Parshiyyot Nitzavim-Vayelech 5784 – 09/28/2024
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.
Nitzavim: Devarim 29:9-30:20
Vayelech: Devarim 31:1 – 31:30
As we approach the New Year I wish for all of you your best year ever, and for the Jewish people the opportunity to live in peace with our neighbors, so we can all concentrate our energies on progress and life.
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First, an apology – in the last entry I mentioned the samyama of rishi, devata and chhandas. Of course that should be the samhita of rishi, devata and chhandas.
A calendrical note: This year we read Parshiyyot Nitzavim and Vayelech together. When there is a Shabbat between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, we need to split the two apart so that Vayelech will be read on Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) and Ha’Azinu on that “extra” Shabbat. This year, Rosh haShanah (1 Tishri), and therefore Sukkot (15 Tishri) and Shemini Atzeret (22 Tishri) are all on Thursday. If we split Nitzavim and Vayelech it would push Ha’Azinu to the Shabbat after Simchat Torah, which has to be Shabbat Bereishit, the beginning of the yearly Torah reading cycle.
Rosh haShanah can only fall out on Shabbat, Monday, Tuesday or Thursday for various reasons. (The calendar is adjusted in Cheshvan and Kislev if necessary to make it so. Those months can have 29 or 30 days, so there is some flexibility there; all the other months are fixed at either 29 or 30 days every year.) You can get a calendar and convince yourself that if Rosh haShanah is on Shabbat or Thursday the two Parshiyyot are read together, while Monday and Tuesday Rosh haShanah means they are split up. I have tried to find a percentage of years that they are together/apart, but the only statement I was able to find is that “most years they are read together” (torahmates.org), meaning that Monday or Tuesday Rosh haShanah are rather more rare than Shabbat or Thursday. I’d have to be more of a mathematician than I am to figure out why. I may pose it to my son, who is a real mathematician. Now, back to Rambam!
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Rambam now goes on to discuss the difference between an intellect in potentia and an intellect in actu.
Know that before a man intellectually cognizes a thing, he is potentially the intellectually cognizing subject. Now if he has intellectually cognized a thing (it is as if you said that if a man has intellectually cognized this piece of wood to which one can point, has stripped its form from its matter, and has represented to himself the pure form – this being the action of the intellect), at that time the man would become one who has intellectual cognition in actu. Intellect realized in actu is the pure abstract form, which is in his mind, of the piece of wood. For intellect is nothing but the thing that is intellectually cognized. Accordingly it has become clear to you that the thing that is intellectually cognized is the abstract form of the piece of wood, that this form is identical with the intellect realized in actu, and that these are not two things – intellect and the intellectually cognized form of the piece of wood. For the intellect in actu is nothing but that which has been intellectually cognized; and the thing by means of which the form of wood was intellectually cognized and made abstract, that thing being the intellectually cognizing subject, is also indubitably identical with the intellect realized in actu. For in the case of every intellect, its act is identical in essence; for intellect in actu is not one thing and its act another thing; for the true reality and the quiddity of the intellect is apprehension.
This is quite a mouthful, and I’m not sure I’m up to unpacking it (being a humble physicist), but I will try. There are two kinds of intellect – intellect in potentia and intellect in actu. The former exists before a person cognizes anything – in this case the intellect is poised, as it were, to cognize anything that comes its way. We might say it is in a state of “restful alertness.” This is what potential means, when we think about it. Potential is something that needs to be realized to have some impact. The apple hanging on the apple tree has a lot of (gravitational) potential energy, but only when that potential was realized as kinetic energy (when it dropped off the tree) could it hit Newton on the head and change our understanding of astrophysics. Potential is like money kept under the mattress – it may make us feel good that we have it, but it does no good at all for the economy.
Intellect in actu is the focus of this passage. Rambam is very clear that the intellect in actu is identical with the abstract form of the object of cognition. In other words, it seems that the function of the intellect is to abstract away all the specifics of the object and cognize its pure form. I think this is in consonance with Maharishi’s description of the intellect as that which makes distinctions (and of course in Jewish thought the word for intellect is binah which comes from the root bein meaning “between”). This is how the process of abstraction works – the intellect is continuously distinguishing that which is essential from that which is accidental to a particular instance of the abstract form. In the example of the piece of wood, a particular piece of wood has a certain length, a certain volume, weight, color, etc. All these are incidental to the form of “a piece of wood.” The intellect discards the incidentals and cognizes the essence, the “pure form.”
Rambam goes on to state that once the intellect has cognized the pure form of the object, it becomes identical with that pure form. What this first reminded me of is Maharishi’s description of perception in the waking state of consciousness, where Pure Consciousness has not yet been established in the mind. In this case, the object of perception completely overshadows the Self, and the mind identifies with the object. However, this is only the superficial level of the object.
