Parashat Korach 5786 – 06/20/2026
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.
Bamidbar 16:1-18:32
Before we continue with Rambam’s exposition I want to go back to where we left off last week and take the discussion further. When we left off we were talking about Feynman diagrams, and if you look in the Wikipedia article, you see the simplest type of Feynman Diagram, which shows two electrons interacting with in one another by means of a virtual photon that connects the two electrons. This is actually just a first order approximation of the actual solutions to the field equations. The field equations that are pictured in the Feynman diagrams are non-linear, which means that different parts of the equation interact with one another.
In the case of our two electrons and the photon that connects them, the Feynman Diagram with two nodes (points where the different lines join) is what we call a first-order approximation to the solution to the total equation. But it is not the full solution. We have part of the solution left to calculate. The rest of the solution can be broken down into higher-order approximations, which correspond to increasingly complex Feynman diagrams – that is, diagrams with a progressively greater number of nodes. The part of the total solution that correspond to each level gets progressively smaller, and when all the pieces are added up, they converge to the total solution.
But the truth is, nature doesn’t have to come up with a series of approximations of the solution. Nature can calculate the total solution directly, and all these levels of Feynman diagrams are just levels of understanding that we impose upon nature – that’s why each is an approximation and none of them contains the whole truth. And what we said last week, that action at a distance has been replaced by local interactions is not really correct – it is only correct on the level of individual particles and forces. But at its depths, quantum field theory teaches us that there are no particles, nor forces, nor nodes, nor locality, nor non-locality, nor any partial solutions. There are just the fields (or Unified Field) dancing within itself, and that is what we are, and every object in creation is.
Now, back to Rambam.
As for the things produced in time that we find are not consequent upon the mixture of the elements, namely all the forms, they also must indubitably have an agent – I mean the giver of the form, which giver is not a body. For the agent that produces the form is another form, which is not in matter, as | has been explained in various passages in which this explanation was appropriate. We also have drawn attention to the proof for this in what has preceded.” This also can be made clear to you through the fact that every mixture of elements is capable of receiving an increase and a decrease and is produced gradually, whereas the forms are not like this, for they are not produced gradually. Accordingly there is no motion in them. They invariably are produced or pass away in no time. Accordingly they do not come about through the action of the mixture, but the mixture only prepares matter for the reception of the form, whereas the agent that produces the form is a thing that is not capable of being divided, for that which is produced by its act belongs to the same species as itself.
It appears that Rambam makes a fundamental distinction between form and matter (bodies). Now this distinction seems to make a lot of sense. Think of the following example. A block of marble has a certain amount of matter in it, and that matter is of a certain combination of qualities. Now consider Michelangelo’s David. The first is a pile of rock, while the second is a stunning piece of art. In some sense they are identical (assuming the block of marble has the same mass as David) – they are both X kg of marble. But nobody looking at David and the block would say that they are the same thing, and the difference is obviously in the way the material is structured – its form. And the two seem to be independent of one another. And Rambam, if I understand this passage correctly, asserts that bodies are the cause of bodies and forms are the cause of forms.
In modern physics there is an analogy to body and form, and that is the distinction between “matter” and “forces.” “Matter” is the particles of which objects are made: protons, neutrons, electrons for example. “Forces” are the interactions between matter particles, and those interactions are what give collections of particles their unique shape and properties – i.e. their form.
As we delved deeper into the nature of the elementary particles of matter and forces, some interesting symmetries emerged. On the matter side, there are two types of particles: baryons and leptons. Baryons are “heavy” particles (the Greek root barys = “heavy” – think bariatric surgery = weight-loss surgery) like protons and neutrons, which are about 2000 times heavier than electrons. Leptons are “light” particles (Greek leptos = “small, slight”) like electrons and neutrinos. The baryons we know about are all made up of combinations of more fundamental particles called quarks, of which there are three pairs. Corresponding to the three pairs of quarks, there are three pairs of leptons: the electron and the electron-type neutrino, the muon and muon-type neutrino (from the Greek letter mu / μ), and the tauon (from the Greek letter tau / τ) and tau-type neutrino.
Corresponding to the 12 “matter” particles, there are 12 “force” particles: the photon (level of excitation of the electromagnetic field), three “weak bosons” which mediate the weak nuclear interaction (labeled W+, W- and Z), and 8 “gluons” (yes, from the English word “glue”) which mediate the strong nuclear interaction and hold the quarks together.
