Parashat Chukat 5784 — 07/13/2024
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 19:1-22:1
When Gd appears to Moshe Rabbeinu at the Burning Bush, Moshe is convinced that nobody will believe him when he says that Gd sent him to take Israel out of Egypt. So he asks, “Who shall I say sent me.” Rambam begins by wondering why this question, or its answer, would be relevant. His argument goes as follows: There are two possibilities about Israel and Gd’s Name – either the Name Gd gave Moshe was well-known, or it wasn’t known. If it was well-known, how does the fact that Moshe knew it prove anything? And if it was unknown to the Israelites, how can you prove that Moshe didn’t just make something up?
It seems that there may be a problem with this explanation. According to the Midrash, Yosef had given a special sign to the Jewish people that would let them know that any supposed leader coming to take them out of Egypt was the real deal. When Moshe came, he spontaneously gave that sign (he used the expression “Gd will surely take notice of you” / pakod yifkod …). Now the same basic question arises. In this case the Israelites definitely knew the sign, because they recognized it when Moshe Rabbeinu spoke it, but how did they know that it came spontaneously from Moshe – why didn’t Moshe know it from his time in Egypt? The answer given is that Moshe fled Egypt at the age of 12, after having killed the Egyptian taskmaster and having to skip town to avoid Pharaoh’s wrath. The sign would not have been passed on to a minor under the age of 13, so Moshe wouldn’t have known it.
Perhaps the answer to this conundrum is that while the sign might have been widely disseminated to boys upon their Bar Mitzvah, presumably the Names of Gd were not. Although there were, as yet, no Temple services, no Yom Kippur, no Torah, no priesthood and the like, the tribe of Levi (of which Moshe was a member) were singled out and exempt from the slavery, and it is possible that they were the keepers of the Names, and that they were told only to the wise men and elders of the Israelites. Moshe, having left at a young age, would not have been privy to that knowledge yet, so if he did come up with one of Gd’s Names, the elders would vouch for his status as a genuine prophet to the people. Gd indeed instructs Moshe to go to the elders first; maybe this is why. It is significant that Gd also gives Moshe some other, more obvious signs, to show to the rest of the people.
As it is, we are introduced to a new name of Gd, related to the Tetragrammaton but not identical to it (the Biblical passage Rambam refers to is in the third chapter of Exodus, at the burning bush):
Accordingly when Gd, may He be held sublime and magnified, revealed Himself to Moses our Master and ordered him to address a call to people and to convey to them his prophetic mission, [Moses] said: the first thing that they will ask of me is that I should make them acquire true knowledge that there exists a god with reference to the world; after that I shall make the claim that He has sent me. For at that time all the people except a few were not aware of the existence of the deity, and the utmost limits of their speculation did not transcend the sphere, its faculties, and its actions, for they did not separate themselves from things perceived by the senses and had not attained intellectual perfection. Accordingly Gd made known to [Moses] the knowledge that he was to convey to them and through which they would acquire a true notion of the existence of Gd, this knowledge being: I am that I am. This is a name deriving from the verb to be [hayah], which signifies existence, for hayah indicates the notion: he was. And in Hebrew, there is no difference between your saying: he was, and he existed. The whole secret consists in the repetition in a predicative position of the very word indicative of existence. For the word that [in the phrase I am that I am] requires the mention of an attribute immediately connected with it. For it is a deficient word requiring a connection with something else; it has the same meaning as alladhi and allati, the male and female relative pronouns in Arabic. Accordingly the first word is I am considered as a term to which a predicate is attached; the second word that is predicated of the first is also I am, that is, identical with the first.
According to Rambam, in Moshe Rabbeinu’s time very few people had any knowledge of Gd. Presumably the Jews would have had the traditions of their forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov, but aside from the tribe of Levi, the slavery could well have made them forget those traditions, or worse, distort them. So Moshe’s task was first to convey to the people who Gd is, to the best of his ability to teach and their ability to learn. Only then could he start proving that this Gd actually sent him. That was the easier part – he had the “magic” staff with which he could perform the different signs (and with which he would bring on the plagues and split the sea).
The name that Gd informs Moshe he should convey to the Israelites is ehyeh asher ehyeh / I will be what I will be. Rambam translates as I am that I am. We could write on the differences between these two translations (really just the tense – technically ehyeh is future tense, yet Rambam uses present tense), but I would rather look at Rambam’s description of the actual structure of the phrase.
