Parashat BeHaalotcha 5785 – 06/14/2025
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.
Bamidbar 8:1-12:16
Rambam now turns to the second premise, the existence of a vacuum:
The assertion concerning the vacuum. The men concerned with the roots [the Mutakallimūn] believe likewise that vacuum exists and that it is a certain space [trans: When used by philosophers, the word bu’d often means “dimension.”] or spaces in which there is nothing at all, being accordingly empty of all bodies, devoid of all substance. This premise is necessary for them because of their belief in the first premise. For if the world were full of the particles in question, how can a thing in motion move? It would also be impossible to represent to oneself that bodies can penetrate one another. Now there can be no aggregation and no separation of these particles except through their motions. Accordingly they must of necessity resort to the affirmation of vacuum so that it should be possible for these particles to aggregate and to separate and so that it should be possible for a moving thing to move in this vacuum in which there is no body and none of these substances [trans: Here the word denotes “atoms.”]
Clearly we are dealing with a very concrete model of reality. Matter is conceived of as atoms, small particles, which apparently take up some space – they have spatial extent and they cannot be compressed. Therefore, if they are packed together, nothing can move. If a vacuum, a place where there are no atoms, did not exist, there would be no place for an atom to move to without hitting another atom. At best, if space were infinite and filled completely with atoms, perhaps there could be sliding of blocks of atoms, but even that would be hard to justify. Rambam doesn’t appear to deal with the shape of the atoms, but it would seem that if they were spheres, for example, they wouldn’t fit closely together and there would be space – “vacuum” – between the corners of adjacent atoms where the atoms don’t fit together. So the bottom line is, this conception of space and matter must be oversimplified (although a more modern, scientific perspective, was only understood many centuries later when instruments were able to give us much better data).
The modern conception of the atom was first developed in the 19 th century by chemists, who found that there were 92 naturally occurring chemical elements, which combined to make various compounds (molecules as we eventually understood), and combined in integer ratios. Based on this it was understood that there was a separate kind of basic particle for each chemical element, and that these basic units combined with one another to create the basic units of more complex chemicals (“compounds”), which we call molecules. We can tell the difference between atoms and molecules, because we can break up molecules into their elements using only chemical methods (basically changes that use levels of energy that are “human-sized.” We don’t have to build large cyclotrons to do chemistry – all we need is a test tube and a Bunsen burner. This combination and deconstruction of chemical compounds appears to correspond to “aggregation” and “separation.”
As far as the idea of the vacuum goes, the modern atomic theory appears to be neutral. We observe that atoms move and combine and disaggregate, so presumably there is room for them to do so. We also don’t observe atoms to interpenetrate. We see that there is separation between objects, but also that this separation is filled with the atmosphere, and that the atmosphere is very thin. Whether this means that there is empty space between the air molecules is an open question at this point.
As we were able to bring higher energies to bear on atoms, we found that they were made up of negatively charged electrons rotating around a positively charged nucleus. This means that each atom is mostly empty space – a vacuum. In fact, the size of the nucleus is about 1/10,000 the size of the whole atom, which means that most of space is completely empty, even if it is filled with atoms. The atoms cannot interpenetrate because of the electrostatic repulsion of the electrons in their shells. This was the understanding at the beginning of the 20 th century.
The so-called “planetary model” of the atom could not last for long, as it was known that any accelerating electric charge radiates electromagnetic radiation and therefore loses energy. Anything moving in a circle is accelerating – even if its speed doesn’t change, its direction does. Therefore, the electron spinning in its orbit around the nucleus would quickly radiate away all its energy and spiral into the nucleus, leaving no atoms in existence. The answer to this problem was proposed by Niels Bohr in the years leading up to WW I. By this time it was known that the electron sometimes behaves like a wave and sometimes like a particle. Bohr proposed that rather than being a particle revolving around the nucleus, the electron was actually a standing wave that exists / vibrates in place around the nucleus.
