Parashat Vayera 5784 — 11/04/2023
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 18:1-22:24
I was asked to speak with a member of the Fairfield community about the relationship between Jewish practice and Maharishi’s teaching. I promised them I’d write something up, but didn’t realize how long it would be. Here is part I. I hope to finish it next week (Chayei Sarah) and return to Rambam after that (Toledot).
Some thoughts about Jewish practice and Vedic Science
Maharishi has said that the TM program, the technology of consciousness that comes out of Vedic Science, is the “fulfillment of all religions.” This is because the TM program opens the awareness to the basis of all existence, Transcendental Consciousness, and gradually stabilizes this experience throughout all of the 3 relative states of consciousness, waking, dreaming and sleeping. I am writing assuming that the reader understands the basic principles of Vedic Science – that Transcendental Consciousness is the unitary basis of all diversity; that the human nervous system can support the continuous experience of Transcendental Consciousness, both in itself and during waking, dreaming and sleeping; that all the laws of nature are structured in the self-referral nature of Transcendental Consciousness, and that a human being who has Transcendental Consciousness established permanently in the awareness acts in accord with all the laws of nature.
I will not argue here that Transcendental Consciousness and Gd are the same. There are several reasons for this. First, I don’t believe that Maharishi ever equated Gd to Transcendental Consciousness. Second, Gd is a very fraught concept in the West, and it is not always clear how to translate Vedic concepts into Western terms, especially in those areas where our Western concepts are circumscribed by a lack of knowledge about the realities to which those concepts refer. When we speak of Gd in the West, we are talking about a reality that is outside ourselves. When we talk about Transcendental Consciousness in Vedic Science, it is indeed an all pervasive reality, but one which can be experienced internally, on the level of our own conscious mind. So, I don’t think the identification is correct and I don’t intend to make it, and if I seem to imply it, you can read this paragraph again!
There are a few areas I want to touch on:
• Maharishi’s theory of the rise of religions
• What is Torah? What is Torah study?
• Hebrew Language
• Doing Gd’s Will
• Shabbat
• Prayer
• Kashrut
• Ritual activities (e.g. lulav, shofar)
Maharishi’s Theory of the Rise of Religions
Maharishi discusses the arc of history in terms of the level of natural law being lived by society as a whole. The cycle starts out in an ideal state where the society is living 100% natural law. In such a state everyone is living an ideal life, and no religion is necessary, as we shall see. Even in such a state, some deviation in the practice can creep in, and slowly the level of natural law decreases. When it reaches 75% a religion arises with a code of conduct that people can follow when they no longer intuitively can live 100% value of natural law. The religious code of conduct “fills in” the remaining 25%. As the level of natural law lived in society continues to decline, the religion becomes more elaborate, as what was intuitive at 75% is less so at 70% or 60%. At 50% a whole new religion arises to meet the needs of society at that time, and on down to 25%. When the level of life of the society has become so degraded that virtually 0% level of natural law is lived, nature spawns a total revival of knowledge and experience of the transcendent, we go back to 100% natural law being lived, and the cycle repeats.
It’s very tempting to correlate the quartile levels with the 4 Yugas, although I have never heard Maharishi say so explicitly. We are certainly in Kali Yuga, according to Maharishi, and if we are about 5000 years or so into Kali Yuga, as some say, then Judaism would be the religion of 25% natural law, and our Torah is the revealed code of conduct for that level of life. Since the giving of the Torah, life has gone downhill (this is called yeridat hadorot / decline of the generations in Hebrew), and Jewish Law has needed more and more elaboration as we have lost the ability even to intuit what Torah is saying to us. Thus, we have Mishnah, then Gemara, then the early commentators culminating in the Shulchan Aruch, and then the commentaries and super-commentaries on that. Of course daughter religions have also arisen that have simplified the Torah into a few precepts – until we got to a point where we couldn’t even live according to those precepts and commentaries and elaborations multiply ad infinitum.
Based on this idea that Judaism is the religion of 25% natural law (which is my idea, I certainly never heard it from Maharishi), we can consider some of the basic principles of Judaism.
What is Torah? What is Torah study?
