Parashat Toledot 5785 – 11/30/2024
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.
Bereshit 25:19-28:9
Rambam continues his discussion of Gd’s riding on the highest heavens:
Compare the text of Chagigah [12b]; they say [as to] aravot, the high and sublime One resides upon it. For it is said: Extol the rider in the aravot. How do we know the [aravot] are also called heavens [shamayim]? It is written in this passage; the rider in the aravot, while in another [passage] it is written: the rider of the heavens. Thus it is clear that the term refers solely to one heaven: that which encompasses the universe. About that heaven you will hear some information. Consider their saying: resides upon it. They did not say: resides in it. For if they had said, resides in it, this expression would have necessitated the attribution to Him of a place or the notion that He is a force subsisting in a certain place. In such fashion do the sects of the Sabians [RAR: i.e. idolaters] imagine that Gd is the spirit of heaven.
Rambam distinguishes between riding or residing in and riding or residing on. Riding / residing in would indicate a likeness of the rider and the carriage, whereas riding / residing on indicates that the rider is beyond the carriage – of a different species entirely, as Rambam will make clear. In the case of Gd’s riding on the heavens, Gd is transcendental and (even) the heavens are part of creation (created on the second day). There is a radical difference between the unity of the transcendent and the diversity, even subtle diversity, of creation.
Rambam continues:
Thus by saying, resides upon it , they have shown that He, may He be exalted, is separate from the heaven and is not a force in it. Know that the expression, the rider of the heavens, is figuratively used of Him, may He be exalted, for the sake of a strange and wondrous likeness. For the rider is more excellent that that upon which he rides, yet cannot be called more excellent except through a certain impropriety of language, for the rider does not belong to the same species as that which is ridden by him. Moreover the rider is he who makes the beast of burden move and go where he wishes; for it is an instrument for him that he uses as he wishes, being at the same time free from any dependence on it and not attached to it, but on the contrary external to it.
Here Rambam states explicitly that “He, may He be exalted, is separate from the heaven and is not a force in it.” If we consider a horse and rider – the horse and the rider are completely different species, and the rider is able to control the horse because of his broader awareness and ability to plan complex operations. Obviously, in our case we have the entire creation – physical and running on automatic (instinct if you will) – and Gd – purely spiritual and with absolutely free will, controlling creation. Gd is transcendental to all of creation and controls it in a way that suits His Will, but Gd is not of the created world.
The transcendental is completely different from the manifest creation. The rider on a horse may be a different, higher, more capable species than the horse, but both share some characteristics – both are mammals for example, with a brain and nervous system. People who work with horses often report being able to form a deep, emotional bond with the horse. This is only possible if the horse and rider are quite similar. This is of course not the case between Gd and the creation. Human beings, according to Jewish thought, cannot even begin to fathom Gd’s essence. The best we can do is to get a glimpse of “Gd’s back,” as it’s described in Gd’s conversation with Moshe Rabbeinu after the golden calf incident. But “a human cannot see My Face and live.” Gd’s domination of creation is unique and far above any analogy we might come up with.
Now, we discussed last week that creation is structured in layers, but that the “layers” are not anything physical, separated in space and time. The layers are actually structured in our consciousness – they are different ways of approaching the one, unified phenomenon that is the universe. In the case of the physical universe, these layers represent different scales of time, distance and energy, with the finer layers’ being characterized by shorter times, smaller distances and greater energy. Think of the atomic layer vs. the molecular layer. On the non-physical side, we have this idea of “seven heavens” – that is, apparently, seven subtler layers of creation, still manifest and diverse, but subtler than the physical. We can imagine these levels being sequentially arranged, like molecular, atomic, subatomic, etc., but also being interpenetrating, as is the case with the physical layers. In other words, creation is a continuum of layers from the gross physical to the most subtle, non-physical (“the highest heaven”) and all these layers exist simultaneously as one creation. The non-physical layers, of course, cannot be perceived with ordinary perception nor with objective, scientific instruments, but according to Vedic Science they can be experienced directly on the level of our consciousness. We begin this process with TM, and it culminates in fully developed Unity Consciousness.
When we say Gd rides on (and not in) the highest heaven, I think what is meant is that Gd transcends all the various layers of creation, yet controls them. The philosophers posited that Gd was the Prime Mover, who moved the outermost spheres (“highest heavens”), and thereby moved all the lower layers, including the gross physical layer. With our understanding that the various layers are not separated from one another, we realize that Gd controls the entire universe as one unified whole. The control doesn’t really have to percolate down from layer to layer – everything moves simultaneously, because it is all one unbroken phenomenon.
