Parashat Vayechi 5785 – 01/11/2025
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.
Bereishit 47:28-50:26
The rest of the current long chapter is mostly a discussion of the various groups and their positions on several of the burning questions of theology:
• Does Gd exist?
• Is Gd unitary?
• Is Gd corporeal?
• Was the universe created in time?
I think you can probably guess how Rambam, or any believing Jew for that matter, would answer these questions (hint: YYNY), but that is not the point. If we take Torah as truth, then the answers are obvious. Rambam has set himself the task of reconciling Scriptural knowledge (which he takes as primary) with philosophical knowledge. Philosophical knowledge was the science of the day, and its proofs were considered incontrovertible, almost mathematical, although, as we will see, different schools of philosophy sometimes reached diametrically opposed conclusion, even while using the same incontrovertible logical processes. I’ll try to highlight some of the issues involved, as Rambam brings them out.
In this passage, Rambam notes that disputes over conclusions can almost always be traced to disputes over the premises used to reach those conclusions:
Know also that all the statements that the men of Islam – both the Mu’tazila and the Ash’ariyya [RAR: Two competing schools of Islamic theology] – have made concerning these notions are all of them opinions founded upon premises that are taken over from the books of the Greeks and the Syrians who wished to disagree with the opinions of the philosophers and to reject their statements. The reason for this was that: inasmuch as the Christian community came to include those communities, the Christian preaching being what it is known to be, and inasmuch as the opinions of the philosophers were widely accepted in those communities in which philosophy had first risen, and inasmuch as kings rose who protected religion – the learned of those periods from among the Greeks and the Syrians saw that those preachings are greatly and clearly opposed to the philosophic opinions. Thus there arose among them this science of kalām. They started to establish premises that would be useful to them with regard to their belief and to refute those opinions that ruined the foundations of their Law. When thereupon the community of Islam arrived and the books of the philosophers were transmitted to it, then were also transmitted to it those refutations composed against the books of the philosophers. Thus they found the kalām of John Philoponus, of Ibn ‘Adli, and of others with regard to these notions, held on to it, and were victorious in their own opinion in a great task that they sought to accomplish. They also selected from among the opinions of the earlier philosophers everything that the one who selected considered useful for him, even if the later philosophers had already demonstrated the falseness of these opinions – as for instance that affirming the existence of atoms and the vacuum.
I was first attracted to this passage by the end, where Rambam notes that it has been proved that atoms do not exist and there is no such thing as a vacuum. Both concepts are, of course, fundamental to modern physics. Now it may be that our uses of the words “atom” and “vacuum” are somewhat different from the ancient philosophers’ usage, but nevertheless such “proofs” of their nonexistence remind one of the famous engineering “proof” that bumblebees cannot fly. Besides the chuckle, the result brings up the basic point that if there’s a problem with the premises, then we can get all sorts of wrong results. In fact, the modern scientific method works in both directions – starting with premises, mathematics and logic leads us to conclusions which can be measured / observed. We then go out and see if those conclusions / predictions actually occur in nature. If they do, we have more confidence in the premises. If they don’t, new premises must be found, assuming that no mistake has been made in the logic. We are essentially allowing perceived reality to “reverse-engineer” our premises. Our premises are the basic understanding of the underlying structure of reality, so we really do want to get it right!
Rambam describes this very process, or a distortion of it, in this passage. He points out that the premises of the philosophers (i.e. the ancient Greek philosophers) appear to lead to conclusions that are contrary to the conclusions that the “Greeks and Syrians” (I believe he is referring to the early church fathers) wished (or felt constrained) to hold as true. Thus, “… [t]hey started to establish premises that would be useful to them with regard to their belief and to refute those opinions that ruined the foundations of their Law.” They went back and started with different premises, ones which gave more satisfactory results, according to their belief system.
For homework, please read up on Gödel’s Theorem, as it will play a role in our later discussion.
