Parashat Vayechi 5784 — 12/30/2023
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.
Bereishit 47:28-50:26
Rambam now goes on to delineate the various categories of attributes – the idea being to demonstrate how none of them can possibly apply to Gd.
An attribute predicated of any thing, of which thing it is accordingly said that it is such and such, must necessarily belong to one of the following five groups:
The first group is characterized by the thing having its definition predicated of it – as when it is predicated of man that he is a rational living being. This attribute, which indicates the essence and true reality of a thing, is, as we have already made clear [in the previous Chapter], merely the explanation of a term and nothing else. This kind of attribute should be denied to Gd according to everybody. For He, may He be exalted, has no causes anterior to Him that are the cause of His existence and by which, in consequence, He is defined. For this reason it is well known among all people engaged in speculation, who understand what they say, that Gd cannot be defined.
Here Rambam focuses on Gd’s eternity and absolute priority over everything in creation. To define something, it must be finite, and Gd is not finite. In addition, a definition is a comparison between two things. Gd is unique, therefore there is nothing to which we can compare Gd. I think the crucial point is that “He… has no causes anterior to Him that are the cause of His existence and by which, in consequence, He is defined.” Since Gd is eternal, there can be nothing anterior in time; at best, if there were something else that is eternal, it would be coextensive in time. Rather, I believe that anterior is a logical conception here. There is nothing logically prior to Gd, since Gd is not a creation of anything else. Gd is the ultimate cause of everything in creation, nothing causes Gd to exist; Gd simply is.
Rambam continues:
The second group is characterized by the thing having part of its definition predicated of it – as when it is predicated of man that he is a living being or a rational being. This attribute signifies an inseparable connection. For our saying, every man is rational, signifies that reason must be found in every being in whom humanity is found. This kind of attribute should be denied to Gd, may He be exalted, according to everybody. For if He has a part of an essence, His essence must be composite. The absurdity of divine attributes belonging to this group is like the absurdity recognized with regard to the first group.
As Rambam points out at the end of the paragraph, the same problems that we found in the first group inhere in this second group as well, only worse. The first group at least posits that there might be a unified attribute that could apply to Gd, Who is likewise unified. In the second group, we are dealing with partial values – rationality, for example, which must be combined with life to give a description of human beings – and, as Rambam states, this implies something composite, and we do not accept that Gd is composite.
I might point out that according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, any isolated, composite system will experience an increase in entropy over time. Colloquially, entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. It is determined by calculating the number of different ways one can arrange the pieces of the system that look the same from a macro viewpoint. If the “system” is non-composite then of course there is no question of arranging or rearranging its pieces, and the entropy is always zero (no disorder). Since there is no disorder in Gd, it follows from physics that Gd cannot be composite, and being non-composite, Gd cannot experience decay, or any change at all actually. Presumably this argument from Thermodynamics is not one that Rambam would have been aware of.
The third group consists of attributes predicated of a thing that go beyond its true reality and its essence so that the attribute in question is not a thing through which the essence is perfected and constituted. Consequently that attribute is a certain quality with respect to the thing of which it is predicated. Now quality, considered one of the supreme genera [translator: the Aristotelian categories] is regarded as one of the accidents. Thus if an attribute belonging to this group would subsist in Him, may He be exalted, He would be a substratum of accidents. This is sufficient to show how far from His true reality and essence this is, I mean the supposition that He is endowed with quality. It is, however, strange that those who proclaim the existence of attributes, deny with reference to Him, may He be exalted, the possibility of likening Him to something else and of qualifying Him. For what is the meaning of their saying that He may not be qualified unless it be that He is not endowed with quality? Now every attribute that is affirmed of a certain essence as pertaining to it essentially either constitutes the essence, in which case it is identical with the latter, or is a quality of that essence.