Again, referring to previous discussions, Vedic Science tells us that the transcendent, being Consciousness, has a virtual duality of Observer and Observed within itself, and this gives rise to an “infinite frequency vibration” that breaks down into lower frequency vibrations in a systematic manner, which we perceive as the layers of creation and the laws of nature that connect them. If this is the case, then when we say the Gd rides on the highest heaven, we mean that Gd transcends the infinite frequency vibration but also controls nature from that level. Now we understand how that can be. All the layers of creation are actually virtual fluctuations within Gd’s essence. As the Sages say, Gd is the place of the world, the world is not the place of Gd. The intimate connection between Gd and the world, between the rider and the mount, is because Gd is all that there is. What we perceive as creation, is Gd. And Gd is very happy when we wake up to this simple fact.
**************************************************************************
Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Toledot
“Toledot” means “generations, descendants.” More basic than the literal meaning is the meaning “stages of evolution.” We will look at this parshah from this point of view.
The parshah begins with “and these are the generations of Isaac” and tells the story of Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau from whom generations will be born, and of Gd’s promise to Isaac that if Isaac will follow Gd, as did Isaac’s father Abraham, then his descendants will be multiplied “like the stars of the heavens” and the land and all nations will be blessed by Isaac’s descendants. “Heaven” symbolizes “Wholeness” and “stars” symbolize the details of Wholeness, the details through which Heaven sends its grace to human and all beings. Similarly, “land” symbolizes “Wholeness” and “nations” symbolizes the details of Wholeness.
On the surface of this parshah, we see competition, deception, favoritism: Isaac and Rebecca do not seem to have been good parents, skilled and effective in raising two sons to be whole, complete.
It’s common to say that Esau, “a man of the fields,” symbolizes the outer field of life, the physical, while Jacob, “a quiet person, sitting in tents,” symbolizes the inner field of life, the spiritual.
Often people see a battle taking place between these two people and these two aspects of life, but life, to be Life, needs to have both physical and spiritual and they need to be integrated.
¬Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation Program said that Ananda, Total Joy (in Hebrew, Simchah), is everyone’s birthright.
Looking at the story of Jacob asking Esau to sell him his birthright for some porridge he was making, it occurred to me that Jacob, symbolizing the Spiritual aspect of Life, was asking Esau, symbolizing the Physical aspect of Life, to end his famished state by surrendering his commitment to the Physical Alone, and opening himself to the spiritual porridge Jacob was cooking.
Porridge has a bubbly quality to it and cooking it seems equivalent to revealing that Ananda/Joy/Unified Field/Sameach Gd, has a texture: it is not just flat, it has a bubbly quality.
So rather than Jacob cheating Esau, acting cruelly, Jacob was actually enlivening the Joy in Esau, ending his famishment, by taking from him his false birthright in the Physical, and giving him his real birthright, in Ananda, Gd.
Similarly, when Toledot tells us that Esau, the man of the fields, was Isaac’s favorite we can see that Isaac was unable to integrate the spiritual with the physical and so he was not able to live with Wholeness, the integration of the spiritual and the material. We can see this very clearly when Toledot also tells us that Isaac became blind: what greater blindness than to be unaware of Wholeness.
For Rebecca to deceive Isaac by dressing Jacob so that he seemed like the hairy Esau might seem like favoritism on Rebecca’s part but Esau had already sold his physical birthright to Jacob and so what Rebecca was doing was creating an integration of spirituality with materiality, an integration that would raise the generations to increasing higher levels of integration.
Later in Torah we see a very high step in this integration and Restoration of Awareness to Jacob’s descendants when at Mt. Sinai, all of the nation of Israel hears Gd speak, something unmatched in any other scripture.
Still, hearing Gd speak from a distance is an experience of the duality between Gd and humanity: Full Restoration of Awareness means going beyond this duality and experiencing the Oneness which is All.
Toledot reminds us that we need to live balanced, integrated lives, making sure that our material needs are nourished by our spiritual development so that we go beyond duality of any kind and experience duality and all multiplicity within the Oneness that is our real Nature: The All-in-All.
Reading, reciting, hearing, discussing Torah, the Siddur (prayerbook) and their supplements and commentaries and acting with their Wisdom is an excellent way to do this. Getting together with our community, with our World Family, is an excellent way to do this; excellent ways to increase our Joy and Wholeness by sharing, by integrating the multiplicity of life so that we experience the Wholeness with its details.
Let’s continue easily, gently, innocently doing this.
Baruch HaShem