Parashat Vayishlach 5781 — 12/05/2020
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 32:4-36:43
Last week we began a discussion of Rambam’s aims and methods in writing Moreh Nevukim, and saw that Rambam viewed knowledge as a progressive ladder leading up to an understanding of Gd: logic → mathematics → natural science → divine science. We also saw that Rambam preferred experience (“natural science”) and logic to pure reliance on Scriptural authority. To an extent, we find such a preference in the Rabbinic literature, although this is tempered by the necessity of maintaining the inerrancy and completeness of Scripture.
There is a fascinating exchange in the Talmud (Chullin 57b) regarding this relationship (quote and translation from a web site called Talmudology, dealing with science in the Talmud):
They said about Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta that he was a researcher of various matters… The Gemara asks: From what episode did Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta earn the title: Researcher of Matters? Rav Mesharshiyya said: He saw that it is written: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise; which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provides her bread in the summer” (Proverbs 6:6–8). Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta said: I will go and see if it is correct that they have no king.
He went in the season of Tammuz, i.e., summer. Knowing that ants avoid intense heat, he spread his cloak over an ant hole to provide shade. One of the ants came out and saw the shade. Rabbi Shimon placed a distinguishing mark on the ant. It went into the hole and said to the other ants: Shade has fallen. They all came out to work. Rabbi Shimon lifted up his cloak, and the sun fell on them. They all fell upon the first ant and killed it. He said: One may learn from their actions that they have no king; as, if they had a king, would they not need the king’s edict to execute their fellow ant?
Rav Acha, the son of Rava, said to Rav Ashi: But perhaps the king was with them at the time and gave them permission. Or perhaps they already had permission from the king to kill the ant. Or perhaps it was a time between kings, as it is written: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes”(Judges 17:6). Rather, rely on the credibility of Solomon, the author of Proverbs, that ants have no king.
The discussion on the web site is fascinating and goes deeply into the scientific method and how it does or doesn’t apply to our case (the author appears to be an MD). I am not interested here in analyzing to what extent R. Shimon ben Chalafta (2nd century) was a competent scientist from a 21st century perspective. What is important here is the interaction between observation and authority. We have on Scriptural authority that “ants have no king.” Why did R. Shimon have to go out and see for himself? Two explanations have been offered. One is that R. Shimon did not want to rely solely on Scriptural authority – he wanted evidence (in this case the evidence was only suggestive of course). Another is that he wanted to determine how King Solomon (the author of the book of Proverbs) knew that ants have no king – was it knowledge he gained through ruach haKadosh (“holy spirit,” a lower form of prophecy), or had he come to his conclusion through his own observations?
It appears that Rambam accepts both “natural science” and divine revelation as equally valid sources of truth, and in fact he holds that Scripture cannot contradict that which we know from using our Gd-given powers of observation and reason. As we are well aware, this confrontation roils our intellectual life even today – Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake over the issue, we’ve been debating evolution since Darwin published Origin of the Species and the Big Bang since Einstein published General Relativity. Where there is an apparent contradiction either our science is flawed, or at least limited, or our understanding of Scripture is not profound enough, or both.
One more point about natural science and divine science. It appears that Rambam equates these to Ma’aseh Bereishit and Ma’aseh Merkavah respectively. Ma’aseh Bereishit, literally “the work of creation” or “the work of the beginning,” is a study of the generation of the natural world from Gd’s essence. Ma’aseh Merkavah, or “the work of the Chariot,” is a study of Gd and the divine beings surrounding Gd, as reported in Yechezkel’s vision of the Divine Chariot (Yechezkel 1:1-28). Thus, Prof. Strauss writes:
The Guide is then devoted above all to biblical exegesis, although to biblical exegesis of a particular kind. That kind of exegesis is required because many biblical terms [RAR: especially anthropomorphic ones] and all biblical similes have an apparent or outer and a hidden or inner meaning; the gravest errors as well as the most tormenting perplexities arise from men’s understanding the Bible always according to its apparent or literal meaning. The Guide is then devoted to “the difficulties of the Law [i.e. Torah]” or to “the secrets of the Law.” The most important of those secrets are the Account of the Beginning [RAR: Ma’aseh Bereishit] (the beginning of the Bible) and the Account of the Chariot (Ezek 1 and 10). The Guide is then devoted primarily and chiefly to the explanation of the Account of the Beginning and the Account of the Chariot.
Now Ma’aseh Bereishit and Ma’aseh Merkavah are some of the deepest teachings of Kabbalah, and were already recognized as such in Talmudic times, where teachers are admonished not to teach these things publicly because of the danger faced by the unprepared if they try to delve more deeply than their capacity to comprehend. See the story (Chagiga 14a-b) of the four Sages who entered “pardes” [the Garden of Eden / Heaven] – one went mad, one died, one became a heretic, and “only Rabbi Akiva entered in peace and left in peace.” Here and here are some links to more information.
Next week, Gd willing, we will conclude this discussion. Then I want to look at some of the influences we may discern in the Rambam, that may have helped shape his thinking about the nature of Scripture and of creation.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayishlach
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3481593/jewish/Vayishlach-Audio-Recording.htm
I felt great joy in listening to Rabbi Michael recite this parshah and he seemed to experience similar joy.
