Parashat Vayigash 5785 – 01/04/2025
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 44:18-47:27
Dear friends – I am participating, albeit at a distance, in the Winter WPA. This, of course, has severely limited the time I have to study and write, while helping to create coherence for the world and give me some much needed rest and transcendence. So, these next two entries may be briefer than usual, but I hope they will give some insight anyway.
I’d like to return to the last part of last week’s quote:
For it was meant to prevent what has ultimately come about in this respect: I mean the multiplicity of opinions, the variety of schools, the confusions occurring in the expression of what is put down in writing, the negligence that accompanies what is written down, the confusion with regard to actions.
The problem with a purely written tradition is that a written text is rigid. The words cannot be changed, but they certainly can be misunderstood, as we have seen. This misunderstanding is almost inevitable, because different people react to the same text differently. We all have different lives, different experiences, different talents, and outlooks. Most important, we all have different levels of consciousness, and this level of consciousness changes (hopefully) for the better as we grow and evolve. Presumably this is why we read the Torah in synagogue year after year, and we are required to review the weekly portion “twice in the original and once in translation.” By “translation” we can read “interpretation,” as the halachah accepts reading of a commentary as a translation. The best we can do with a written text is to go over it time and again, seeing new angles in the text each time, and getting other ideas from those wiser than ourselves.
Of course, this issue applies to any written text, but when we are discussing Scripture, the problems are multiplied. A good poet will weave many levels of meaning into his work. The Master of the Universe’s work is creation, which has an infinite number of layers, a layered structure of patterns of vibration of the Unified Field, as we have discussed. All that structure is, according to Vedic Science, captured in the sequence of sounds of the Veda, and according to Jewish thought, in the sequence of sounds of Torah (the “Supernal Torah”).
Approaching such a text on the superficial level is impossible. The meaning of the text is essentially not contained in the meaning of the words. If you look at a translation of the Vedas, they really don’t make a lot of sense. All the commentaries in the world can’t help us out in this case, because we are taking a fundamentally incorrect approach to the text. In the case of the Torah that we got from Moshe Rabbeinu, it is really a projection of the Supernal Torah onto an earthly plane, so translations can make more sense, and we do derive codes of conduct from the text. Nevertheless, even in this case, we know that there are levels of understanding of Torah that go way beyond the surface, and if we are sufficiently insightful, we can plumb the mysteries of creation from its words.
All this being the case, it is easy to see that the various commentaries and the various approaches can appear to contradict one another. People get an idea and sometimes get married to their own ideas and approaches. When their awareness is limited, they may see other approaches as a threat, get defensive, pen polemics, and a work that is supposed to bring people together is found driving them apart. The result is “the multiplicity of opinions, the variety of schools, the confusions occurring in the expression of what is put down in writing, the negligence that accompanies what is written down, the confusion with regard to actions.”
What is to be done? The purpose of Scripture is to bring life to fulfillment, and the fulfillment of life is living life in wholeness. Wholeness is not created by putting together parts, so even learning all possible approaches to Scripture, if it were possible to do so, would not create wholeness. The wholeness is primary, just as it is in creation, and that wholeness can only be created by leading the mind to the transcendent, which, as we have seen, requires a teacher to guide the student along the path. The solution to multiple, conflicting partial views is to establish wholeness in the awareness of the student, so that generation after generation can enjoy the full value of Scripture.
*********************************************************************
Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayigash
To whom do we wish to draw near? Most importantly, to Gd, to Wholeness, All-in-All, One without a Second, All Included, Nothing left out. People who can help us get closer are people we do our best to draw near to.
To draw near to Gd, we would like to be healthy and happy, and we would like to have those who are dear us to healthy and happy, too. If we are happy and they are suffering, we want to draw them near to us. In this parshah, Joseph plays tricks on his brothers in order to get his whole suffering family to draw near to him and, more importantly, to Gd.
Previously, the famine in Canaan caused Jacob to send ten of his sons to Mitzraim (Egypt) to draw near the food supply Mitzrayim had stored up during years of abundance. Mitzraim had stored up food because Joseph correctly interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams about seven sickly cows swallowing seven healthy ones and seven shriveled heads of wheat swallowing seven healthy ones. Joseph’s interpretation was that seven good years of abundant food would be followed by seven years of famine. He suggested to Pharaoh, the ruler of Mitzraim, that he store up food during the abundant years so they will have enough during the famine years. Pharaoh was wise enough to recognize that Joseph was divinely inspired and made Joseph viceroy of Mitzraim, second only to Pharaoh and de facto ruler of Mitzraim.
