Parashat Noach 5787 – 10/17/2026
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. The text we are working from is the two-volume translation by Prof. Shlomo Pines, University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Bereshit 6:9-11:32
Rambam continues his discussion of Aristotle’s position, contrasting it with the Jewish approach by means of a dialog. He begins by contrasting the two views of the fundamental reason for the existence of creation:
It is clear to you from the doctrine of Aristotle, as well as from that of everyone who affirms the eternity of the world, that in his view that which exists has proceeded from the Creator in virtue of a necessity; that He, may He be exalted, is a cause and this world an effect and it was necessary that this should be so. Just as one does not ask with regard to Him, may He be exalted, why He exists or how He exists thus – I mean to say as One and incorporeal – so it may not be asked with regard to the world as a whole why it exists or how it exists thus. For all this, both the cause and the effect, exist thus necessarily, and nonexistence is not possible with regard to them in any respect nor their changing from the way they exist. Hence it follows necessarily from this opinion that of necessity everything must remain permanently as it is according to its nature and that nothing can change as far as its nature is concerned.
It seems to me that the idea that Gd and the universe both exist “necessarily” implies a kind of clockwork, classical, particulate view of life. What does it mean that Gd exists “necessarily”? Since Gd is beyond time, this must mean a kind of logical necessity – Gd’s existence is a kind of precondition for the existence of anything else. So far, so good – I don’t think Rambam or any other Jewish thinker would have a problem with that. But when Aristotle claims that the universe too exists necessarily, he is in effect begging the question of whether it is eternal or not. Something that exists necessarily cannot come into being or go out of existence – it would create logical fallacies. So, I think we would have to class this statement as an assertion, not a proof of the eternity of the universe.
In addition, if Aristotle believes that there is a creator (and this is not Rambam’s interpretation only), what does it mean that the creator “creates out of necessity”? A creator, at least the way we think of creators, has free will to express him or herself. If one is constrained (think of the Soviet artists who could only produce “Soviet Realism” works) then creativity is limited, and if one is completely constrained, then there is no creativity at all. So, was Gd somehow “constrained” to create the universe? Or is Gd not the creator of the universe at all – both are eternally coexistent?
Rambam begins his answer:
Now as for us, the matter is clear in our opinion: namely, that all things exist in virtue of a purpose and not of necessity, and the He who purposed them may change them and conceive another purpose, though not absolutely any purpose whatsoever. For the nature of impossibility is stable and cannot be abolished, as we shall make clear.
Rambam contrasts Aristotle’s idea that the universe exists necessarily with the Jewish idea that the universe has a purpose, and that the Creator had a purpose, a reason, for creating it the way it is. This reintroduces the Creator’s Will and creativity into the process of creation. The idea that the Creator creates out of necessity implies a very classical, billiard-ball style universe, where the laws of nature are absolutely rigid, everything can be measured precisely, and knowing the position and motion of every particle in the universe we can, at least theoretically, predict the entire future development of the creation.
Of course, about 100 years ago the development of quantum mechanics put this idea to rest, and its further development into quantum field theory has only driven our understanding further away from the old, classical notions. Probably the most salient point to be made in terms of this discussion, is that reality is not something completely objective and outside the consciousness of the observer. Rather, it is the interaction between consciousness and the physical universe that determines the nature of reality. It is as if Gd has created in human beings the ability to partner with Gd in the act of creation – very much the junior partner, but a partner nonetheless.
I actually find it odd that Aristotle would conceive of Gd as being constrained. After all, we experience that we have free will, we can make choices, especially moral choices. Why would we think that the Gd Who created us has any less free will? It may be that Aristotle’s conception of Gd, or the Creator, is quite different from the Jewish conception, something more along the lines of “laws of nature,” where, again, the laws of nature are the rigid, materialistic laws of the classical world (the only one Aristotle presumably had access to). The Jewish conception of the laws of nature is much more fluid and quantum mechanical, where all processes are taking place all of the time, and it’s the interaction of our consciousness with the cosmos that presents one or the other to our awareness.
Rambam will have much more to say about this, so I will leave off my own musings and pick up again next week, Gd willing.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Noach
“Noach” means “rest” as in “Be Still and Know that I Am Gd” (Psalm 46:10). To Noach whose stillness allowed him to hear Gd’s Words and to follow them, Gd gave the task of keeping life on Earth alive while most of it was destroyed.
In Parashat Noach, our world begins again after Gd destroys its population, all but those in the Ark.
In Bereishit, many say Creation begins; others say, the separation of Heaven and earth begins; I say it is not the beginning; it is not a new creation. It is another joyful cycle in the infinitely rapidly cycling that is the vibration of Torah, the Liveliness of Gd. Torah and Gd are One.
