Parashat Vayigash 5786 – 12/27/2025
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.
Bereishit 44:18-47:27
Having delineated his 25 premises, Rambam goes on to discuss one more, which it appears that he only admits as a hypothetical:
I shall add to the premises mentioned before, one further premise that affirms as necessary the eternity of the world. Aristotle deemed it to be correct and the most fitting to be believed. We shall grant him this premise by way of a hypothesis in order that the clarification of that which we intended to make clear should be achieved. This premise, which among them is the 26th , [consists in Aristotle’s statement] that time and movement are eternal, perpetual, existing in actu. Hence it follow of necessity, in his opinion, that there is a body, moving with an eternal movement, existing in actu; and this is the fifth body [RAR: i.e. the ether].
First a word on the “fifth body.” We think of the 5 essences, or elements, as earth, air, fire, water and the ether. I was always under the impression that the various “bodies” that we see around us are made up of various combinations of the 5 elements (or perhaps only the first 4, the ether being relegated to the heavenly realms). According to Rambam here, the ether is something that moves continuously, never having started nor ever ending.
The ether has gone through some transformation over the centuries. Once our understanding of the universe began to resemble our current one (pre-Relativity), with the earth dethroned from its central position, and the stars understood to be suns like our own, the idea that the ether permeates the heavens morphed somewhat into the idea that light, now understood to be an electromagnetic wave, propagated through the ether in the same way that waves propagate through the water.
Now the ether apparently does not interact with the earth or the sun in any way (for example, it doesn’t appear to be a drag on the earth’s motion, as it would if it were a physical fluid), so the only way we can detect its existence is by looking at the way it affects our perception of light. If we consider waves in the water, if we are moving in the same direction as the waves, the waves appear to move slower. If we are moving in the opposite direction, the waves appear to move faster. Think of a train pulling out of the station. If you are on another train that is moving parallel to the first train in the same direction, the first train will seem to be moving slower. If our train is moving in the opposite direction, the first train appears to be moving faster.
Now if the earth is moving through the ether, then if we looked at the speed of light in two perpendicular directions, the speed will be different, because one will be in the direction of the motion through the ether, and one would be in the perpendicular direction. In the early 1900’s, Michelson and Morley actually did the experiment , and found that the speed of light is the same no matter what direction one looks. Michelson, who was Jewish by the way, won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics, the first American (of many) and the first Jew (of many) to win the prestigious award. This finding comported with the very uncomfortable prediction of Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics and formed the basis for Einstein’s Special Relativity. But for our purposes, it disproved the existence of the ether, at least as the medium for the transmission of electromagnetic waves.
In Vedic Science the fifth “essence” (Mahabhuta) is akasha / “space.” I think this identification corresponds better with the understanding we have in modern physics. There is no “ether,” nor does there need to be. The fields that are the underlying components exist in space and time and propagate without any underlying medium. Of course, in General Relativity, space and time themselves become dynamic actors in the evolution of the universe. Integrating General Relativity into quantum field theory is one of the great thrusts of modern physics.
It seems to me that the other four “elements” correspond to the 4 states of matter: solid (earth), liquid (water), gas (air) and plasma (fire – plasma is a state of matter where the atoms are ionized and the ions and electrons react to electromagnetic fields separately). So even in modern physics, there is a distinction between ether (space) and the “terrestrial” elements (bodies), and the significant factor is the relationship between them. Ultimately, all the elements emerge from the Unified Field as its virtual, internal dynamics, and once these dynamics and their interplay are established as the dynamics of our own consciousness, we gain mastery over them, and therefore over their further manifestations.
Rambam concludes his discussion, and the entire introduction, by pointing out that Aristotle never asserts that the demonstrations he gives for the truth of the eternity of the world are actual, iron-clad proofs. On the other side, the Mutakallimūn insist they have certain proofs against this premise, because they are invested in the idea that Gd creates the world anew every moment. Indeed, contemporary philosophers point out that we cannot prove that Gd didn’t create the universe just a moment ago, placing everything in it, including our memories and our sense of time, in exactly the way they are so as to look just as if there was a big bang and creation in time and 13.5 billion years of cosmic evolution.
The premises now having been elucidated, Rambam is ready to go on to use those premises to discuss the important problems that are the thrust of the Moreh Nevukhim. We will, Gd willing, begin to take them up next week.
Dear friends – I am planning to participate, albeit at a distance, in the Winter WPA from December 30 – January 13, 2026. This, of course, will severely limit the time I have to study and write, while of course helping to create coherence for the world and give me some much needed rest and transcendence. So the next two entries may be briefer than usual, but I hope they will give some insight anyway.
Happy New Year!
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Vayigash (“and he drew near”)
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. Also, 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 to be 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 for all the family to draw closer to Gd.
Previously, the famine in Canaan caused Jacob to send ten of his sons to Mitzrayim (Egypt) to draw near the food supply Mitzrayim had stored up during years of abundance.. Mitzrayim 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 Mitzrayim, 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 Mitzrayim, second only to Pharaoh and de facto ruler of Mitzrayim.
When Joseph’s ten brothers draw near Joseph plays tricks on them in order to get his youngest brother, Benjamin, and his father Jacob also to draw near so the whole family will 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.
Joseph and his family experience 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 heel 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 Gd at Beersheba (“well of the oath”, and “well of seven”) where Abraham and Avimelech 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 our 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 role 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 that we are Wholeness, playing the roles of us.
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 God, and enjoy the tranquil, non-toiling relationship beyond struggle.
Loyalty (“Love thy neighbor as thyself”) is a means to reunify the Jacob aspect ourselves with the Wholeness we truly are. “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 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, to One, 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.