Parashat Naso 5785 – 06/07/2025
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 4:21-7:89
Rambam moves on to a discussion of the philosophy of the Mutakallimūn. The Mutakallimūn were Arabic philosophers, followers of the Kalām. They flourished for about 500 years from 900-1400 CE, and needless to say, the rubric is pretty broad. Rambam lived and worked around the middle of this period, and he begins by presenting the basic premises of the Kalām.
The common premises laid down by the Mutakallimūn, in spite of the diversity of their opinions and the multiplicity of their methods, that are necessary with a view to establishing what they wish to establish with regard to the four problems in question, are twelve in number. I shall mention them to you and afterwards I shall explain to you the meaning of each of these premises and what necessarily follows from it.
• The first premise: establishing the existence of atoms.
• The second premise: the existence of a vacuum.
• The third premise: time is composed of instants.
• The fourth premise: that substance cannot be exempt from a certain number of accidents.
• The fifth premise: that the accidents that I shall describe subsist in the atom, which cannot be exempt from them.
• The sixth premise: that an accident does not endure for two units of time.
• The seventh premise: that the status of the habitus is that of their privation and that the former and the latter are all of them existent accidents requiring an efficient cause.
• The eighth premise: that nothing except substances and accidents subsist in all that exists – they mean to say, in all the created things-and that natural form is likewise an accident.
• The ninth premise: that accidents do not support one another.
• The tenth premise: that the possibility of a thing should not be considered in establishing a correspondence between that which exists and mental representation.
• The eleventh premise: that with regard to the impossibility of the infinite, there is no difference between the latter’s existing in actu, in potentia, or by accident; I mean to say that there is no difference between the simultaneous existence of those infinite things, or their being supposed to be made up of what exists and of what has ceased to exist, which is infinity by accident. They say that all these kinds of infinity are impossible.
• The twelfth premise consists in their saying that the senses commit mistakes and that many of the objects of their apprehension elude them and for this reason their judgment should not be appealed to and they should not be regarded in absolute fashion as principles of demonstration.
As you can see, there’s lots of juicy physics here, which I will try to bring out and apply to Rambam’s view of the world. Let’s start with the first premise – the existence of atoms. Rambam writes:
Its [i.e. the existence of atoms] meaning is that they [the Mutakallimūn] thought that the world as a whole – I mean to say every body in it – is composed of very small particles that, because of their subtlety, are not subject to division.
The first point is that atoms are indivisible – that is what the word actually means: a = “not” (same as in Sanskrit and sometimes in English: avidya = not knowledge = ignorance; ahistorical = not historical) + tom = “cut” (as in computer tomography which creates a 3-D image from slices). This is of course different from the modern scientific understanding of an atom, which is divisible into subatomic particles (electrons, protons and neutrons, the latter two of which are themselves composed of quarks and gluons). Nonetheless, the modern atom is the smallest particle of a chemical element (like hydrogen and oxygen), and we understand that atoms, and everything made of atoms, are composed of a small number of subatomic particles, most of which are unstable and decay in minute fractions of a second. Modern quantum field theory does not regard particles as tiny bits of matter, but rather as states of excitation of underlying fields, but we have discussed this before and will return to it later on.
Rambam continues:
The individual particle does not possess quantity in any respect. However, when several are aggregated, their aggregate possesses quantity and has thus become a body. If two particles are aggregated together, then according to the statements of some of them, every particle has in that case become a body, so that there are two bodies.
It appears from his language and his tone that Rambam may not agree with this description of atoms and how they aggregate into bodies, by which I think we can understand macroscopic objects. Now one problem that Rambam (and we) might have with this idea, is that if an individual atom has no quantity, it has no extent (quantity in space) nor quantity in mass. In this case, if two or more atoms are put together, their total extent will be 0 + 0 + 0 + … = 0! The same will be the case with mass. How, then, can we have macroscopic objects? Or, in Rambam’s words, some answer this conundrum by saying that when even two atoms aggregate, each one gains extent and substance, and is therefore (magically?) transformed into a body, and these small bodies can continue to aggregate to produce macroscopic bodies. The issue, in general, is how to aggregate infinitesimals to get something finite. The mathematical answer is that if you have an infinite number of infinitesimals, you can get something finite. Whether or not the Mutakallimūn recognized either the problem or the solution, I don’t know, but it appears from the Rambam’s words that at least “some” recognized the problem.
