Parashat Emor 5782 — 05/14/2022
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.
Vayikra 21:1-24:23
Rambam now returns to discuss further roots relating to standing, in our case the two roots yatzav and natzav. These roots mean to stand erect. A common modern example is the word matzeivah, literally “pillar” (Ya’akov sets up a matzeivah in Genesis, but after Torah is given, we are forbidden from erecting one), now used almost exclusively for a gravestone (the kind that stands up, not the kind that lie flat and just slightly raised over the surface of the earth). Here is Chapter 15 in its entirety:
To stand erect[natzob] or [yatzob]. Though these two roots are different, their meaning, as you know, is identical in all their various forms. The term is equivocal. Sometimes it has the meaning of rising and being erect. Thus: And his sister stood erect afar off; The Kings of the earth stood erect; They came out and stood erect. The term has also another meaning: to be stable and permanent. Thus: Thy word stands erect in heaven; this means that it is stable and constant. In all cases where this term occurs with reference to the Creator, it has this meaning. Thus: And, behold, the Lord stood erect upon it; that is, was stably and constantly upon it – I mean upon the ladder, one end of which is in heaven, while the other end is upon the earth. Everyone who ascends does so climbing up this ladder, so that he necessarily apprehends Him who is upon it, as He is stably and permanently at the top of the ladder. It is clear that what I say here of Him conforms to the parable propounded. For the angels of Gd are the prophets with reference to whom it is clearly said: And He sent an angel; And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. How well put is the phrase ascending and descending, in which ascent comes before descent. For after the ascent and the attaining of certain rungs of the ladder that may be known comes the descent with whatever decree the prophet has been informed of – with a view to governing and teaching the people of the earth. As we have made clear, it is on this account that this is called descent. I shall now return to our purpose. Stood erect upon it signifies Gd’s being stable, permanent, and constant, not the erect position of a body. The same meaning is to be found in the verse: And thou shalt stand erect upon the rock. It has thus been made clear to you that as far as this purpose is concerned the terms to stand erect and to stand [‘amod] have the same meaning. For Scripture also says: Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock ln Horeb.
The root in question here is also used in the word matzeivah, which in the Bible is a pillar made of a single stone that is set up erect to mark a special place or a special occasion (think of the monolith in 2001, A Space Odyssey). Thus Ya’akov sets up a matzeivah when he wakes up from his dream of the ladder with the angels going up and down. Later, it was prohibited to erect a matzeivah, probably because it had become associated with pagan cults. In modern Hebrew usage a matzeivah is a (vertical) grave marker, a headstone. The point is that this root has the connotation of being free-standing and erect, and permanent.
The application of this root to Gd should be obvious. Gd is self-sufficient in every way and stands “erect” above all the activity of creation. Thus, in Ya’akov’s dream we see Gd standing over him, observing from Heaven – that is, from His transcendent position in the “heavens” Gd looks down at creation and interacts with it, while remaining eternally separate from it.
In this dream, all of creation is described as ascending and descending. Rambam says about this:
…I mean upon the ladder, one end of which is in heaven, while the other end is upon the earth. Everyone who ascends does so climbing up this ladder, so that he necessarily apprehends Him who is upon it, as He is stably and permanently at the top of the ladder. It is clear that what I say here of Him conforms to the parable propounded. For the angels of Gd are the prophets… How well put is the phrase ascending and descending, in which ascent comes before descent. For after the ascent and the attaining of certain rungs of the ladder that may be known comes the descent with whatever decree the prophet has been informed of – with a view to governing and teaching the people of the earth. As we have made clear, it is on this account that this is called descent.
“Ascent” on the ladder Rambam takes to be to higher levels of intellectual apprehension of Gd – in Vedic terms, deeper cognition of the structure of creation and the laws of nature that govern the dynamics of creation. This cognition must come first, before one can lead a group of people. Once one has the cognition, one “descends” back into creation to apply the cognition one has gained at the summit. Thus, the angels first ascend, then descend. Moshe Rabbeinu ascends the mountain first and stands with Gd – that is, his mind is completely steady, as it his consciousness has become completely infused with unbounded, Transcendental Consciousness. Afterwards, he descends and teaches Torah to Israel. Incidentally, the teaching component is vital in our tradition – a person is roundly criticized if he learns Torah but refuses to teach what he has learned, and of course if he refuses to act on what he has learned. This is reflected in the wording of the blessings over Torah study that one says in the morning blessings.
