Shavuot 5783 — 05/27/2023
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.
To begin with a calendrical note: In the Diaspora, where holidays are observed for two days (except fast days), the second day of Shavuot is on Shabbat this year. In Israel, only one day is observed, on Friday (our “first” day), and Shabbat is Shabbat parashat Naso. This Shabbat we read the special Torah portion and Haftarah for the second day of Shavuot ( Deut 14:22-16:17 and Num 28:26-31 for Maftir; Haftarah: Ezekiel 1:1-28; 3:12). We read Naso next week, and continue out of sync with Israel until July 1 when we read the double portion Chukat-Balak and Israel reads just Balak, having read Chukat the week before on 6/24. We are together again on 7/8, parashat Pinchas.
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In Chapter I:40 Rambam begins to take on some subtler terms, which I believe show some essential unity between Gd and the created world. The first one is Ru’ach, which is variously translated as wind, or soul, or spirit. He starts with the most mundane definition:
It is a term denoting air; I mean the element that is one of the four elements [RAR: i.e. earth, water, fire, air]. Thus: And the air of Gd hovered (Gen 1:2).
There are two things I don’t understand about this passage. First, the surface value of air, or wind, is a physical thing. The four elements, according to my understanding, are four basic qualities of matter that combine in different quantities to make up the different forms of actual matter that we see in the world. Thus, physical air is mostly the element air, and if it’s smoky it might have a bit of the earth element mixed in, or the like. I think the air element might be a subtler value of ru’ach, but the surface value would be the actual, instantiated physical air or wind.
The second question I have is with Rambam’s choice of an example text. Ru’ach Elokim in the second verse of Genesis is almost universally translated “the spirit of Gd.” If Rambam means the air element, this is one of the physical elements that makes up corporeal object, and the main point of Rambam’s entire treatise is to demonstrate that Gd is non-corporeal! Furthermore, the verse in question describes the situation before creation – that is, before the four elements were created as a basis for assembling the physical creation.
Just as an aside, I’d like to offer a bit of a commentary on the verse itself. In Hebrew the last part of the verse is v’ru’ach Elokim m’rachefet al p’nai hamayim / And the spirit of Gd hovered over the face of the waters. One has this image of Gd’s spirit silently and peacefully hovering over an undisturbed mountain lake. However, the word for “hover,” m’rachefet, is used in a strikingly different image in Deut 32:11 (part of the song HaAzinu): K’nesher ya’ir kino, al gozalav y’racheif / Like an eagle stirring up its nest, hovering over its chicks … Now a hovering eagle is not a placid sight. The beatings of its mighty wings stirs up quite a bit of dust, like a helicopter taking off or landing on a dusty field.
Now, reimagine the scenario in Genesis 1:2. The waters are the ocean of being, prior to any manifestation, completely flat and motionless. Now “the spirit of Gd” starts “hovering” like an eagle / helicopter over the waters. What happens? The waters rise in waves, the waves ramify, there are eddies and whirlpools – there is creation. From physics we know creation is nothing other than patterns of vibration of the Unified Field. From Scripture, read this way, we find that those vibrations are caused by the spirit of Gd hovering.
What then is the “face” of the waters? How does Gd’s spirit “hover” there? I believe the answer lies in our understanding of the process by which unmanifest Pure Consciousness manifests itself. Since Pure Consciousness is pure, with no object of consciousness, Pure Consciousness can only be aware of itself. This kind of virtual splitting of Pure Consciousness into Observer and Observed creates a kind of polarity within the nature of Pure Consciousness that then ramifies into all the structure that we see in manifestation.
At the level of Pure Consciousness itself, there is no duality, there are no layers, there is just pure Consciousness, pure Existence. But I think the virtual duality of Observer and Observed can be likened to the “face” of the waters, the interface between unmanifest Pure Consciousness and all the manifestations of Pure Consciousness. Maharishi has described an “infinite frequency vibration” between the two poles of Pure Consciousness-as-Observer and Pure Consciousness-as-Object of Observation that then breaks down into the patterns of vibration that we see as creation. And it is right at the junction point between Pure Consciousness and manifestation, at a level at which there is still no duality, but just the faint hum of the vibration of Pure Consciousness within itself, that Gd’s spirit “hovers” and stirs the unmanifest into manifestation.
All this is in a manner of speaking, creating a picture that our finite minds can grasp of a reality that completely transcends the finite boundaries of ordinary human comprehension. However, it becomes a directly perceived reality when human consciousness is fully developed.
How does this answer my question about why Rambam appears to associate a material “essence” with Gd by his choice of verse as an example of the way ru’ach means the element air? I don’t think it does. Perhaps Rambam is telling us that the air element, and by extension all the elements, have really to be understood as being unmanifest aspects of Gd when we’re speaking of Gd, and that understanding them on the surface level just doesn’t make sense at all.
Rambam has more to say about ru’ach, and we shall explore his words further next week, Gd willing.
Chag Same’ach to all!
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Shavuot 5783/2023
What is the significance of Shavuot for our evolution?
“Shavuot” means “weeks.” In Torah, it is called the “Feast of Weeks,” “the Feast of Reaping” and the ‘Day of First Fruits” marking the wheat harvest. In rabbinic tradition, it marks the day on which Torah was Given – Basic Details of Gd. It also marks the 50th day from the second day of Passover, the day after seven weeks of “Counting the Omer” have passed. “Omer” means “sheaves.
One way to look at the meaning of weeks for our evolution is that Torah tells us Gd Created (Revealed) the Details of Gd in six days and on the seventh, Gd Rested – Lived as the Wholeness Gd always Is.
In our lives, we can look at a week as six days in which we attend to details; and on the seventh, we integrate the details into Wholeness, into Joy, into Love, to the extent our evolution enables us to experience. After seven weeks, we have made quite a bit of progress in attending and integrating detail. On the fiftieth, we go an extra step. It as if we have an experience that goes beyond time and into the Timeless, the Eternal.
We are then in a good position to reap the fruits of our actions and to offer the first fruits to Gd, to the extent we experience Gd and to the service of humanity, to the extent our hearts are open to Universal Love.
“Torah” is commonly translated as “Law.” We can understand “Law” as the Open Path to Restoration of our awareness to Wholeness. (RAR notes: “Law” is actually a mistranslation, possibly a Christian distortion. The word Torah is from the verb l’hor’ot = to teach.)
Shavuot also means “oaths” – on Shavuot, we swore our loyalty to Gd and Gd swore Loyalty to us.
As we gather this Shavuot we have a lot to celebrate,
Baruch HaShem