Parashat Bereshit 5786 – 10/18/2025
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.
Bereishit 1:1 – 6:8
Rambam now considers the 12th, and final, premise of the Mutakallimūn:
This is their saying that the senses do not always procure certain knowledge. For the Mutakallimūn have been suspicious with regard to the apprehension of the senses on two counts. One of them arises from the fact that, as they say, the senses miss many of the objects of their sensations either because of the subtlety of the body of the object of apprehension – as they mention with regard to the atoms and what pertains to them, as we have made clear – or because of the distance of the objects of apprehension from the apprehending subject. Thus a man does not see, hear, and smell at a distance extending to several parasangs [RAR: a parasang is about 4 km = 2.5 mi] , and it is impossible to apprehend the motion of the heaven.
Now this is something that I, as a scientist, can get behind! Throughout the last several weeks we have been discussing the view of reality of the Mutakallimūn and differences between their view and the modern scientific view. Now we come to a place where we are working with the same, or similar, assumptions. In particular, the Mutakallimūn are analyzing the reliability of the senses. Eyewitness testimony has been shown time and again to be unreliable in criminal cases, as this clip shows. How much more so might the senses be unreliable to create theories of the way the world works?
Let me start by mentioning that Rambam’s two examples are really the same thing. Our eyes can only distinguish things that are separated by at least a minimum angle. So something that is close by and very small – say a letter on a page at a distance of 30 cm (a foot). The letter is perhaps 3 mm wide (I just made up that number to make the numbers come out easily), so the angle subtended by the letter at 30 cm is about half a degree. The moon, on the other hand, has a diameter of about 3500 km and is about 384,400 km from the earth, on the average. The moon also subtends and angle of about half a degree. The moon in its orbit looks as big as a letter on a page at a foot away from your face. Now the moon and a printed page are both pretty easy to see. There is a minimum angle that the eye can discern, and that is about 1 minute of arc, or 1/60 of a degree – 30 times smaller than the moon. It doesn’t matter if the object is too small to subtend that angle (Rambam’s first case) or if it’s too far away to subtend that angle (Rambam’s second case). The eye just discerns angular separation, and either size or distance (or both) can create a situation where we just can’t see something.
Much scientific progress has been made by extending the senses. We have microscopes to help us see things that are “too small,” and telescopes that let us see things that are “too far away.” The way these instruments work is that they bend light in such a way that rays coming from a smaller angle appear to be coming from a larger angle. This works well enough, but there is another issue that eventually pops up. Light has a finite wavelength. It is quite small for visible light (red light is about 700 nm = 700 billionths of a meter = 70 millionths of a cm; blue light’s wavelength is roughly half that). Nevertheless, if something is as small as the wavelength of light, the light no longer bounces off it and into our instrument. Hence, it is theoretically impossible to resolve features this small. By the same token, if the size of the aperture of our instrument (e.g. the lens of a microscope or the pupil of our eye) is small, then the diffraction of light around the edges of the aperture becomes significant, again theoretically limiting the size of objects we can resolve.
The bottom line is that not only can the unaided senses not be trusted to give a true picture of reality, but there are theoretical limitations on the ability even of advanced instruments to give us a true picture of reality. When we add to this the fact that measurements have an inherent quantum uncertainty, we realize that the problem is not in the specifics of how we perceive, but in the use of perception and measurement of finite objects to try to come to conclusions about ultimate reality. What I mean is this. Any kind of sense perception, and certainly any measurement, is intrinsically tied to a finite object of perception or measurement. This way of gaining knowledge, then, can only give us finite, partial knowledge.
Total knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge of the transcendent, which is infinite and unbounded. It includes direct experience not only of the transcendent, but of the mechanics by which the transcendent manifests itself. This knowledge cannot be pieced together by looking solely at the manifestations and trying to infer (“reverse engineer”) what is behind those manifestations. It must be gained on the level of the transcendent itself, by allowing the mind to settle down and experience Pure Consciousness repeatedly, until Pure Consciousness completely suffuses the nature of the mind and is available permanently. Then we don’t have to go out and measure anything, nor worry about the limitations of measurement. The entire mechanics of creation is within us, within our consciousness. And our consciousness is that measuring instrument that is infinitely subtle, not subject to any of the limitations of finite measurements.