Maharishi has said that there are two ways to understand the nature of ultimate reality – there is intellectual knowledge and there is direct experience, that is, the experience of transcending and experiencing Pure Consciousness directly. Of these, direct experience is by far the primary avenue, as the experience of Pure Consciousness is, in Maharishi’s words, “self-validating.” When we experience Pure Consciousness we know what it is, because it is who we are, in our most essential nature. It is really only when we want to talk about that experience that we are forced to use defining words and concepts, all of which are inadequate to capture the essence of that which cannot be bounded or defined. The experience of the transcendent does constrain what we say about it, as there are statements we can make that will not comport with the experience, but no statement or set of statements can capture the essence of the transcendent.
We may likely have to modify my last statement, based on Maharishi’s description of the Brahma Sutras , but we will leave that for another week.
Chazak, Chazak v’Nitchazeik
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayechi
Parashat Vayechi (and he lived)
Jacob lives in Egypt for 17 years, his end draws near, Israel asks Joseph to promise he will be buried in the Holy Land, with his fathers. Joseph swears.
From the chabad.org point of view, Jacob is called “Jacob” when he toils, “Israel” when he is free from toil. When Jacob was wrestling with a man, then an angel, then Gd, he was toiling; when he prevailed, he was free from toil, and so called “Israel.”
Living in Egypt, Mitzraim, Restrictions, is living with toiling; returning to Canaan, Synchronicity, Wholeness, he will be free from restrictions, from toil, he will be “Israel.” So as his end draws near, he is blessed with a taste of his status as Israel and it is from this level of freedom, of Joy, that he asks Joseph to swear to bury his body in Canaan, the Holy Land, the Land of Wholeness.
We do not need to die in order to be free from toil. We can simply open ourselves to the deeper and deeper levels of Torah, the levels which are deeper than the level of meaning, which is a level of restrictions. We can open ourselves to Torah, within which all levels exist, Torah which is One with Gd, Totality. This is the real Holy Land, the real Land of Wholeness.
As Jacob, he becomes ill, toiling to rise from his bed when Joseph brings Joseph’s sons to him. When he sees Joseph’s sons, he is raised in spirit and is Israel.
As Israel, he blesses Joseph’s sons, and adopts them and as Israel he blesses Joseph, too, giving one portion more than he gives to his other sons.
It is as Jacob, though that he assembles his other sons and blesses each of them, so this level of blessing involves toil, much harmony but to some degree out-of-tune with the Harmony of Gd.
But still! there is great harmony: When Jacob blesses his sons, he asks them to assemble and then he blesses them individually. This can be taken, and Rabbi Yehuda Berg of the Kabbalah Center takes it that way, to indicate that Jacob is emphasizing that the individual blessings will be fruitful when the sons act as an assembly, a unity, a family. And, when the tribes of Jacob’s sons are considered together, they are considered the Children of Israel, a unity, in Harmony, free from toil.
From this we can see an affirmation of what many of us already feel and act on: we are able to fulfill ourselves as individuals when we act together as a community, a family. It is through Love, through inclusion, gathering together, excluding no one, that we rise to the level of Israel, free from toil, completely in Harmony with Gd, with Oneness.
As the father of the Children of Israel, Israel dies and Joseph, Israel’s family and entourage (except for the youngest children who remain in Egypt tending the flocks), accompanied by Pharaoh’s ministers, and many leaders of Mitzraim, bring him and bury him in the cave of Machpelah, (“Cave of the Double Caves,” integration of restrictions and unboundedness) where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca were buried.
This gathering of the leaders of Mitzraim – Restrictions, toil – with Israel’s family, taking Israel’s body to Canaan, Wholeness, is another example of how appreciation, love, can raise us to gathering and thus to Wholeness.
Also, we can think of the “burying of the body” as “transcendence of the body, of individuality” and this takes place through Appreciation, Love, letting go the limited sense of self and rising to the Unlimited Experience of Self, the Common Self, All-in-All, One.
Physical death is not necessary to experience this transcendence: many in our congregation and many around the world experience this Unlimited Experience and, at least a few, are experiencing permanently.
May all souls experience this Teshuvah, this return to Full Awareness, so that all of Life lives in Fulfillment, in Harmony.
Baruch HaShem