Parashat Vayelech 5786 – 09/27/2025
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.
Devarim 31:1 – 31:30
Shabbat Shuvah
Vayelech is the first Parashah of the New Year. I hope you all had a wonderful Rosh HaShanah and I wish all blessings on all of use in the New Year. And may you have an easy and meaningful fast this Yom Kippur.
Rambam concludes his discussion of intellect and imagination:
Consider, thou who art engaged in speculation, and perceive that a method of profound speculation has arisen. For with regard to particular mental representations, one individual claims that they are intellectual representations, whereas another affirms that they are imaginative representations. We wish consequently to find something that would enable us to distinguish the things cognized intellectually from those imagined. For if the philosopher says, as he does: That which exists is my witness and by means of it we discern the necessary, the possible, and the impossible; the adherent of the Law says to him: The dispute between us is with regard to this point. For we claim that that which exists was made in virtue of will and was not a necessary consequence. Now if it was made in this fashion, it is admissible that it should be made in a different way, unless intellectual representation decides, as you think it decides, that something different from what exists at present is not admissible. This is the chapter of admissibility. And about that I have something to say, which you will learn in various passages of this Treatise. It is not something one hastens to reject in its entirety with nonchalance.
Rambam appears to have laid out two different approaches to gaining knowledge. We have associated what he calls “imagination” with the sefirah Chochmah – direct insight into the whole system under consideration, grasping it as a whole. It is a knowledge that we might consider intuitive – intuition comes from “in” = inner + “tuition” = learning, thus “inner knowledge,” knowledge that is intrinsic to our consciousness. This notion has infiltrated popular culture: Chevy Chase ( Caddyshack, 1980) tells us to “Be the ball.” Perhaps the best example is from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), where he introduces the conception of grok. Grok is a Martian word that means a kind of joining or melding of the knower and the known, a deep, intuitive knowledge of the object of knowledge, knowledge through a deep empathy. All of these, it seems to me, are right-brain concepts, associated with vision and form.
On the other side is what Rambam refers to as intellect. Intellect is associated with the Sefirah Binah – binah means intellect, as we have noted, and it is described in Kabbalah as the Sefirah that stabilizes and integrates the gains in Chochmah. As we noted, the intellect is what breaks things down into pieces, analyzes it. Analysis comes from the root lysis which means to break down – that’s why we want a sharp intellect, to cut things up into very fine pieces. Knowledge that we gain by analysis and logic is linear and associated with the left brain and speech. It is also, according to Rambam, associated with what we would call “science.” As he writes: “That which exists is my witness and by means of it we discern the necessary, the possible, and the impossible…” In other words, our intellectual constructs must be constrained by reality. This is necessary because the intellect can only deal with parts, with a finite set of observations, and it is well known that there are an infinite number of theories that can be made to fit a finite set of observations.
Incidentally, in Psalm 148, after praising Gd for creating the universe and the heavenly bodies, the Psalmist say chok natan v’lo ya’avor / He established an order that will never change. This indicates an approach where we have immutable natural laws that govern everything in the universe. This seems like a very scientific, and conforms to the philosopher’s intellectual approach.
However, Rambam contrasts this with the attitude of the “adherent of the Law”: “…we claim that that which exists was made in virtue of will and was not a necessary consequence.” In other words, and this appears to be the position of the Kalām as well, everything is created as an act of Will by Gd, and there are no immutable laws. This is Ramban’s (Nachmanides’) view (and Ramban was a physician!).
When I mentioned this verse and its apparent consequences to a learned friend of mine, he reminded me of the passage in Pirke Avot (V:6) which lists 10 things that were created on the eve of the first Shabbat, including, for example, “the mouth of the donkey” (i.e. Bil’am’s talking donkey). This returns the miracles of the Bible to the realm of natural law (and perhaps lends credibility to those who try to find “natural” causes for miracles in naturally occurring events, even if they are very unlikely), but perhaps at the expense of constraining Gd. Perhaps, my friend opined, the verse in Psalms can be used as a proof-text to the Mishnah in Pirke Avot.