I want to start with Torah because it is fundamental to the entirety of Jewish tradition. According to the Torah we have in our hands (The 5 Books of Moses), Torah was revealed to the whole people by Gd at Mt Sinai in the year 2448 in the Jewish calendar (I am writing this in 5784, 3336 years later). Gd’s voice was overwhelming and the people quickly asked Moses to intervene and hear Gd out and then transmit the Torah to them. Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai for 40 days and nights, and returns with the first tablets, sees the people reveling around the golden calf, smashes the tablets, re-ascends for 40 days to pray Gd to forgive the people, descends and carves a second set of tablets, ascends for another 40 days and is given the entire Torah again, and finally descends with the second tablets.
There is debate in the Rabbinic sources in what sense the whole Torah was given at Mt. Sinai – was it the entirety of the Written Torah, or just part of the Written Torah (the 10 Commandments perhaps), or both Written and Oral Torah, or including even later Rabbinic commentaries? I think we can cut through this debate by taking a broader view of what Torah is and where it resides.
Let me begin with Maharishi’s description of what Veda is. When we first experience Transcendental Consciousness it is completely flat and silent. It has no structure, it is just pure existence, pure being. However, it also has the attribute of consciousness, and therefore it is conscious of itself. This establishes a virtual duality within Transcendental Consciousness, where it plays the role of both Observer and Observed. Maharishi goes on to describe a kind of “infinite-frequency vibration” between these two poles (since the poles are not actually separated it is easy to see how the frequency can be infinite). This infinite frequency vibration then breaks down into patterns of lower-frequency vibrations, and these vibrations and patterns are what appear as creation. The patterns and the sequences in which they arise are all very precise – these are the various laws of nature that govern creation. But they are patterns of vibration, and Maharishi explains that when our consciousness is awake and subtle enough we can perceive these patterns within our own consciousness as sounds of human speech – phonetics, semantics and grammar. The language that these perceptions appear in is Vedic Sanskrit, and the Veda is the sum total of the perceptions that make up the fundamental layer of creation.
How does this relate to Torah? I think the answer is this. Our esoteric tradition tells us that there is a Supernal Torah which is written with black fire on white fire. This is then projected down to the earthly plane as the Torah we have. The Supernal Torah is considered to be the “blueprint of creation” – that is, it contains the laws of nature that structure creation. We also know that Gd creates through speech – “And Gd said ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Who was Gd talking to? Since this was before creation, it could only have been Gd speaking to Himself.
This is brought out in the Torah itself. In Numbers 7:89 it says, “When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with [God], he would hear the Voice addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim; thus [God] spoke to him.” The word “addressing” is midaber. This is not grammatical Hebrew – the word should be m’daber. Rashi explains: “midaber is the same as mitdaber (a reflexive form) – “He heard the Voice uttering itself.” It is out of reverence for the Most High Gd that Scripture speaks thus: ‘The Voice was speaking to itself,’ and Moses would listen in (lit. ‘he heard it on his own’).” (translation by Sefaria) I had the opportunity to present this passage to Dr. Vernon Katz, a renowned Vedic scholar who worked closely with Maharishi for 50 years, and his eyes widened and he said, “But that’s Vedic cognition!”
So, we have a very close parallel between Veda, as Maharishi understands it, and Torah. In both cases the transcendental basis of creation has a self-referential nature: Transcendental Consciousness knows itself, Gd speaks to Himself. In both cases the resulting vibrations are the basic laws of nature, that govern to evolution of creation, and in both cases those vibrations can be heard by a sufficiently alert consciousness as the sounds of human speech – Vedic Sanskrit or Hebrew.
If Torah is thus understood, then this changes, or expands, our understanding of what Torah study is. Torah study is the most fundamental Jewish value, and the Orthodox community goes to great lengths to provide opportunities for as many men as possible to study Torah texts full time for years on end. Torah study is an end in and of itself, alongside its practical applications in Jewish law and philosophy. But does Torah study really mean just studying Talmud for many hours every day, to the exclusion of other responsibilities? I think if we want to get to the essence of Torah study, we have to go to the essence of Torah, which is the Supernal Torah, far beyond any text. Supernal Torah is the vibrations of Transcendental Consciousness, and it can be experienced directly in our own fully ripened experience of Transcendental Consciousness. Torah is really known – learned – on its own level, on the level of knowingness, beyond any expression of knowing. Whether one can reach such a state of consciousness by textual study, I don’t know. I haven’t tried. But we have a good deal of scientific evidence that practice of the TM and TM-Sidhi programs do lead to growth of consciousness, and I would therefore argue that the essence of Torah study is conducted within one’s own consciousness, and textual study is an adjunct that gives us some intellectual understanding of the text while we are in the process of developing our consciousness.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayeira
Vayeira” means “and appeared.”
