Parashat Devarim 5784 — 08/10/2024
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.
Devarim 1:1 – 3:22
Parashat Devarim is always read on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, which begins Monday evening and ends after dark on Tuesday. I wish everyone an easy and meaningful fast (and be sure to hydrate before it starts!). The events of the past year certainly bring out the need for meditation, prayer and repentance.
Having discussed Gd’s glory, Rambam goes on to talk about Gd’s speech:
I do not consider that – after having attained this degree and having gained the true knowledge that He, may He be exalted, exists not by virtue of an existence and is one not by virtue of a oneness – you require that the denial of the attribute of speech with reference to Him be explained to you.
Rambam here is treating Gd’s speech in a similar way to Gd’s glory, as created phenomena. Gd’s glory is a “created light” while Gd’s speech is, as it were, “created sound.” As we shall see, we get a different perspective on this finest level of activity from Maharishi’s Vedic Science.
Rambam continues his argument:
This is the case particularly in view of the general consensus of our community on the Torah being created. This is meant to signify that His speech that is ascribed to Him is created. It was ascribed to Him only because the words heard by Moses were created and brought into being by Gd, just as He has created all the things that He has created and brought into being. Later prophecy will be treated of at length.
This idea that Torah is created is something that I find extraordinary, especially in light of the fact that (a) Rambam himself holds that Torah is eternal and its commandments are binding on us for all time and (b) Kabbalah tells us that “Gd looked into Torah and created” – in other words, Torah, the “blueprint of creation,” had to have preceded the creation.
I’m not sure I can resolve this contradiction, but here are some ideas. First, in the world of Kabbalah, the word “Torah” can mean two different things. It can refer to the five books of Moshe Rabbeinu, which, by tradition, was “dictated” by Gd to Moshe (except possibly Deuteronomy, which is a compilation of Moshe’s speeches to the nation right before his death, and which were confirmed after the fact by Gd to go into Torah). It can also mean the “Supernal Torah” which exists “in the Heavens.”
I don’t know that the relationship between the two is spelled out anywhere, but it would seem to me that the Torah that we have from Moshe Rabbeinu is a kind of projection onto a lower, more material level, of the Supernal Torah. This process of projection would have to be one that is context-dependent, because the projection has to be one that can be read and understood by the people it’s being projected to. So it is the Supernal Torah that is eternal and unchanging, while the “Torah of Moshe” may not be. This is a heterodox view, although there are hints of it in the idea that in Messianic times the Torah will be replaced by another system of laws. This is spoken of in terms of a new revelation, made possible by the higher spiritual level ushered in by Mashiach. This idea comports well with the idea that these projections are context-dependent. If the context changes (with the arrival of Mashiach), the projection changes.
So it appears when Rambam says that speech is created he is referring to the “speech” in the Torah that we have, and not the “speech” of the Supernal Torah. So what is the “speech” of the Supernal Torah? We can gain some insight from Vedic Science. We have discussed this before, but a review is in order. The quality of the basic substratum of all existence is consciousness. We have consciousness, animals have consciousness, so it is obvious that whatever is at the basis of our existence must also have consciousness. We could perhaps take this farther, but this is enough for now.
Now the basic substratum of existence is a unified wholeness, without any parts or division. This is clear, because where would the parts have come from? If this is the case, then our conscious substratum has only itself to be conscious of. (This is very different from our ordinary perception, where we are the subject and the object of our perception, whatever it may be, is separate and outside of ourself.) Thus the very nature of consciousness as consciousness means that there is a virtual duality or virtual polarity within consciousness, where both ends of this polarity are coextensive with consciousness.
Since both poles of this polarity are infinite and infinitely opposite to one another (subject vs. object), and they are infinitely close (they are identical!) there is an infinite tension between them. Just like a guitar string with infinite tension on it (if such a thing could be found) the result is an infinite frequency vibration. This infinite frequency vibration can be perceived if one’s awareness is on the level of the transcendent. People have reported that it appears as a white or golden light (visual – like electromagnetic vibrations) or as a continuous hum (like sound vibrations). The point is that (a) it is a vibration and (b) it is continuous and undifferentiated, as it is at the finest level of existence, at the borderline of the transcendent.
Maharishi describes the process of manifestation then as the breakdown of this infinite frequency vibration into lower frequency patterns of vibration. These layers of smaller patterns of vibration have a very specific structure, and Maharishi assert that these structures are actually the sounds of human speech – specifically the phonetics, grammar, syntax and vocabulary of Vedic Sanskrit and the structure of these sounds is the Veda. This speech is uncreated, in the sense that it is just the innate structure inherent in the dynamics of consciousness.
Interestingly, the Zohar posits the same kind of structure with the Hebrew language. In this case the language is Hebrew and the Scripture is Torah. In fact, Torah itself indicates that in giving the Torah, “Gd was speaking to Himself, and Moshe was listening in” (Rashi to Num 7:89). That is, Moshe heard / cognized the vibrations caused by Gd’s Self-referral nature. This would lead us to believe that Gd’s speech, at any rate, is not “created.”
