Parashat Vayikra 5781 — 03/20/2021
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.
In gratitude for the healthy arrival of Frances Jane Wickelgren Rabinoff on Purim Day 5781
Vayikra 1:1-5:26
For the opening of the new Book of Torah I would like to open a discussion of a fundamental concept in Jewish thought, and that is hasgachah pratit / Divine Providence. The word hashgachah means “supervision” – a mashgiach at a food plant or slaughterhouse is the one who supervises the operations to make sure they conform with Jewish law, and a mashgiach ruchani at a yeshiva is the spiritual supervisor of the students, who teaches them how to be menschen, not just scholars. Pratit means “individual,” as opposed to clalit, which means “general.” So hashgachah pratit means individual supervision, that is, supervision of our individual lives by Gd. The English translation, Divine Providence, has some of this flavor. Providence is from the same root as “to provide.” Divine Providence means that Gd provides for our needs, and that everything that happens has a purpose in Gd’s plan; There’s a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2).
The question of Providence and its nature is really a question of great generality. What is the nature of Gd’s interaction with the universe? Did Gd create the universe and then allow it to run on its own (“the Watchmaker”), possibly with some occasional intervention in the form of miracles? Or is Gd intimately involved in every aspect of creation (“a person does not stub his toe below unless it has been decreed from above”)? How does Divine Providence square with human free will?
Clearly, we will not answer these questions in a short post, or even an extended series of posts. What I want to do is briefly to outline some of the approaches taken by Rambam, based on both Greek and Islamic sources, and then add a perspective from Maharishi’s Vedic Science.
Prof. Pines writes, in a discussion of the influence of Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200 CE) on Rambam:
The treatise On Providence… affords an instructive illustration both of the capital importance of Alexander’s Writings for the formation of the medieval system of Peripatetic philosophy and of the way in which Maimonides utilized his sources. I shall deal with the second point first.
In III 17, Maimonides sets forth five opinions concerning providence: (1) the Epicurean; (2) the Aristotelian; (3) the Ash’arite (i.e., that professed by a school of kalam that represents and already represented in Maimonides’ times the official theology of Sunnite Islam) (4) the Mu’tazilite (professed by another kalam school); (5) that of Jewish law, from which Maimonides apparently differentiates his own opinion, likewise expounded in this chapter.
…
The sixteenth chapter sets forth various opinions concerning Gd’s knowledge, a problem that, in Maimonides’ view, is bound up with that of providence. One of these opinions, which is quoted from Alexander, closely parallels that ascribed to the Ash’arites in the seventeenth chapter. For its partisans hold that Gd knows all things, nothing being hidden from Him….
It would seem clear that Gd’s knowledge must be tied up with Gd’s Providence, for were Gd not to know something, how could He provide properly for His creatures?! Surely Gd must know what resources every creature needs to fulfill its role in creation; providence makes sure that those resources are available. All creatures except human beings simply “play out the script” that they have been assigned. Human beings have free will, and can choose whether to use their resources wisely or to squander them in vain pursuits. We thus come to the conundrum of reconciling human free will with Gd’s complete knowledge. If Gd knows what we will do, what kind of free will do we have? If we are able to choose freely in any situation, then presumably Gd does not know everything that will happen. Rambam will discuss this later; for now I will just quote R. Akiva (Pirke Avot III:15): Everything is foreseen, and free will is given… . The answer does not lie on the level of duality in which we normally operate.
Prof. Pines continues:
There is no evidence to show that Aristotle put forward the view regarding providence ascribed to him by Alexander and Maimonides, i.e., the view that divine providence extends only to the celestial spheres up to the sphere of the Moon inclusively, but does not watch over the sublunar world. It is true that this opinion is inspired by Aristotle’s way of thinking and is faithful to the spirit of his system. But Aristotle probably did not feel the need to take so clear a stand in the matter; in all probability, the doctrine in question was enunciated several centuries later by Alexander and other Peripatetics (some of whom may have preceded him), at a time when in the face of the pointed formulations of the Stoics concerning divine providence, the rival schools also had to state their position clearly.
Here we seem to have an attempt to split off the troublesome parts of our problem and deal with the easier parts first. The “sublunar” world is our world. If we say that Gd’s Providence only extends to the sphere of the moon (I would say “down” to the sphere of the moon) we really have very little problem. The celestial objects, the stars and planets are controlled by nature, which is the “automatic” aspect of Gd’s Providence. Higher up are the angels. There is a question whether the angels have free will, but even if they do, they are so close to Gd and the consequences of violating Gd’s Will are so palpable (so to speak – angels are non-corporeal beings!) that they can no more sin that we can barbeque our own hand in a fire. – it’s a technical possibility but practically will never happen. On the view that angels are creatures that exist to carry out a specific mission, there can be no question of free will, and therefore no problem with Divine Providence. In fact, on this view angels can be thought of as laws of nature – some of them are more general, some more specific. We’ll return to this point in the next couple of weeks, when we take up this thread again.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayikra “Vayikra” means “and He Called.” Gd called to Moses to describe to him the Five Offerings — “Offerings” in Hebrew is “korbanot” which means “draw near.” The Five Offerings (Korbanot):
- Fire: to atone.
- Meal: a gift from one whose life is dedicated to generosity.
- Peace: made when making peace with others by dedicating one’s life to Gd.
- Trespass: to compensate for unintentional infringement on others’ rights.
- Sin: to pay in full the debt of one’s unintentional failures and weaknesses, failures of one’s personality.
“Atonement” means “at-Onement” – restoring our awareness so we remember that we are a fascinating role that Gd is Playing within Gd. What we really offered when we offered the physical offerings in the days of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and of the First and Second Temple was ourselves: we offered the limits of ourselves to Gd to dissolve them in the Fire of Love so as to restore us to Wholeness, Oneness, Fulfillment.
This is what we do today when we use prayers instead of physical offerings: we offer our limits to Gd to Dissolve them in the Fire of Love and to Restore us to Wholeness, Oneness, Fulfillment.
And this is what we do today, whether formally praying or in the midst of the rest of the activities of our life: Through our right actions in any way, we draw near: we draw near with our innocence, our naturalness, our kindness, our gratitude. We draw near with our simple, easy life that seeks to be in attunement with Gd and Gd’s Will, seeks to easily (but quickly!) return to Primordial Oneness, beyond the duality of Gd and soul, the Oneness within which all multiplicity exists as expressions.
Ahhh! Little by little: and Suddenly! Home free! Home!
Baruch HaShem.