This hypothesis eventually was generalized into quantum mechanics, which accurately predicts phenomena, such as the spectra of different elements and the way atoms combine into molecules. In quantum mechanics, there are no particles, only waves, which fill space completely. In fact, all particles and their interactions are fluctuations of fields that exist at all points in space and time. These fields can all interpenetrate, because they are not substantial in the naïve sense of the world. Our perception of substantiality is based on a limited view of the pattern of interaction between all the different fields, that gives rise to the illusion of objects which cannot both exist in the same place at the same time.
The end point of this development in Physics is the Unified Field of all the laws of nature. This is one, complex field that, like other fields, exists at every point in its space, although it seems that this space is a higher-dimensional space which encompasses our regular space-time. All the forms and phenomena in the universe are actually this one Unified Field interacting with itself. The Unified Field is all that there is, and everything that takes place is within the Unified Field.
This puts a whole new cast onto the issue of a vacuum. The classical conception of a vacuum posits a space which can be filled with substance, or not. If there is no substance in a particular place, we just have empty space, or a vacuum. Our newer understanding is that there is only the Unified Field which pervades all of space and time, and there is no such thing as substance, only the Unified Field vibrating within itself. Existence, motion, aggregation and separation are all just different patterns of vibration of the Unified Field within itself.
When we are fully awake, we can identify this Unified Field with our own consciousness. When we first learn to transcend, we experience Pure Consciousness as a vacuum – nothing is there, just our own consciousness awake in itself. The outside world has disappeared and all we experience is total silence. Eventually, in Unity Consciousness, we experience that the vacuum of Pure Consciousness is full of infinitely dynamic, albeit virtual, activity. The fullness of emptiness we experienced in Pure Consciousness has transformed into the fullness of fullness within what we originally experienced as emptiness. Needless to say, this understanding is well beyond the Mutakallimūn could have imagined!
****************************************************************************
Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Behaalotecha
Gd commands Moses to tell Aaron, the High Priest, when he lights the seven lamps (of the menorah) he should light them turning toward the face, the middle lamp.
Symbolism of Light: It’s easy to see that this light of the menorah symbolizes the Light of Gd, which is not separate from Gd, but Gd’s Nature. The lamps symbolize not only the Light of Gd but also all the other uncountable and inseparable attributes of Gd; for example, Love, Joy, Compassion, Justice, Purity, Totality, Perfection.
Lighting the lamps in the Temple symbolizes lighting the lights inside our own temple – our own personality and physiology
Symbolism of seven lamps: This can be the seven more concrete qualities given to the Sephirot, qualities of Gd; can be the qualities of the seven traditional planets; can be seven days of Creation, many sevens.
Can also be, in essence, revealing the Many within the One: though Gd is One, Gd has detail, infinite detail, and seven just gives a sense of the Infinity that is Gd. And of the seventh, the Day of Rest, the Light of Rest, that contains all the others within it and integrates them
Symbolism of lighting toward the face of the menorah: Rashi comments that this is the middle lamp, the central lamp, not on a branch of the menorah but part of the central column. The symbolism can be that we always need to turn diversity toward the Center that Unifies.
Symbolism of raising the lights: The literal translation of “Behaalotecha” is not just “light” or “kindle” but “when you step up, cause to ascend.” In one sense, the High Priest had to step up to light the menorah – so, too, we need to rise to light our awareness so we can perceive the Menorah that is One with Gd, within us and everywhere. In another sense, for the High Priest and for us, when we rise we just warm the wick enough so it rises by itself. Symbolically, we move with devotion toward Love of Gd, Love of our neighbor, Love of our Self, and just a small move brings a large result – the Light of Gd, of One, Lights us up.
Symbolism of single piece: The Menorah was made of a single piece of gold symbolizing that All is One, though it appears as many.
Symbolism of gold: Gold symbolizes purity.
May we all experience today and always the Light of Gd, of One, fully lit within ourself, fully lit within our neighbors and all creation!
We are the Light and the Love!
Baruch HaShem