Genesis Chapter 18.
1. Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent while the day was hot.
2. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and ran toward them from the entrance of the tent and he prostrated himself to the ground.
When Gd appears to us, as He does for some in our congregation, how will Gd appear? With a Form, or as The Formless, The Unbounded, All-Pervading, Omnipresent, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, All Loving, All Joyful? Or as a Mixture of Formless and Form?
Gd appears to Abram (not yet Abraham) as Abram sits in the doorway of his home; how does Gd Appear? As the Formless, or with Form?
The Parshah does not tell us nor does it tell us that Gd spoke to Abram nor does it tell Abram’s reaction to Gd appearing: immediately after we are told that Gd appeared, we are told that Abram looked and saw three men.
The men turn out to be angels, messengers of Gd, Expressions of Gd, so I read between the lines and take it that Gd Appeared first as the Formless and instantly! Gd Appeared with Form, as the three angels.
When Abram was sitting at the entrance to his tent, he was the link between the inside – the Formless Unity – and the outside, the Formed Diversity. This is definitely a taste of Teshuvah, return to Primordial Oneness.
Through the sound and the meaning of Torah, we too can have a taste of Teshuvah:
Although the meaning of Torah and its guidance for us in English translation may not be so easy to grasp, the sound of Torah can give us something of the feeling of the Torah as Gd, Totality, Oneness, vibrating within Gd.
Here is a recording of Parshah Va’eira read by Rabbi Michael Slavin, the regular reader at Chabad’s central Brooklyn synagogue, the one at which the Lubavitcher Rebbe, known for many cognitions, presided: http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3481587/jewish/Vayeira-Audio-Recording.htm
In listening to this recording, I felt delight and joy, flowing sweetly, an inspiration to master Torah tropes and Hebrew so I, too, can read, feel, recite Torah and share the delight and joy of Torah with others.
I hope we will all have the opportunities to fulfill this wish.
Vayeira and Teshuvah
We are looking at Torah as a means to Teshuvah, return to the original state, the Primordial Oneness, Gd. From this standpoint, the series of stories of individuals and of the Jewish nation illustrate progress to Oneness and also actual experiences of Oneness Noah, “who walked with Gd” and “Was perfect in his generations” seems to have the Experience.
“Vayeira” means “and appeared.”
Different translations present the opening in different ways but one way (chabad.org) says, “Now the Lrd appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot.
And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground.”
Perhaps Gd’s purpose in appearing was to alert him to his three visitors; perhaps Gd continued to appear to him as he ran to greet his visitors. Perhaps this means that Abraham has fulfilled the command Gd gave him in the last parshah, “to walk before Me and be perfect”? This would mean he is permanently restored to Oneness.
Alas! This is not so. It seems to indicate that he is making progress but not yet restored because later in the parshah, Gd says to Gd “Shall I reveal My purpose, to destroy Sodom?”, and thus Abraham does not yet experience total knowledge, which he would have had he experienced Full Awareness.
But Gd does reveal His purpose and provides an occasion for Abraham to show his kindness, his love for his fellow human, as he pleads with Gd to save Sodom, in which his nephew Lot is dwelling, for the sake of even ten righteous men (people).
Later Gd tests Abraham, speaking to him and telling him to bring his son as a burnt offering. Abraham does this and Gd, through an angel, stays his hand and tells him he will be blessed because of the purity of his faith, his descendants will be blessed and greatly numerous, and will inherit the lands of his enemies.
For Abraham to trust that the command comes from Gd and not from some demonic force, means that Abraham has enough experience of Gd to trust that following the command will be good for Isaac, How great it will be when we have such deep experience.
Abraham has passed a test and will be blessed (“varaich”) but we do not know if this is a Total Blessing, Total Return.
In the next parshah, Parashat Chayei Sarah, we do see some sign that Total Blessing is given and that Abraham has become perfect. Not only Abraham but also Sarah and Isaac, their son.
But let us not wait until next week to become perfect ourselves, to restore our self to Oneness.
Today is always the best day to be kind, innocent, simple, to serve Gd, to return to One and to share the return with everyone.
Baruch HaShem