Parashat Tzav 5785 – 04/12/2025 – Shabbat haGadol
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.
Vayikra 6:1-8:36
A calendrical note: This Shabbat is called Shabbat haGadol, the “Great” Shabbat, and is the Shabbat before Pesach. In fact, this Shabbat haGadol is the very day before Pesach – the first Seder begins right at the end of Shabbat. This leads to some interesting halachic conundrums. On Shabbat it is required to have three meals, with bread. The first meal is on Friday night as usual. But on the day before Pesach, one cannot eat any chametz past about 11 AM. One can also not eat matzah before the Seder. What our synagogue (in Wisconsin) is doing is the following. We are starting the morning service early, ending around 9:45, having a minimal meal (second meal) – basically just some bread. Then we will say birkat hamazon, take a bit of a walk, then have another meal – bread first, then we will clear away all the chametz, and eat a real meal. Complicated!
I want to make a comment about coupling. We noted that the outermost sphere had to be coupled with the inner spheres in order for the motion of the outer sphere to create motions in the inner spheres. The whole of creation is kept in motion by Gd, which implies that Gd must be coupled to the Creation. But if Gd is transcendental to everything in creation, totally, radically different from creation, unbounded to creation’s finitude, then how can Gd be coupled to the world?
In physics, coupling means interaction between two separate entities. For example, the electromagnetic field is one entity, and the electron field is another. The two, however, interact. An electron, when accelerated (or decelerated) produces electromagnetic radiation. So, for example, the electrons in a radio antenna are forced by the transmitter to move back and forth, and the result is radio waves that can then interact with the electrons in a receiving antenna, moving them in turn (and this movement is picked up by the receiver and transformed back in sound or light or whatever). If high-speed electrons are slammed into a metal plate, they rapidly decelerate and produce high-frequency electromagnetic waves (X-rays) which can be used to diagnose or treat disease.
In truth, all the fields we find in nature – the particles and the forces – are coupled to one another, and it is the pattern of energy flows and excitations that provide the variegated pattern of phenomena that we observe around us. Now the history of physics has shown that when two fields interact, they are really not two separate fields, but rather two aspects of a deeper, underlying field. A simple example is the electric and magnetic fields. It was known by the 1800’s that a changing electric field can produce a magnetic field (e.g. electromagnet) and a changing magnetic field can produce an electric field (generator). In the late 1800’s Maxwell recognized that the two fields were really one field – the electromagnetic field, which had its own, independent behavior, alongside the behaviors of each of its components. Taking this to its extreme limit, we believe that all the fields we know about are in fact all aspects on one, unified field. It is the internal dynamics of this Unified Field that gives rise to the entire creation, as we have discussed on previous occasions.
Now this whole consideration leaves open the fundamental question – if absolute, transcendental Pure Consciousness is eternal and unchanging, silent and unattached to the relative, changing created world of forms and phenomena, how is it possible for the two to interact? How can the transcendent act in the world of differences? As usual, I think the answer depends on one’s state of consciousness.
• In the waking state of consciousness the issue is purely intellectual – since there is no direct experience of Pure Consciousness, we can only wrestle with what we think we understand Pure Consciousness to be, and how it relates to the manifest creation. This is the realm of theology I suppose, and the wide variety of descriptions of the divine and its relation to the mundane, and the vehemence with which these views are defended, are ample testimony to the paucity of actual knowledge.
• In Transcendental Consciousness the question is moot, because Transcendental Consciousness is all that there is in our awareness, and manifest creation, for us, does not exist. When we come back out into waking state, the memory of Transcendental Consciousness at least is able to give us some quiet confidence that we know what we are talking about when we get into theological disputes.
• In Cosmic Consciousness we live the dichotomy between absolute Pure Consciousness (our awareness of our Self) and relative creation (perception of the non-Self). The dichotomy is most acute in this case, as we know our Self to be completely detached from the realm of action, yet action goes on. This is a representation, in the microcosm, of the separation of Gd and nature.
• Finally, in Unity Consciousness, the disconnect between Self and non-Self is resolved, as we perceive directly that the ultimate, fundamental value of every object of creation is the same, unbounded Pure Consciousness that is our own Self. The Self is the unity of subject and object. The action we perceive is no longer separated from our Self – it is our Self, interacting with itself. Action is the internal dynamics of the Self, not something which is separate from the Self, and to which the Self must be coupled. In the same way, I think, the relative creation is really not separate from Gd at all. Gd is all that there is, as it says, ayn od milvado – there is nothing but Him. All creation – all the activity of all the fields, are nothing other than Gd, enjoying His own internal dynamics.
Rambam has already explained the coexistence of Gd’s knowledge and human free will by describing Gd’s knowledge as being radically different from our knowledge. When we know something, the object of our knowledge is outside of ourselves, and there is a process of knowing that joins self to non-self. Gd’s knowledge, on the other hand, is identical with Gd’s essence, and we observed that this is because Gd is all that there is. There is nothing outside of Gd, so there can only be Gd’s relationship with Himself. I think the issue of a transcendent Gd’s interaction with creation disappears in Unity Consciousness, when we realize that Gd is only intra-acting with Himself. This realization is no longer purely an intellectual exercise – it is a lived reality on the level of both mind and perception.
As usual, a disclaimer: I make no claim that this understanding was Rambam’s understanding or intention. All I think is that reading Rambam in the light of Maharishi’s explanation of the dynamics of consciousness is consistent and illuminating. The fact that Rambam’s words lend themselves so easily to such a reading makes us wonder about the great clarity of mind and perception that Rambam must have had.
Next Shabbat is the seventh day of Pesach – the last Biblically mandated day of the holiday. The reading is from Parashat Beshallach, the passage of the splitting of the sea, which traditionally took place on the seventh day after the Exodus. We will, Gd willing, continue with a new topic in Rambam.
Chag kasher v’same’ach!