It has been my thesis, and the impetus for this long discussion of Rambam’s philosophical work, that our view of Rambam as a pure rationalist, rejecting anything outside the purview of the intellect, is too narrow a view of his thinking. Our discussion of the past couple of weeks has shown that along with the intellect, Rambam acknowledges the importance of the imagination, the right-brain, holistic style of gaining knowledge. I think that this insight, that both imagination and intellect are necessary for gaining full knowledge, is evidence in favor of this thesis. Whether it came from Rambam’s own experience of the transcendent, or just from his study of Jewish esoteric traditions, I’m not prepared to say. When we go further into Moreh Nevukhim, especially where Rambam discusses prophecy, we will hopefully get a better insight.
As we have discussed, full knowledge can only be gained by the integration of Chochmah and Binah, imagination and intellect. Complete knowledge is found in Pure Consciousness, and it is only when Pure Consciousness is established fully in the awareness is that complete knowledge is actually available. The procedure to establish Pure Consciousness is to alternate the experience of Pure Consciousness with activity. But just the experience of Pure Consciousness is not enough according to Maharishi. Intellectual understanding must go along with it. Intellectual understanding grows as our experience of the transcendent grows, and our deeper appreciation of the nuances of the experience enhances that experience. Complete, pure knowledge is that state where mind, intellect, and individuality all melt into the infinity of Pure Consciousness.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayelech (“And he went”)
Although Vayelech means “and he went.” Moses says to the people “I am 120 years old today and I can no longer go out or in.” The symbolism of 120 as 3 x 40 is strongly suggestive: 40 days of the flood, 40 days twice to receive Torah [3 x ;also 40 days: 40 days from 6 Sivan (Shavuot) to 17 Tammuz, when Moshe came down with the 1st tablets and broke them; 40 days from 17 Tammuz to Rosh Chodesh Elul, when Moshe was on the mountain trying to get Gd to not destroy the people, and 40 days getting the second Tablets on Yom Kippur], 40 the age at which Isaac and Esau married… Moses was 120 = 3 x 40 when he died. “Forty” seems to be symbolic of Fulfillment. Three times forty seems to be symbolic of three levels of Fulfillment, the material surface, the spiritual depth and the Wholeness that integrates them.
In Jewish Kabbalah, spiritual interpretation of Torah, there are four stages in which Creation is Manifested -times 10 Sefirot, 10 Primordial Qualities of Gd. The stages can also be looked at as four limbs.
To not be able to go in and out is symbolic of being established in Wholeness, in Gd, so that every motion is within and there is never any going out or coming back.
Very inspiring to have a leader who is so established, very promising to us that we can also achieve this state. Very inspiring to realize that Moses symbolizes that aspect of ourselves that serves as a messenger bringing Wholeness to all details of ourselves.
In Parashat Vayelech, Moses told our ancestors (and us) to have courage as they pass over the Jordan into the Promised Land: Gd is with you, and will destroy your enemies. But Moses also said that our ancestors will turn from Torah, and Gd will hide His Face from us, but that Torah shall not be forgotten from the mouths of their descendants.
Our descendants are not only our children but ourselves of the next moment and the next… This means that though we close our heart at this moment and turn away from Torah, yet at any time, we can open our heart and Torah will be there as It Always Is (Torah is the Word of Gd , the Liveliness of Gd, never separate, always there).
When we open our heart, we are new people, descendants of the old people that we no longer are but our descendants, new people, people in whom Torah and Gd are alive in our hearts, our words, our actions and in the response of Gd to us.
As Rosh Hashanah passes and Yom Kippur nears, this is a reminder that the New Year is not only a New Year in calendar time but an opportunity for a new year in our hearts, souls, thoughts, speech, action s and in the response Gd gives us – a time when we open to Gd and Gd opens to us so no part of Gd’s Face is hidden. Now we remember and live the Oneness which we always are (though Gd has Played Hide and Seek with It), and not only remember and live but enjoy everywhere, all around us, Gd/Torah singing to us, dancing to us, in the sky, earth, pebbles, streams and leaves, in all people, in all souls – everywhere.
It is a reminder that the Day of Atonement approaching really is the Day of At-Onement, a day in which all our vows to Gd are annulled because the separation between Gd and us is annulled.
This is a preview of the opportunity for the celebration of Purity, A Clean Slate. Fulfilled Year, Fulfilled Us, Fulfilled World
A great time!
Baruch HaShem