What I think is actually happening here is that by cognizing the pure form of the object, the intellect is actually using the object as a vehicle to transcend – the process of transcending is just the process of the object of perception getting more and more abstract. Now, the intellect still deals in distinctions, so it cannot transcend completely – Maharishi says the intellect “stands at the door of the transcendent.” When the intellect takes the object to the level of “pure form,” it is at the junction point between Pure Consciousness and manifestation. At this level of very subtle and very generalized vibration, the intellect becomes identical with this “pure form” of the object – not the surface level as in the waking state case.
I get the impression that Rambam is describing how the intellect works in general. Mostly, of course, we don’t experience the intellect’s working that way, because we generally don’t have the ability to perceive anything on those levels due to stress. Perhaps, as I suspect, Rambam himself had these kinds of experiences – could he have come up with this description based purely on logic? This is very much an open question. In any event, Rambam will go on to describe the situation of the intellect in actu when it comes to Gd.
L’shanah tovah um’tukah!
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parshiyyot Nitzavim-Vayelech
In Parashat Nitzavim ,“standing”, Moses tells us that we stand before Gd as a nation, not a mere collection of people. It is love of Gd and love of one’s neighbor that binds us together and it is this same love that binds together the different aspects of our personality: our thoughts, our feelings, our body, our routines, our career, family, friends….
So love and Love, Universal Love, are vital for us to live our life in unity, wholeness, not as a mere collection of fragments.
Moses tells our ancestors (and us) that Torah is not far from us, it is near, in our hearts to do. It is the Universal Love that allows us to live in Wholeness.
Moses also warns our ancestors (and us) of the desolation that will occur if we turn from Torah, but comforts us that we will turn back and Gd will gather us together into the Promised Land.
This means that though we may sometimes close our heart and turn away from Torah, yet at any time, we can open our heart and Torah will be seen there as It Always Is (Torah is the Word of God, the Liveliness of Gd, never separate, always there).
When we open our hearts, we are new people, descendants of the old people that we no longer are, 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.
Moses tells us we are free to choose: the blessing of Torah, or the desolation of turning from it and he says “You shall choose life”. I am confident that our congregation is honoring Gd’s words spoken through Moses, and is choosing life.
As Rosh HaShanah 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 and in the response Gd gives us—a time when we open even more to Gd and we become more aware that Gd is always open to us so no part of Gd’s Face is hidden and we remember and live the Oneness which we always Are (though we may have hidden from it), and not only remember and live but enjoy everywhere, all around us, Gd/Torah singing to us, dancing to us, within us, within the sky, earth, pebbles, streams and leaves—everywhere.
Today and every day is an opportunity for the celebration of Newness – and Rosh HaShanah is especially so – New Year, New Us, New World.
A great time!
Parashat Vayelech (“And he went”)
Although Vayalech 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, 40 the age at which Isaac and Esau married… “Forty” seems to be symbolic of Fulfillment. Three times forty seems to be symbolic of three levels of Fulfillment, the surface, the depth and the Wholeness.
To not be able to go in and out is symbolic of being established in Wholeness, in God, 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.
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 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.
This means that though we close our heart and turn away from Torah, yet at any time, we can open our heart and Torah will be seen there as It Always Is (Torah is the Word of God, 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 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 and we remember and live the Oneness which we always are (though we may have hidden from 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—everywhere.
It is a reminder that the Day of Atonement 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!
Recitation of Vayelech:
Given the reality of Torah as the Vibration of G-d, the sound is closer to the reality than the meaning, although the meaning is very useful to us to remind us of the importance of worshipping The One, not getting lost in details of the material world to the extent that we think the material world is the only reality.
The following link gives a recitation in Hebrew of a few verses of Parashat Vayelech and a few tips for study of parsha recitation of Torah with tropes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAGWSO_ytAg
Listening has deep value: so does acting in accord with the Harmony of Torah
In this parshah, Moses tells the people and Joshua, the new leader, to be of courage for the Lord is with them.
What can we make of this today?
One thing is to read Torah, listen to Torah, so we are attuned to it: it is in our heart to spontaneously be in harmony with it.
We can also study Torah to discover its plain meanings, its hidden meanings, and especially its application to the details of our life. As an example, we can prioritize Wholeness and whatever activities we do that connect us to it: in this way, we grow in our ability to Love Gd with all our heart and soul.
We love our self/Self and we grow in the ability to experience that the world outside us is the same One that is within us. We gain Teshuvah and we live our life in Love and Joy. All our failings, limits, and past wrong behaviors are melted in Oneness.
So let us listen to Gd speaking through Moses: Be of good courage for Gd is with us.
Baruch HaShem