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Parashat Tazria 5782 — 04/02/2022

Parashat Tazria 5782 — 04/02/2022

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 12:1-13:59

In honor of the birth of Sabrina Danielle Rabinoff on 1 March 2022 while I was under anesthesia.

Moving on, Rambam next tackles the word maqom / place. (A note on the transliteration: Hebrew has two letters that are both pronounced like the English K, viz. kaf [כ] and kuf [ק]. In Arabic, the cognate letters are pronounced K and a different kind of K where the back of the tongue is pressed against the upper part of the throat, and is usually transliterated with a Q. I will use the Q except where we’ve grown very used to a different transliteration – e.g. Yitzchak should really be Yitzchaq.)

Here’s what Rambam has to say about this root:

Place [maqom]. Originally this term was given the meaning of particular and general place. Subsequently, language extended its meaning and made it a term denoting an individual’s rank and situation; I mean to say with reference to his perfection in some matter, so that it is said: A certain man has a certain place with regard to a certain matter. You know how often the people of our language use this meaning when they say: Occupying the place of his ancestors; He occupied the place of his ancestors in wisdom or piety; or when they say: The difference of opinion still subsists in its place, which means, in its station. It is in this figurative manner that it is said: Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place,’ meaning, according to His rank and the greatness of His portion in existence. Similarly in every mention of place referring to Gd, the sole intention is to signify the rank of His existence, may He be exalted; there being nothing like or similar to that existence, as shall be demonstrated.
   Know with regard to every term whose equivocality we shall explain to you in this Treatise that our purpose in such an explanation is not only to draw your attention to what we mention in that particular chapter. Rather do we open a gate and draw your attention to such meanings of that particular term as are useful for our purpose, not for the various purposes of whoever may speak the language of this or that people. As for you, you should consider the books of prophecy and other works composed by men of knowledge, reflect on all the terms used therein, and take every equivocal term in that one from among its various senses that is suitable in that particular passage. These our words are the key to this Treatise and to others; a case in point being the explanation we have given here of the meaning of the term place in the dictum of Scripture: Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place. For you should know that this very meaning is that of the term place in its dictum: Behold, there is a place by Me. In this verse the term signifies a rank in theoretical speculation and the contemplation of the intellect – not that of the eye; this being in addition to the meaning alluding to a local place that was to be found on that mountain on which the separation and the achievement of perfection came to pass.

The basic meaning of the root maqom is place. When we think of a place, we generally think of where something is in space – its latitude and longitude on earth, or its x, y and z co-ordinates in a room, or the like. This is a perfectly good, classical idea that works well for the surface level of creation. But, as we have seen in the past several weeks, our classical notions of time, space, locality and causality may not hold up on the scales of the very large (astronomical scales where Relativistic effects are important) or the very small (where quantum effects are important). We will, Gd willing, return to these issues.

Rambam points out that the figurative meaning has to do with the position a person or thing occupies on some other spectrum. So, for example, one can occupy the position of one’s ancestors, socially/politically (a chief’s son takes over as chief) or spiritually (a Kohen Gadol’s son is given preference when a new Kohen Gadol needs to be appointed). We use the same terms in English – someone has a powerful position in the government, some person occupies a high spiritual plane, etc. I know you’re dissatisfied with your position and your place / Can’t you understand that’s not my problem? (Bob Dylan). We tend to see spatially and we project that intuition into unseen dimensions.

Position can also be a more abstract concept. We can identify different positions in a dispute or a negotiation for example. Not all positions may be occupied, just like not all spots on earth may be inhabited. Positions may be judged on a continuum or spectrum (e.g. left-wing to right-wing), just as physical positions may be spread out. Using Rambam’s example, we may think we’ve resolved a dispute, when someone else shows that the resolution actually doesn’t work at all because of some extraneous factor, and the original dispute returns to its place – that is, it gets reinstated (incidentally, the Aramaic word for place, which doesn’t come from the root maqom, is used in this phrase).

Finally, with relation to Gd, the root maqom is used in two ways. Rambam quotes the line we say in kedusha, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place. In the expanded version of the kedusha on Shabbat the angels ask “Where is the place of His glory?” Of course, there is no answer to this question, because one cannot locate Gd in any one place. In fact, the Talmud says, “The world is not the place of Gd; Gd is the place of the world.” In other words, in line with our understanding from Vedic Science, all of creation is the virtual, internal dynamics of Gd – it is never separate from Gd, and is always totally subsumed within Gd. Gd is sometimes called HaMaqom – The Place, often translated the Omnipresent. This is the second use of maqom when referring to Gd.

Our conception of space, place, depends on our perception of objects and their relationships. We have learned that as we go to finer and finer levels of physical matter, the notion of an object’s having a fixed place becomes more and more problematic. On the quantum level we can only measure the position of a particle probabilistically, because a particle is not a little point of mass and other properties that exists at a single point. It is intrinsically spread out over a region of space. We also saw that on the deepest level of physical creation, the Unified Field exists in many dimensions beyond the usual 3+1 space-time that we are used to.

We experience the same thing directly in our practice of the TM program. As we transcend the objects of perception get finer and finer, until they are completely transcended and we are left with just consciousness itself, alone, with no objects of awareness. This is a state that is beyond space and time, unbounded and eternal. Space and time are concepts that we use to get a glimpse of unbound-edness and eternity, but unboundedness and eternity are always and everywhere present. Space, or place, exists within unboundedness, just as time exists within eternity. Both exist within Pure Consciousness, which is our own Self. Once we understand this on the level of our experience, we can move about through space and time as the masters of the domain, rather than as leaves blown in the wind.

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Commentary by Steve Sufian

Parashat Tazria

“Tazria” means “childbirth”: symbolically, the successful completion of any project. This parshah presents Gd’s commands about the states of being unclean and clean and also about the date for celebrating the beginning of a new year. When we are clean, we can enter the Sanctuary and get the added ability to enjoy Gd’s Presence that the Harmonious Nature of the Sanctuary provides. Similarly, it seems to me, a new year provides such an opportunity since it is an opportunity to let go any troubles that might have been veiling our experience of Gd’s Presence.

Oddly, a woman is considered unclean for some time after she gives birth: I say, “oddly,” because considering the Holiness of giving birth, we might expect that a new mother would be particularly clean and therefore most able to perceive Gd’s Presence and most welcome to enter the Sanctuary.

Nechoma Greisman on chabad.org suggests an explanation that makes sense to me: Gd has commanded that a person who touches a dead body is ritually impure; when a woman is carrying her fetus in the womb, she is extra pure—she has two lives. When the child is born, she has only one inside herself, and so there is, in a sense, a loss of life. So, she needs a bit of time and some ritual to feel fully alive again inside herself and not dependent upon her child outside herself to feel fully alive.

Whether this makes sense to everyone, I do not know and I would be very happy to hear from anyone, especially mothers, about its plausibility.

In other areas of our lives—for example, working on some extended project for work, home, service to community—there would certainly be the desire to celebrate when the project is complete but there might also be a feeling of loss, a feeling of emptiness because we no longer have the joy of hope to connect us to Gd’s Presence, we no longer have the silent prayer “Gd, please help!”  We have, instead, the joy of fulfillment, but perhaps some loss of the feeling that we need Gd and therefore less attention to the various spiritual practices that we do to connect to Gd.

Hopefully, we don’t have much of a loss, and we don’t have much time before we return to the perspective that what matters most in our life is not the fulfillment of any particular project, even childbirth, but deepening our connection with Gd, restoring our awareness to Fullness, to the experience of Oneness, Wholeness.