics of both consciousness and existence (i.e. subjectivity and objectivity), and it is variously called Pure Consciousness or Pure Existence, depending on which aspect is being highlighted. But the point to be noted here is that the structure and functioning of the objective world “out there” is the same as the structure and functioning of the subjective world “in here,” because fundamentally there is no difference between the two. We in fact do (or can) have a priori knowledge of the way the world works, because the way the world works is the way our own consciousness works. We only have to turn inwards, clear out the stresses and strains that distort the functioning of our consciousness and nervous system. To repeat what we quoted Prof. Pines as saying two weeks ago: In this state he can cognize without the help of the bodily organs.
We always act based on our level of consciousness. If we are stressed, our consciousness is restricted and our actions are distorted and do not bring us fulfillment, nor do they fulfill the purposes of nature. They create disorder and conflict, rather than greater harmony. If a society is filled with people who are acting in this way, then it will surely not succeed. On the other hand, a society that is filled with people whose awareness is fully expanded will be one that is filled with love and harmony and mutual support, and will be able to accomplish virtually anything.
This applies to leaders of communities as well. If leaders are stressed out, they will project a scattered consciousness onto the entire community they lead. If they are established in Pure Consciousness, they will project order into the organization that they supervise. I believe this is what Plato describes as the philosopher-king – someone with enlightened consciousness and secular power to create a powerful, orderly society. Rambam and his predecessors take up this idea, and we will too, beginning next week.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat BeHa’alotcha
Gd commands Moses to tell Aaron, the High Priest, that when he lights the seven lamps (of the menorah) he should light them turning toward the face, the middle lamp. Symbolism of Light: It’s easy to see that this light of the menorah symbolizes the Light of Gd, which is not separate from Gd, but Gd’s Nature. The lamps symbolize not only the Light of Gd but also all the other uncountable and inseparable attributes of Gd; for example, Love, Joy, Compassion, Justice, Purity, Totality, Perfection.
Lighting the lamps in the Temple symbolizes lighting the lights inside our own temple — our own personality and physiology.
Symbolism of seven lamps: This can be the seven more concrete qualities given to the Sephirot, qualities of Gd; can be the qualities of the seven traditional planets; can be seven days of Creation, many sevens.
Can also be, in essence, revealing the Many within the One: though Gd is One, Gd has detail, infinite detail, and seven just gives a sense of the Infinity that is Gd. And of the seventh, the Day of Rest, the Light of Rest, that contains all the others within it and integrates them.
Symbolism of lighting toward the face of the menorah: Rashi comments that this is the middle lamp, the central lamp, not on a branch of the menorah but part of the central column. The symbolism can be that we always need to turn diversity toward the Center that Unifies.
Symbolism of raising the lights: The literal translation of “BeHa’alotecha” is not just “light” or “kindle” but “cause to ascend.” The idea is that one just warms the wick enough so it rises by itself. Symbolically, we move with devotion toward Love of Gd, Love of our neighbor, Love of our Self, and just a small move brings a large result — the Light of Gd, of One, Lights us up.
Symbolism of single piece: The Menorah was made of a single piece of gold symbolizing that All is One, though it appears as many.
Symbolism of gold: Gold symbolizes purity: Many in Fairfield tell of experiencing their consciousness as Golden Light.
May we all experience today and always the Light of Gd, of One, fully lit within ourself, fully lit within our neighbors and all creation!
We are the Light and the Love! Baruch HaShem!