Joy is a sign of Teshuvah, return to the One who/which is all Joy, all Love, Total Balance, Total Integration.
The central event in this parshah is Jacob wrestling at night with someone who at first is a man, then an angel, then Gd. This is very inspiring: we humans can directly experience Gd – not only that, we don’t have to seek Gd; Gd will come to us.
Prior to this, however, three strange things happen that I’m wrestling with.
“Vayishlach” means “and he sent”: Jacob is returning home after 20 years and he wants his brother Esau to welcome him in peace so Jacob sends angel messengers and commands them to tell his master Esau that he is returning with great wealth and wishes to find favor in Esau’s eyes. The angels return saying that his brother is coming toward him with 400 men.
The previous parshah, Vayetze, began with Jacob’s dream of a ladder on which angels ascended and descended and it concluded by saying that Gd sent angels to meet him. This is the first strange event: why did Gd send angels rather than just one angel? When Gd sent three angels to Abraham, each angel had a specific purpose. How many angels did Gd send and what were the multiple purposes of the multiple angels Gd sent to Jacob? Torah doesn’t tell us.
The second strange event is that instead of the angels delivering messages to Jacob, Jacob gives the angels a message to deliver. A third strange thing is that Torah doesn’t tell us the angels delivered Jacob’s message; it only tells us that the angels returned with the news that Esau was approaching with 400 men.
A possible interpretation is consistent with the view that Torah is about the integration of rest and activity.
Jacob names the place where the angels met him, “Mahanaim”” two camps, two companies. He so named it because he felt that Gd was appearing through the angels so there were two camps: one the small one of Jacob and the other, the Total of Gd. Perhaps there were two angels, one representing Gd as Wholeness and the other representing Gd with a specific purpose for a specific place and time.
Perhaps the purpose of the angels was to serve as messengers from Jacob.
And perhaps they did deliver his message and that is how Esau knew that Jacob was approaching.
With this supposition, let’s consider the essence of the parshah.
There are two major events in this parshah, each one showing a type of integration of stillness and activity, of partiality and totality.
First, Jacob wrestles with a man who then seems to be an angel and perhaps is Gd, although many commentators consider the wrestling a wrestling within himself to overcome his fears, his lower human self and to rise to the level where he acts from a higher level of his personality, one that is more heavenly, more divine, more Gdly.
When Jacob wrestles with someone in the night, the Hebrew says: Genesis, XXXII, 25, that it was a man, but in Genesis XXXII, 29, the man says, (Soncino Press, Pentateuch, Rabbi Hertz translation), “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but ‘Israel”; for thou hast striven with Gd and with men, and hast prevailed”. From this, we get the higher sense: the man is in some way a representative of Gd, perhaps Gd Himself.
The important point here seems to be that we can overcome our inertia, our lower self and rise to Teshuvah, return to Oneness, Totality. However far Jacob rose in this event, commentators differ and we can differ but the event is an expression within Torah and therefore within Gd so reading it can enliven greater ability within us to live and act as Totality, not merely as an impulse of Totality.
Jacob says of this experience “I have seen Gd face-to-face and lived” though there are those who translate as “I have seen an angel of Gd face-to-face and lived.”
Jacob names the place “Peniel”: Face of Gd. “Pen” (panim is the actual word for “face”) means “face” and “El” means “Gd”. So, Jacob felt he wrestled with Gd, not just a man, or an angel. “Wrestling” we can interpret as “clinging,” so first Gd clings to Jacob, then Jacob clings to Gd.
This is encouraging, that however lost we feel, Gd may at any time cling to us and draw us to him, and we can cling to Him, to Totality, and go beyond loss, confusion, fear and return to Total Awareness, Love, Joy, Confidence. Nothing left out.
Intriguingly, by clinging to Jacob, Gd causes Jacob, the “quiet man who sits in tents,” to strive, to becomes an active man, “one who strives with Gd and with men”, to become like his brother Esau, a man of the fields – although perhaps at a much higher level of activity since we do not see anything in Torah that speaks about Gd speaking or clinging to Esau.
Second, when Esau and Jacob finally meet, Jacob prostrates before Esau seven times and Esau embraces him and kisses him wholeheartedly: they part on good terms. As with everything in life, and seemingly Torah too, there are those who say Esau’s kiss was not wholehearted but the succeeding conversation in which they speak to each other as loving brothers seems to support the wholehearted view.
In these two events we see integration of the opposites that Jacob and Esau are often treated as representing (although these interpretations avoid the much they have in common, as all humans have, despite their differences):
Jacob, representing silence, in the direction of “Be still and know that I am Gd” (Psalm 46) and Esau symbolizing striving in the sense of striving for success in the field of action. A striving that needs to cease in order to Be still and know. When the stillness bows down to the activity and the activity embraces the silence, we have lively stillness, a Knowing that integrates opposites and experiences Gd as the Wholeness within which they exist. We also have two brothers, one family.
So can we all do by letting our silence bow to our activity through prayer and other good actions and letting our actions embrace our silence by pausing routinely from action to let our activity settle into silence — and eventually find that the two are one, active silence, silent activity.
And, on the social level, we have a world in which each respects all and the world is one family.
A good direction we are moving in and this parshah is a help in the progress.
Baruch HaShem