As Rambam identifies it, this phrase I am that I am or I will be what I will be has I am as both a base term (“a term to which a predicate is attached”) and the predicate itself, which is also I am. In other words, the subject and the predicate are identical, and both connote Pure Being (if we translate ehyeh as I am as Rambam does), or Being Becoming (if we translate ehyeh as I will be).
This identity of subject and object of course is the characteristic of Pure Consciousness. Pure Consciousness, being conscious, but also being unique, can only be conscious of itself. It plays the role of both subject / observer and object of observation. As we have discussed, this virtual duality within the structure of Pure Consciousness ramifies into progressively more expressed patterns of vibration, patterns that appear to us as the manifest creation. The Name Gd uses to identify Himself to Moshe includes in its structure Gd’s creative nature. His Name, as translated by Rambam, represents Pure Being, which is inert – it just is. But, in Maharishi’s words, “When existence becomes conscious, intelligence becomes intelligent.” The translation I will be what I will be conveys this further stage of development – from inert Being to lively Consciousness. When Existence become conscious, that is, when the virtual observer-observed relationship is established within Pure Being / Pure Consciousness, the intelligence becomes intelligent, and, to continue Maharishi’s words, “this intelligent aspect of intelligence prepares to assume the role of Creative Intelligence” (quote may not be quite exact). This is how creation, duality emerges from Unity.
I wonder if Moshe Rabbeinu explained all this to the Israelites!
***************************************
Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Chukat
In this parshah, Miriam dies, the well that follows her dries up, the people complain, Gd tell Moses to speak to a rock and water will come out of it, Moses strikes the rock instead and Gd denies him entrance to the Promised Land for his disobedience — there are different rabbinical theories about why Gd denies Moses entrance but Torah is very clear that Gd did deny Moses entrance.
Does that mean that Moses has lost his chance for teshuvah, return to primordial Oneness?
Put it another way: when Moses is denied entry to the physical land of Canaan, Eretz Israel, does that mean he’s also denied entrance to the spiritual Promised Land, the land of fully developed awareness?
No, this Land he can enter.
Let us see what we can find in Torah and in this parshah that supports this view, not only for Moses but for every generation, including our own and all future generations.
1. “Be Thou holy”:
Gd many times said, “Be thou Holy, for I Am Holy” (for example, Leviticus 11:44) and has given many directions that suggest how this can be done; for example, “Love Gd with all thy heart and all thy soul.” This Love is something Moses clearly has: even when he pleads with Gd to give forgiveness to wrongdoers, Moses is loving Gd with all his heart and soul, pleading for the life of people who are Expressions of Gd, even though Gd is seeming to hide within them, even though they seem to be unaware that they are the Whole hidden in Its Expressions. “Loving Gd” is something that clearly doesn’t depend on entering the physical Promised Land.
2. Earlier in Torah Gd (Numbers 12:8) describes Moses as someone with whom Gd speaks mouth to mouth, clearly, not in riddles.
What will make the physical Promised Land a spiritual place will be the ease with which people can perceive Gd’s Presence in it: since Moses is already in Gd’s Presence (and serves as the physical body through whom Gd’s Voice speaks to the people) Moses is already living in the spiritual Promised Land even though he cannot enter the physical Promised Land.
3. Going beyond duality.
Teshuvah, return to Oneness, requires going beyond the struggle between opposites; for example, requires seeing that Gd is within Egypt (restrictions), within the wilderness/desert (freedom) and within the Promised Land (freedom along with restrictions).
4. Perceiving Gd in All.
Experiencing that All is One requires perceiving Gd in All. When Gd denies Moses entrance into the physical Promised Land, He is forcing Moses to experience freedom within restrictions: to accept the restriction of not entering the physical Promised Land and to find freedom within that restriction. Gd is the Restrictor and the Restriction: The Restriction is Filled with Gd’s Presence. Gd is setting up the condition in which Gd as Gd begins to reveal himself fully to Gd, playing the role of Moses; Gd begins to reveal Himself as Unlimited, and His Moses role begins no longer to be lost in weeping over the lost, exulting over gain, but begins to perceive itself as the Wholeness that flows in Streams of Loss and Gain, of Weeping and Exulting.
The same thing happens to us: Gd hides within each of us, playing the role of the limited people that we are and he may sometimes give us restrictions that force our limited self to surrender, open to Gd within our self, as Gd – always Gd, always Whole, always One – begins to soften the limits and to reveal that we are what we always are: One!
Baruch HaShem