Physics has progressed in unifying the force fields / particles. In Maxwell’s time (late 19th century) the electric and magnetic fields were unified into the electromagnetic field. In the 1960’s Glashow, Weinberg and Salam, along with others, discovered a way to unify the photon and the three weak bosons into one field (electro-weak unification), and more recent work has produced theories that unify the electro-weak interaction with the strong interaction. This leaves only gravity outside the fold, so to speak, and this problem, involving as it does the “arena” in which physics takes place (namely space-time), has so far proven too difficult. Nevertheless, all the forces other than gravity have been unified.
The “final” step was to unify the matter fields and the force fields into a larger symmetry. We have made great progress in this effort, although research is ongoing. But the main point is that there is no longer any hard and fast distinction between “matter” and “force,” or in the terms that I am suggesting, between bodies and forms. Everything is a pattern of vibration of the Unified Field, as we have often discussed in these pages. We could argue that the pattern has substance and it has some shape, but in truth, what we perceive on the surface as substance is really just one pattern of vibration interacting with the pattern of vibration that is our body, according to specific laws of nature that lead us to perceive hard or soft, sharp or dull, etc.
Now the idea of “form” has great usefulness because it can be abstracted. For instance, we have a particular chair, which has a particular form, say a recliner. Subtler than that is the form of rocking chairs, subtler than that is the form of chairs in general, which has the specific features of the rocker abstracted away, subtler than that is the form of “seats” and so on. On the other hand, from the side of matter, we have seen that we can abstract matter down from macroscopic objects to molecules to atoms to subatomic particles to the Unified Field and its interactions with itself. Whether we go from the concept of form or the concept of matter, we get to the same place – the purely abstract level of consciousness that underlies everything. And it is the self-interacting (non-linear) nature of this Unified Field that gives rise to creation, as we mentioned in the first part of this essay.
We will continue this discussion next week Gd willing.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Korach
Korach” means “baldness, ice, hail, frost.” By leading an insurrection against Gd-chosen Moses, Korach showed baldness of spirit, iciness and frost of heart and a hail of deluded thought.
Parashat Korach reminds us that what is important in life is to live in harmony with Gd, not to worry much about our status relative to other humans – “to love Gd with all our heart, all our soul, all our might” and to “love our neighbor as ourself.”
Korach, Moses’ first cousin, along with 250 other leaders of the Children of Israel challenge Moses’ right to lead, claiming that all of Israel is holy and Moses should not place himself above everyone. They did not love Gd with all their heart, soul and might otherwise they would have felt Gd’s leadership flowing through Moses. They did not love their neighbor as their selves otherwise they would have been happy for Moses to be such an open person that Gd could flow through him.
Korach and the others forgot that Moses was selected by Gd, not by himself, to lead the Children of Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land: They forgot that when the 10 Commandments were given out, all of the Children of Israel were frightened that they would die if they heard any more of Gd’s voice: they requested Gd to give the rest of Torah to Moses – so they also placed Moses above them, more pure, more capable.
Moses pleads with the Levites to be grateful for what they have been given but they do not listen. Moses tells them to bring their fire pans (the pans through which they make offerings) and we will see whose offerings Gd accepts. Gd tells Moses He will destroy the rebellious.
At the appointed time, Moses tells the people of Israel, paraphrase. “We will see who Gd wishes to lead. If these people die a natural death, then they are right. If not, then Gd has appointed me to lead.”
The ground opens up and Korach, Datan and Aviram are swallowed up while 250 are consumed by fire.
Moses’s genuineness is confirmed.
We see a lot in Torah of complaining, sinning, Moses pleading for forgiveness for his neighbors, the Children of Israel. A lesson we can learn from Moses is to be open to Gd, to love our neighbor as ourselves (our Self), to plead with others to be open also, and to plead with Gd that he forgive those who lack openness.
In such ways, little by little, person by person, we help to create a world in which harmony, respect, friendliness, love, contentment, fulfillment exist.
In such a world, Torah is experienced not just as words in a book but as the Living, Eternal reality of the liveliness of Gd, of One. We function not just as our individual selves but as Totality functioning through all.
And this world is the Real World – achievable soon. Let’s continue creating it and request that Gd bring it NOW!
Love and Love and Love,
Baruch HaShem