Note that this ascent-then-descent paradigm is opposite to the process of creation. In creation we start with Unity, which then breaks up into diversity, as we have discussed on more than one occasion. However, it is exactly the paradigm of re-integration of diversity into unity. This we experience in our daily TM practice. The mind settles down and becomes more and more expanded, until we reach Transcendental Consciousness. We generally use the analogy of diving deep, but speaking of a spiritual ascent is just as good, as Transcendental Consciousness is certainly a higher state of consciousness than any of waking, dreaming and sleeping. After experiencing Transcendental Consciousness, we come back to waking state (descend), and do this repeatedly until the mind and nervous system are cultured to maintain Transcendental Consciousness along with waking, dreaming and sleep states of consciousness. Then we, too, stand erect within ourselves, while our individuality ascends and descends, swinging between action and silence.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Emor
“Emor” means “speak”: Gd commands Moses to speak to the sons of Aaron and to Aaron, Gd’s Voice speaking through an individual to a group, just as each Sound of Torah is an Individual Sound vibrating within the Whole, which is Gd. Repeatedly in Torah Gd has said “Be thou holy for I am Holy”. In this parshah, we see Gd’s commands about the nature of Holiness, purity. And “speech” is Speech, Gd’s Speech, when it is Pure.
The overall context of Emor is that it is a parshah in “Torah”, a Vibration of Gd, the Liveliness of Gd, Gd Speaking within Gd to Gd but passing through Moses to our ancestors and today available to us in books, scrolls, recitations, recording. Most important, it is available to us in our Awareness when our Heart is open.
Since Gd has no beginning or end, “Beresheit Bara Elohim”, the first words of Torah, cannot be “In the beginning, Gd created”, but “in the beginning of Gd’s revealing”, the beginning and the revealing to be found in every point of Gd, everywhere in Gd’s Speech. This means that Gd plays hide-and-seek within Gd — the unlimited, omniscient, pretends to be limited and a seeker of knowledge, of wisdom. To this role of Gd, Gd reveals the Nature of the process through which Gd appears to be void and then within the void, Gd reveals the range from apparent emptiness to Fullness, a ladder in time, a sequence which is a cycle through which we find the emptiness within the detail and the detail within the emptiness.
This description shows us how each action of ours begins with our becoming aware of the silence of our awareness, the Self-Referral level of our awareness, always fulfilled, and unfolds more and more concrete and wide-ranging manifestations as increasing awareness of the gap between our Self-Referral level of awareness and our individual awareness produces a desire of ours perform actions that will narrow and eliminate the gap and restore our individual awareness to Self-Referral Awareness, Total Awareness.
Parsashat Emor shows four groups of commands that reveal the detail within the word “speak. It continues the Book of Leviticus: “Leviticus” derives from “Levi,” attached, pledge to Gd. This is specifically referring to the Levis, the priests, who attached and pledged themselves to Gd during their service when the Mishkan and the Temples stood.
At any time, and certainly today, whether we are Levis or not, we pledge and attach ourselves to Gd, through not only our actions and our daily prayers, ideally through what we learned (and continue) to learn through our religion, but certainly through any innocent prayer for Gd to reveal to us Gd’s Will and give us the purity to do It so that every action of ours is innocent, kind and loving narrows the gap between our small self and our Big Self and attaches ourself to Gd.
The essence of Gd’s Will is that we should “Love the Ld thy Gd with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy might” and “shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Gd may be a bit abstract but our neighbor is concretes and so something simple like helping a friend, a family member, or a stranger; something complex like doing a large project for an international organization or business that we feel is helping our world to become more pure helps us move in the direction of loving Gd.
Prayer, the ideal speech, in Judaism is much more a recognition of the Blessedness, the Blissfulness of Gd, than it is a request for something. Our actions allow this Blessedness to increase in our awareness and flow through us when they are not just for our individual self but for the community, for the Harmony of Life.
The commands in Parshah Emor can be divided into four sections:
- The commands about purity of the Kohanim, the priests who are direct descendants of Aaron, himself of the tribe of Levi.
- Establishing Festivals and the Sabbath — times when there are special rules to be pure and celebrate purity
- Lighting the menorah — light that symbolizes the victory of purity over impurity.
- Penalties for blasphemy, murder, destruction of property — very clear descriptions of actions to avoid so that we remain pure, grow in purity, act with love and do not suffer or cause suffering.
In the beginning of Parashat Emor, we see Gd, Who is Holy, Speaking to Moses, an open channel for his speech and a good model for us to help us act so that we are holy as Gd is Holy.
In the conclusion of the parshah, we see the consequences of blasphemous speech, speech which moves away from Holiness rather than toward it. The penalty was stoning to death. This is certainly not the penalty today but the penalty at any time is that with blasphemous speech our nerves and heart become hard, like stone, and little by little, if we do not return to purity, we stone ourselves to a joyless life, to suffering, to death of our spirit, and eventually, to death of our bodies. This is a very good reason to speak in praise of Gd and to speak encouragingly to all, encouraging all to act purely so they return to Wholeness.
Parashat Emor is a good one to read aloud or silently, to listen to, to act on so that we continue to speak holiness and to act in holiness.
Baruch HaShem