When Joseph’s ten brothers draw near Joseph played tricks on them in order to get his youngest brother, Benjamin, and his father Jacob also to draw near so the whole family would be re-united as a family not as a collection of individuals lost in their own desires. When a family is drawn together in this way, this is a taste of the reunion of isolated streams of life, so they are brought together to experience the Wholeness that is greater than any of Its expressions, a taste of the reunion of the diversity of creation with the Unity that is Gd, the Wholeness within which all individuals exist as expressions of Wholeness.
This is a taste of teshuvah, a taste of what life is like when the isolation of individuality is graced by the Wholeness of Gd and all limitations dissolve in the Unlimitedness of Gd.
One of the tricks Joseph plays is to hide a silver goblet in his brother Benjamin’s bag so he can discover it and claim that Benjamin is a thief. and must serve as Joseph’s slave.
The reunion begins when Judah draws near to Joseph, appealing to him that he will serve as slave to Joseph, instead of his brother Benjamin, child of his father Jacob’s old age. Judah pleads that Benjamin is most dear to his father and his father would die if Benjamin does not return to him.
Joseph is moved by Judah’s loyalty to his father and reveals that he is their brother Joseph, saying for them not to regret their selling him into slavery because it was all ordained by Gd to save the family at time of famine.
In our own lives, we can look at our own faults and those we see in others as being ordained by Gd in order to cause us and others to let go the limited level of awareness we have and move to a greater wholeness and to Wholeness. It is a good lesson in letting go regrets and resentments and living in gratitude and forgiveness.
“Drawing near” is a means to get a taste of the reunification not only of Joseph’s family but also of all individuals with Gd. Torah gives a hint of this greater unification by sometimes calling Jacob, “Jacob” and sometimes “Israel.” “Jacob” means “heel,” spirituality clinging to the heal of materialism to infuse spirituality into materialism. “Israel” means something like “in the Splendor of Gd,” “embracing Gd,” “prevailing over Gd.” This is spirituality opening itself to the One Spirit, the Wholeness that is Gd.
When given the news that Joseph is alive and functional master of Egypt, as Jacob he is mistrustful but when he sees the wealth Joseph gave to his brothers, “his spirit is revived” and now that he believes Joseph is still alive, his trust in Gd is restored – he is called “Israel” and as Israel he sets out for Egypt, making offerings to God at Beersheba (“well of the oath”, and “well of seven”) where Abraham and Abimelech swore an oath that recognized Abraham’s right to the well and to the land around it, giving Abraham some evidence that Gd’s promise to give him and his descendants land is being fulfilled.
When our lives are pure, then the signs that we are living in harmony with Gd’s Will become apparent to others and our right to the fruits of our labor is honored.
At the highest level, the land we want is the Land of Wholeness, One without a Second; the well we dig is out spiritual practices that open our awareness to the Inexhaustible Water that is Gd.; and the fruits of our labor are Full Restoration of our Awareness to the reality that we are One without a Second playing the roles of us and of all.
When we trust that all happens according to Gd’s Will, that everything is done with the purpose of restoring us to Oneness, then we are no longer Jacob, spirituality clinging to the heel of materiality, but Israel, raised by the perception of Wholeness as the Essence of materiality, to awareness of our own Wholeness, our own Oneness.
Gd gives Israel a vision in the night, yet he calls to him “Jacob, Jacob” – though Gd may refer to us in our limited aspect it is to wake us up to our Unlimitedness.
Gd tells him not to be afraid of going to Egypt because Gd will protect him, make him a great nation, take him into Egypt and raise him from there.
chabad.org suggests that Jacob and Israel refer to qualities of the human being: as Jacob we are innocent, but toil; but as Israel we are children of Gd, and enjoy the tranquil, non-toiling relationship beyond struggle.
Loyalty (“Love thy neighbor as thyself”) is a means to reunification with the Jacob aspect of ourselves, the human servant aspect. “Offering” to Gd is a means to unfold more of the Israel aspect of ourselves, the divine aspect. Through love of our neighbors, /family, all beings, /all diversity, we raise the toiling aspect of ourselves to the higher level of our Self – non-toiling, delighting as Children of Gd, delighting in the Oneness that is our Self, the Only Self, Pure Delight, Free from toil.
Today, in Judaism, we give prayers instead of animals as our offerings. Through Love we draw near and our actions and prayer become Pure reuniting us to all, as we rise to All-in-All, One without a Second, Pure Love, Pure Joy, Pure Delight.
This is a good lesson that Torah teaches us through the story of Joseph and his family drawing near.
Baruch HaShem.