Rambam gives examples of this third group in a long continuation of the passage. The kind of attributions he is speaking of here are things like saying a man is a carpenter, or that he is tall or short, or any of the other qualities which might be appropriate to a human being. All of these things are actually more concrete and limited (and limiting) than the examples we have had up till now, so it is very clear that they cannot apply to Gd. Rambam says:
Now when you consider all these attributes and what is akin to them, you will find that it is impossible to ascribe them to Gd. For He does not possess quantity so that there might pertain to Him a quality pertaining to quantity as such. Nor does He receive impressions and affections so that there might pertain to Him a quality belonging to the affections. Nor does He have dispositions so that there might be faculties and similar things pertaining to Him. Nor is He, may He be exalted, endowed with a soul, so that He might have a habitus pertaining to Him – such as clemency, modesty, and similar things – or have pertain to Him that which pertains to animate beings as such – for instance health and illness. It is accordingly clear to you that no attribute that may be brought under the supreme genus of quality can subsist in Him, may He be exalted.
Gd willing, we’ll continue with the last two types of attributes next week.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayechi (“And he lived”)
Jacob lives in Egypt for 17 years, his end draws near, Israel asks Joseph to promise he will bury Jacob in the Holy Land, with his fathers. Joseph swears.
From the chabad.org point of view, Jacob is called “Jacob” when he toils, “Israel” when he is free from toil. When Jacob was wrestling with a man, then an angel, then Gd, he was toiling; when he prevailed, he was free from toil, and so called “Israel.”
Living in Egypt, Mitzraim, Restrictions, is living with toiling; returning to Canaan, Synchronicity, Wholeness, he will be free from restrictions, from toil, he will be “Israel.” So as his end draws near, he is blessed with a taste of his status as Israel and it is from this level of freedom, of Joy, that he asks Joseph to swear to bury his body in Canaan, the Holy Land, the Land of Wholeness.
We do not need to die in order to be free from toil. We can simply open ourselves to the deeper and deeper levels of Torah, the levels which are deeper than the level of meaning, which is a level of restrictions. We can open ourselves to Torah, within which all levels exist, Torah which is One with Gd, Totality. This is the real Holy Land, the real Land of Wholeness.
As Jacob, he becomes ill, toiling to rise from his bed when Joseph brings Joseph’s sons to him. When he sees Joseph’s sons, he is raised in spirit and is Israel.
As Israel, he blesses Joseph’s sons, and adopts them and as Israel he blesses Joseph, too, giving one portion more than he gives to his other sons
It is as Jacob, though that he assembles his other sons and blesses each of them, so this level of blessing involves toil, much harmony but to some degree out-of-tune with the Harmony of Gd.
But still! there is great harmony: When Jacob blesses his sons, he asks them to assemble and then he blesses them individually. This can be taken, and Rabbi Yehuda Berg of the Kabbalah Center takes it that way, to indicate that Jacob is emphasizing that the individual blessings will be fruitful when the sons act as an assembly, a unity, a family. And, when the tribes of Jacob’s sons are considered together, they are considered the Children of Israel, a unity, in Harmony, free from toil.
From this we can see an affirmation of what many of us already feel and act on: we are able to fulfill ourselves as individuals when we act together as a community, a family. It is through Love, through inclusion, gathering together, excluding no one, that we rise to the level of Israel, free from toil, completely in Harmony with Gd, with Oneness.
As the father of the Children of Israel, Israel dies and Joseph, Israel’s family and entourage (except for the youngest children who remain in Egypt tending the flocks), accompanied by Pharaoh’s ministers, and many leaders of Mitzraim, bring him and bury him in the cave of Machpelah, (“Cave of the Double Caves”, integration of restrictions and unboundedness) where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca were buried.
This gathering of the leaders of Mitzraim-Restrictions, toil-with Israel’s family, taking Israel’s body to Canaan, Wholeness, is another example of how appreciation, love, can raise us to gathering and thus to Wholeness.
Also, we can think of the “burying of the body” as “transcendence of the body, of individuality” and this takes place through Appreciation, Love, letting go the limited sense of self and rising to the Unlimited Experience of Self, the Common Self, All-in-All, One.
Physical death is not necessary to experience this transcendence: many in our congregation and many around the world experience this Unlimited Experience and, at least a few, are experiencing it permanently.
May all souls experience this Teshuvah, this return to Full Awareness, so that all of Life lives in Fulfillment, in Harmony.
Baruch HaShem