Parashat Vayishlach 5784 — 12/02/2023
Bereishit 32:4-36:43
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 IV, with which we end.
Some thoughts about Jewish practice and Vedic Science, Part 4
Kashrut
Kashrut is one of those interesting areas of halachah in which no rational reason can be discerned. The kosher rules are not there for reasons of health – non-Jews eat non-kosher foods all the time and do not suffer physically for it. Many commentators have come up with reasons, but the answer is, we just don’t know.
Just a brief digression here about investigating the reasons behind mitzvot. It is certainly possible to try to discern the reasons why Gd may have given us various mitzvot. Some seem fairly obvious, such as Thou shalt not murder – one cannot have a society where people are gunning other people down practically at random. Other laws, such as the laws of ritual purity and impurity, seem to have no logical basis at all. I think kashrut falls in between, as we shall see. The problem with feeling too certain about the reasons behind the mitzvot is that if the “reason” that we’ve come up with goes away, say due to technological changes, then we may conclude that the mitzvah is no longer valid. For example, if the “reason” for not eating pork is the danger of trichinosis, we can have Rabbis from kosher certification organizations inspect the pork to make sure it’s been thoroughly cooked, and then we can eat it. Of course, it doesn’t work that way. No matter what we may think about a mitzvah, it is binding on us. Gd’s intellect is much greater than ours, and if we are commanded no pork, it’s no pork, no matter how trichinosis-free it may be. We believe that Gd’s commandments are given for our benefit, whether we understand it or not, and therefore we follow them, like children follow the instructions of their parents.
All that having been said, here are some thoughts on kashrut, gleaned from various sources:
1. Mixing meat and milk. Milk is nourishing to life; meat comes to our table via death of the animal. Mixing life and death in incongruous at best.
2. Meat has to be slaughtered in a very particular way, in which the animal is conscious at the time of slaughter. Done properly, the animal dies within a few seconds and with very little pain. Compared to the other methods of slaughter, especially those available until very recently, it is very humane.
3. Much of kashrut has to do with meat. It makes it very difficult to eat meat. Eating meat, according to the Biblical account, was only permitted after the Flood, when the level of consciousness had declined from the days of Adam and Eve. Kashrut is a reminder that eating meat is a concession to our baser nature.
4. Keeping kosher means that it is harder to mingle with other peoples over food. This reduces assimilation pressures.
5. Eating non-kosher food is held to “stop up the heart” and make it difficult for Jews to probe deeply into Torah learning. I don’t know why the same food should be harmful to Jews in this way, but not to other peoples.
6. Keeping kosher requires a greater degree of mindfulness about what we eat. It elevates both us and the food from mere physical nutrition to include spiritual nutrition as well.
Ritual Activities
Every part of a Jewish day has ritual aspects. From the time we get up till we go to bed, we strive to sanctify every activity. Much of this is done via speech – blessings we say when we get up thanking Gd for a body that works, for our food, even for the ability to relieve ourselves. We have special ways we make our food, special ways we tie our shoes, etc., all of which is spelled out in the halachah. The point of all of this is to make all our actions in accord with the laws of nature.
We have special days during the year when we have special activities – on Shabbat we have the theater of the public reading of the Torah; on Sukkot we shake the lulav and sit in the sukkah, on Pesach we eat matzah and have a seder. These special days and special activities have their levels of meaning and symbolism, but I think there is more to them than that. Every time period has its own quality, and for us to live life in accord with natural law, we have to perform activities that support the impulses of evolution that are lively at those times, in order to align ourselves with the cycles of natural law, and to support the evolution of the environment.
Jewish life is governed by halachah, Jewish law. But the underlying meaning of halachah is “walking” or “going.” The point of halachah is to get us going in the path of evolution and keep us on that path. It governs what we say and what we do, what our priorities are, in order to live an ideal life and create an ideal community. While we are on the path to enlightenment halachah gives us valuable guidance for our speech and behavior. When we reach enlightenment we act spontaneously according to halachah and enjoy fulfillment in everything we undertake.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayishlach
“Vayishlach” means “and he sent.” Jacob sends angel messengers to his brother, Esau, saying that he and his family are returning. and he wishes reconciliation.
On the level of meaning, there are three central events in this parshah.
1. Jacob’s wrestling with a man who is an angel Who is Gd.
2. Jacob’s reunion with his brother, Esau.
3. The worshiping of idols by Jacob’s family which led to a breakdown of Gd’s protection, the rape of Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, and the deceptive retaliation by Jacob’s sons.
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 Jacob’s wrestling, however, three strange things happen.
“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 details with Wholeness, Gd.
Consistent with this view, Jacob names the place where the angels met him, “Mahanaim” meaning “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 these supposes, let’s consider the essence of the parshah.
Two major events in this parshah, show a type of integration of partiality and totality.
First, Jacob wrestles with a man who then seems to be an angel and perhaps is God, 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. This is a very useful way to look at this.
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 with whom Jacob wrestled is in some way a representative of Gd, perhaps Gd Himself.
Personally, I feel the important point here is 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 God. “Pe” means “face” and “El” means “Gd.” So, Jacob felt he wrestled with Gd, not just a man, or an angel. What began as wrestling concludes as honoring and embracing: first Gd embraces and honors Jacob, then Jacob embraces and honors Gd.
This is encouraging, that however lost we may feel, Gd may at any time reveal that we are always in Gd’s embrace, and Gd wrestles with us to wake us so we will embrace Gd, Totality, go beyond loss, confusion, fear and return to Total Awareness, Love, Joy, Confidence, Everything included, Nothing left out.
Intriguingly, by wrestling with 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 how 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. Striving 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 soul respects all souls and the world as one family.
A good direction we are moving in and this parshah is a help in the progress.
The third major event is the idolatry which leads to the rape of Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, and the retaliation by Jacob’s sons, Reuven and Levi.
While dwelling in Shechem in Canaan, the inhabitants begin worshipping the idols of the land. The consequence is a breakdown of integration, of Gd’s Protection, and the rape of Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Prince Shechem, the assaulter, has fallen in love with Dinah and he begs that she be given him as a bride.
Jacob’s sons consent on condition that the men of Shechem become circumcised so they and the family of Jacob can intermarry and become one people. When the Shechemites are in pain from the circumcision, Reuven and Levi slaughter every one of them.
Hearing of this, Jacob says that the sons have defiled his reputation and the surrounding nations will slaughter him and his family. Gd tells Jacob to move to another land and Jacob tells his sons to abandon the idols.
The guidance we can see from this is that idols represent only a part of life and we need to always be oriented to the Whole and to perceive the Whole within every detail. Then we integrate the small with the Whole by perceiving that the small is a lovely detail of the Whole.
This is Happiness!
These are the events of this parshah on the level of meaning
Torah is more vital on the level of sound than on the level of meaning. Here is a recording of this parshah:
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3481593/jewish/Vayishlach-Audio-Recording.htm
I felt great joy in listening to Rabbi Michael Slain recite this parshah and think he was feeling similar joy.
Joy is a sign of Teshuvah, return to the One Who/is all Joy, all Love, Total Balance, Total Integration.
Baruch HaShem