And this leads us to consider what it means to be “created.” On the one hand, we could argue that anything that is not the transcendent is created. Since even Gd’s speech is, in a way, bounded – that is, it is broken into words and sentences and paragraphs, we would say that it differs from the transcendent and is therefore created. On the other hand, the vibrations of the transcendent within itself are not really created – they are inherent in the nature of the transcendent. This “argument” is an example of the different perspectives one has in different states of consciousness. Before Unity Consciousness, we experience the transcendent (either sporadically, before Cosmic Consciousness or constantly afterwards) and we experience bounded objects which are not the transcendent. In Unity Consciousness we recognize that nothing is ever created or destroyed. Rather everything is a pattern of vibration of the transcendent and it is just the patterns that change. All of “creation” exists within the nature of the transcendent, as we say in the liturgy: ayn od milvado / There is nothing but Gd .
I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to trace the argument back to Rambam’s ideas. As always, I make no representation that I have explicated the meaning the Rambam had in mind when he wrote the above passage!
**************************************************************
Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Devarim
Devarim can be translated as “words.”
Devarim begins with “and these are the words Moses spoke” and ends with “Do not fear them [other nations] for the Lord, your Gd, is fighting for you.”
As I began to think about “devarim,” words, I began to think about the letters that make up the words, the grammar that connects the words, and the different levels at which words, letters, and grammar exist and their connection to a life without fear in which we experience, without needing to be told, that Gd is fighting for us – and transforming our world into a world in which we have no enemies, neither outside our self nor inside our self. Not people, not thoughts or feelings, not storms or droughts or other acts of Nature do anything but support us, give us care, Love and Joy.
And as I begin to think, I also began to feel the letters are souls. They are the fundamental expressions of Gd’s infinite vibration through which Gd’s Self-Referral Awareness manifests and un-manifests the limited world that we ordinary folk experience as reality, Since Gd is Infinite Love and Joy, the letters are also this and their shapes and sounds are only limited on the surface level of their appearance. At subtler levels, they are more and more unlimited in their forms and sounds.
And at the Transcendental level they completely weave one into the other and their shapes and sounds and qualities of Love and Joy are infinitely varying.
The Hebrew letters are called “otiyot”. Yehudit Goldberg created a flowing exercise based on the shapes of the Hebrew letters and she called it “Otiyot Chayot”: “Chai” means “life” and “Chayot” are a class of heavenly beings, described in Ezekiel’s vision of the heavenly chariot.
As it is with the letters, so it is with the words, the Devarim, and sentences, this parshah and Torah as a whole. Kabbalah makes similar combinations for letters and the physiology and for Torah and the physiology.
The words Moses spoke were basically a review of the 40 years in the wilderness and here, too, there is a fundamental unity in the symbolism of the words of the review.
The mention of “40” often occurs in Torah as a symbol of completeness and here it occurs as 40 years spent in the desert between leaving Egypt (Mitzraim: Restrictions) and preparing to enter Canaan (“Synchronicity, Integration”), the Promised Land. This put in my mind the Kabbalastic view of the 10 Sefiroth (qualities of Gd) times the four worlds (the world of Emanation: Atzilut; the world of Creation, Beriah; the world of Formation; Yetsirah; and the world of Action, Asiyah. This equals 40. And so when we experience the 10 qualities times the four worlds we have 40, a symbol of completeness.
“Forty” is used by Dr. Tony Nader, PH.D, MD, MARR, in showing the connection between the Veda and the Vedic Literature with human physiology, as a way of illustrating that our human body is not only flesh, bones, muscles and so on but, in essence, is Consciousness. “Consciousness” is a scientific way of referring to Totality, One without a Second, which from a religious point of view we refer to as Gd. Dr. Nader shows that the 40 aspects of the Veda and its Literature correspond to 40 different aspects of our human body.
So by exploring, intellectually, emotionally, experientially, the words and letters, sentences, paragraphs, parshahs of Gd, the grammar of Gd, the different qualities of Gd in the different stages of manifestation (within Gd), we become capable of entering a world in which we directly experience that Gd is Totality, we are expressions of Gd within Gd, Gd goes before us, makes our path safe, transforms any possible enemies into friends and we live a life very unafraid, very aware that Gd is filling our life with Joy, Love, words and actions of truth.
Such a life is one in which we fulfill Gd’s command: “Be thou holy, for I am holy” and in which we “Love the Lord, thy Gd, with all our heart, all our soul, all our might” and we “Love our neighbor (and, as Jesus put it, our enemy) as our self, our Self” and are loved by our neighbors the same way.
Such a life is a fulfilled life.
In our congregation there is a lot of Love and Joy, signs we are making good progress, signs we are experiencing a lot of protection and a lot of Fulfillment.
Thank You, Gd, for all You do.
Baruch HaShem