Gd willing we will continue with this analysis next week.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parshiyyot V’Zot HaBerechah/Bereshit
”V’Zot HaBracha” means, “And this is the blessing.”
Before we consider this blessing on the level of meaning, let’s consider that Torah is beyond language, beyond verbal definitions and grammar—it is the fundamental liveliness of Gd. On our level of life, of awareness, the sound value of Torah comes closer to the transcendental and all-pervading quality of Torah.
From this standpoint, here are two sources to listen to the beginning of Beresheit: the first is traditional; the second is creative.
1.Beresheit 1-8 with cantillation: Very sweet, easy to listen to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa_g1QOt9y0
2. Very lively. Award-winning singer Noa sings Beresheit with Philarmonic Rishon Le Tzion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYKMWtOlHVE
Consider Beresheit the seed of Teshuvah – return to Oneness – and V’zot HaBeracha, the last parshah of the Chumash, the fruit: Do we see in these parshahs and in our lives that the seed has borne its intended fruit?
If we take these parshiyyot on the plain level of meaning, no: the children of Israel (that’s not only a long time ago but today and in all times) have not yet entered the Promised Land, and Moses, the great leader, never will.
But perhaps we can say that Moses, one of the guests that visits the sukkah during Succoth, has entered Gan Eden, as tradition has it – not the terrestrial Garden of Eden from which Adam and Eve were evicted but the Heavenly Garden of Eden in which Gd is enthroned and explains Torah to the residents. Explaining Torah is not just a matter of Gd talking to people but giving the Direct Experience that Torah, Gd and all Gd’s details are One. From this standpoint, Moses and all those who enter Gan Eden have been restored to Oneness and so the seed of Bereshit has borne fruit though V’Zot HaBrachah doesn’t say so.
Later in Bereshit, we see Enoch mentioned as walking with Gd — definitely return to Oneness. Then Noah is called a righteous person, one who Gd trusts to maintain life on our planet when the rest of humanity, due its wickedness, is destroyed in the flood.
So even early in Torah, even taken on the level of meaning, we see examples of the fruit of the seed appearing: people who walk with Gd, who are righteous.
Also, very importantly, Gd’s Torah, One with Gd, flowed though Moses – what wonderful fruit. Punctuated by the Word, the Command, the Kiss of Gd’s mouth which Parashat V’Zot HaBrachah tells us Moses was the way Moses died. Dying by the Touch of Gd is certainly entering the Promised Land.
Before he died, Moses, man of Gd, servant of Gd, gathered all the tribes together and spoke to them first as one, as the Children of Israel, giving them the command to obey Torah; then he gave specific blessings to each tribe. This is revealing first unity, then the diversity within the unity. This is action that in its Fullness, restores each individual in a community to unity with the community while retaining the special individual ity.role Symbolically, this gives the Blessing of Oneness on all its Detail.
So, the Five Books of Moses end with ripe fruit.
Having considered the fruit, let us consider the seed which is contained within the fruit and to which we return as on Simchat Torah we begin again reading Beresheit
Bereshit begins in Hebrew:
“Bereshit bara Elohim et HaShamayim v’et Ha’aretz…”
The way this is commonly translated to English, Bereshit reads: “In the beginning, Gd created heaven and earth…”. Since Gd is Beginingless and Endless, this cannot be true.
The way the ArtScroll Chumash and chabad.org translate it, it reads, “In the beginning of Gd’s creating the heavens and the earth…”
This is better and according to scholars more grammatically correct but still puts Gd in time and the reality is that time is a role Gd plays in pretending to be limited.
God is always One, Wholeness in Detail, so let’s see if we can find a meaning for “beginning” that honors this.
One way is that it refers to any point in the infinite liveliness of Gd because at any point, separation and unification are always going on, and so at any point heaven and earth are always being separated and united.