It is not that there is ever a new Creation, Gd is eternally complete: all is already accomplished in Gd. The Whole of Gd is in every point of Gd and at every point, every moment, cycling infinitely rapidly, Gd reveals Unity separating into Heaven and Earth, into Subtle and Gross and returning to Unity. All of Torah is always taking place in an infinitesimal instant and also timelessly and in Infinite Cosmic Time.
In Parashat Noach, we see the story of how the diversity of the Gross is dissolved into the Ocean of Subtlety and yet an Ark with the seeds of diversity remains to reveal that the Wholeness is always there, diverse and also unified.
Parashat Noach inspires us to be aware that we can experience this Wholeness. It begins by describing Noah as righteous, perfect in his generations, walking with Gd. Since all but Noah’s family were destroyed in the Flood, we are all descend-ants of Noah and have the potential to be perfect although clearly neither today, throughout Torah, nor throughout history do we see more than a few people fulfilling this potential.
We can also be inspired by remembering that not only are we descendants of righteous Noah but also as Bereishit says ““… in the image of Gd He made man.“ Genesis 9:6
Since there is nothing but Gd, to say that Gd made man in Gd’s own Image means that we have the potential to remember we are roles Gd Plays, and we can rise to a level where we are perfectly comfortable playing our roles in Gd’s Play. We can do this by favoring those thoughts and actions that do the positive mitzvot Torah ordains and avoiding the negative ones.
And yet we can wonder “what is keeping us from realizing this full potential?” My answer is simply that whenever Gd wants to Reveal to us that we are Gd playing the roles of us, Gd will do it. In the meantime, everything we experience is a clue in the puzzle and we need to keep guessing and acting, refining our guesses with each result we experience from our actions.
Nonetheless, even in this state of massive ignorance compared to the Omniscience of Gd, I experience life as joyful, blissful with a lot of teshuvah, return to Oneness, already taking place and it seems to me that many in our congregation and community can say the same.
So, life is fun, even in our state of ignorance, and we enjoy the safety of a bit of an ark of Joy and kind actions that helps us flourish in the floods of ignorance, misinformation and selfishness that are so common in our world.
This parshah tells us one thing we should do to avoid falling more deeply into ignorance. Do not think that any action of ours can reach Gd. Only Gd Knows Gd and only Gd’s Grace can reveal Gd within us. Forgetting this, in their vanity, descendants of Noah sought to build a tower that would reach the heavens. Prior to this attempt, they were a single people, speaking a single language. To prevent them from wasting time with their project, (which could never succeed since a gross building made of gross materials can never reach the subtle realm: heaven is not in the sky, it is in the delicate loving feelings that are primordial vibrations of Gd.) Gd limited their understanding so they were divided into 70 different nations, each speaking a different language. This separation continues in our times but we see a rise of Love, loving Wholeness, loving details. Through kindness, we are experiencing deeper and finer levels of feeling, of Love; we are learning to link the diversity of life with the Unity. We are learning to create the effect that the tower was intended to create but without the vanity: we are learn-ing to experience the subtle and to experience Gd, the Wholeness, in which all levels of subtlety and coarseness are but Joyful Vibrations of Gd Knowing Gd.
The parshah ends with Terah, taking his family, including Abraham and Sara (at this time, Abram and Sarai) toward Canaan, which will be the Promised Land. The family does not enter Canaan, they settle on the way, in Haran. “Haran” means “mountain,” “Canaan” means “synchronicity.” We are getting a taste of the fruit of Torah, the last parshah, V’Zot Haberacha, in which Gd has Moses ascend a mountain from which he can see Canaan. From this mountain, Abraham and Sara have the possibility for experiencing the synchronicity that unites the diversity of the separate nations, languages.
The next parshah, Lech Lecha, is often translated as “Go forth, your self” or, as those with a bit of experience of the self as Self, can read, “Go to your Self.” Go to the Promised Land outside you by revealing to your self, the Promised Land within you, the Self.
Since Gd will later speak with Abraham as he did with Noah, we see in the ending of this parshah a foretaste of this return of perfection to our world, to humanity. We are seeing a foretaste of a world in which we can synchronize diversity and create unity, common language, common experience, while delighting in and creating ever more and more delightful diverse expressions of Unity.
We see signs of this in our community; not that I know either that we have members to whom Gd speaks or that I know that we don’t but I do feel that we are dedicating our lives toward right action, service and a return to Wholeness, Oneness. We are learning to cherish each other and to meet, by Zoom or in person, on the level of fine feeling, of Love.
Baruch HaShem