From the point of view of modern physics, the problem doesn’t get started, because the elementary particles are not particles at all, but rather states of excitation of underlying fields, and they do have properties like mass and charge, that allow them to interact with other particles to form larger structures – atoms, molecules, fibers, tissues, organs, stars and planets, etc. From a few generic particles, the great diversity of forms and phenomena in the universe arise. I’m not sure if the idea of the atom in the Kalām was that generic, or if each object was made up of atoms specific to that object, or that type of object.
All these particles are alike and similar to one another, there being no difference between them in any respect whatever.
Here we have consonance with modern physics! Since elementary particles are not particles, but are actually states of excitation of an underlying field, they are completely identical to one another. They may be in different states of motion or energy, but if they were switched one for the other, there would be absolutely no difference in the physics. (There is a slight qualification to this in the case of fermions, like the electron, but it doesn’t change the basic point.) Identical particles (e.g. two electrons) cannot be distinguished one from the other even in principle.
Rambam goes on to describe the process of creation and dissolution, according to the Kalām, as the aggregation and disaggregation (separation) of the atoms of which any structure is composed. It is not clear how the Kalām would explain the emergence of new properties when different types of elements are combined, such as two gases, Hydrogen and Oxygen, combining to create a liquid, water. If the “atoms” of Hydrogen and Oxygen don’t contain properties of every possible compound in which they are a part, then we would have to say that the aggregates contain “emergent properties” – properties that are a function of the interactions between the parts, interactions which create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. When we recognize that all of creation is nothing other than a vast, rich pattern of excitation of the Unified Field, all these conundrums go away. The Unified Field is the singularity in which all phenomena exist, and all knowledge is contained within it, which is to say, is contained within each one of us, waiting to be developed and brought to conscious awareness.
We will continue with the vacuum next week, Gd willing.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Naso: Raise the Heads, Count, Lift Up”
In this parshah, Gd commands a census (raising of heads) of the Gershonite branch of the Levis. Moses completes the Tabernacle, Gd gives Aaron and his sons, through Moses, the Priestly Blessing, three blessings that raise us up:
Numbers 6:24-26:
“May HaShem Bless you and Safeguard you”
“May HaShem Illuminate His Countenance for you and be Gracious to you.”
“May HaShem Lift His Countenance to you and Establish Peace for you.” (Art Scroll Stone Edition Chumash)
“Bless,” “Safeguard,” “Illuminate His countenance for you,” “Be Gracious to you,” “Lift His countenance to you,” “Establish Peace for you” – all these combine to bestow Gd’s Name on us, the result of which is that Gd Blesses us, Lifts us up.
What does it mean to have Gd’s Name (not “Names”) Bestowed on us?
It means that the complexities of life are simplified, the many ways we experience Gd are united into One and our life becomes one with Gd, not separate from Gd: “All Your names are one” we know from the Aleinu “It is our duty” prayer we recite daily.
What additional lifting up occurs when Gd Blesses us through a census?
Within the Unity, the Oneness, the diversity is raised: we are One with Gd and yet also continue to play our roles as individuals, roles in which we continue to behave devotedly to Gd, to “Love Gd with all our heart, and soul and all our might” and to love Gd’s Nature, including all people, to “love our neighbor as ourself (our Self).”
Gd, from Gd’s Point of View, Blesses us, Raises us higher and higher so that there is no distance between Gd playing the role of Gd and Gd playing the role of Creation, including us.
May we be lifted up today and every day to experience deeper and deeper openness to the Priestly Blessings, to Gd’s Name, to Gd’s Blessings and deeper openness to living these and sharing with all and all.
Love and Baruch HaShem