Within every point is the Whole Unbounded Ocean of Gd everything is always going on everywhere, in sequence and also in simultaneity. To Gd, Gd is always Totally Present, Infinitely Lively, Infinitely Silent, Omnidirectional, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnijoyful, Omniloving, and so the idea of beginning is just part of Gd’s “let’s pretend” to be limited.
In addition, Wikipedia notes that not only is “bara” a verb that is only used in reference to Gd but it doesn’t mean “create,” it means “differentiate/separate, assign roles to.” From this standpoint, heaven and earth though they are always One, are perpetually separated/distinguished/ from each other and given special roles. So Bereshit refers to the beginning of distinguishing “heaven,” the inner, subtle, abstract level of the details of God, from “earth,” the concrete aspect.
Jeff Benner (ancient-hebrew.org ) translates “bara” as “shaped”: from this standpoint, there is neither creating nor separating, there is only refining what already exists.
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, in his “Body, Mind and Soul: Kabbalah on Human Physiology, Disease and Healing,” notes that “create” and “heal” in Hebrew have the same root: b-r-a: from this angle, we can say that the beginning of Torah is always the beginning of healing, of return to Wholeness. This is healing individual humans of their limits and restoring us to our unlimited status as impulses of One, restoring us to our status as the Full Ocean of One functioning through our individual personalities and bodies and also through all impulses of One.
What a Joy to Be Restored to full memory of the reality that only One exists and we are This!
So, creation, healing is eternal, as Torah, the fundamental liveliness of Gd – beyond language, grammar, definition, Gd conversing with Gd – is eternal, never beginning or ending yet always New.
And there are surely many more interpretations of “Bereshit Bara Elohim” everyone’s: intuitions will add to the cornucopia.
On the ordinary human level of awareness, this variety of interpretations is consistent with the way we experience life. We are always evolving and seeing more completely. As we rise to higher levels and to Consciousness beyond levels – the Wholeness within which all levels exist – we are able to see the usefulness of each interpretation.
We humans are individual impulses of Gd who pretends to be limited for the fun of playing Hide and Seek, Peek-a-Boo in us, so Gd, pretending to be we limited souls, can have the fun of seeking as us, and Gd as Gd, can have the pleasure of Hinting and Revealing, through Torah sounds, Torah stories, Torah mitzvot and whatever way Gd Wishes.
In this game, this Game, little by little, and also suddenly, we are returned to Wholeness by Gd’s Grace Revealing
Gd dissolves the veils of limits and reveals to us that Gd is All, within us and all around us, everywhere, One without a Second.
And this can happen with any sound of Torah, any word, any parshah, even the last one as we suddenly See and Know the Truth within the Stories.
And it can happen Now! And any Now! Wherever we are and whatever we’re doing.
Because Torah in a written book is only the most infinitesimal aspect of Torah as One with Gd, Torah can hint to us and reveal to us when we’re eating breakfast, walking down a street, snoozing – at any time, any place.
Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good And Evil as well as the serpent, are within us, ready to be clearly experienced as Omnidirectional, All-in-All Points of One, and the duality between Gd and the uncreated creation, is ready to be experienced as the Fun of Gd, always within Gd as One.
So, too, are all the details of Torah as the Book and Torah as Gd. Bereshit is a good seed that bears good fruit in V’Zot Haberacha and it is also the Fruit that sprouts to become all the Books of Torah and to loop back to itself with V’Zot HaBeracha.
Let’s continue doing our best to tune to Gd/Torah with “Be still and know!”; with “to love Gd with all our heart, all our soul and all our might,” with “love our neighbor as our self,” as our Self. As we do. we see, hear, taste, touch, smell the Beauty of Gd in every leaf, every sound, every bite of food, everyone and everything, everywhere.
Sukkot/Hoshanah Raba/Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah are special times of Joy to make our tuning more charming, delightful, effective.
Very encouraging!
Let’s keep on tuning.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
Baruch HaShem.