{Part 1 – 7/3/2017}
Plan:
- Some ways of seeing Haazinu
- Segue into phenomenological vectorized matrix metaphor for Torah
- Segue into Moshe
- Midrash re negotiation after golden caf
- Segue into “ve’atah” analytic inverse of Moshe
- Segue into “tezaveh”
- Via linking Teruma
- “vayikchu” side-track otiyot to add depth to “tetzaveh” by “ve’ata“
- Side-track to wine, into shemen, involving 300, by way of:
- Moshe tzaddik, bent nun (faithful) with yud crown
- Reality hides inside itself, the paradigm of fruit paradigm-shifts by its own extrapolation into alcohol and intoxication
- Gimell * lamed = tzaddik
- Imagining a single armed shin, to help imagine a 4 armed shin
- daled vs gimmel * kuf
- Mishkan out of creation, inside curtains
- Return to Teruma re final Mishna, using oil to light study hall to explain what is being extracted
- Otiyot zait, zach
- The impossible to construct Menorah’s light
I imagine thinking of Haazinu as a synopsis of the Torah (as it is taught), as a song by Moshe (as it is taught), as the words of a creator (as it is taught). The untangling of perspectives helps to see a more complete perspective, is a general rule. Which is evidence that plurality of perspectives are worthwhile, whilst acknowledging that some are enlightening by virtue of their re-evaluation.
To see Haazinu as the synopsis of the Torah, can mean in a grand but simpler sense, as a blueprint for history, or the unravellings of history across orders of time and horizon. Or by a more complicated mapping, onto the contents of the Torah itself. It is in the latter sense, that a differentiation is best appreciated between the song by Moshe, which is directed at a people and their prophecy versus a description of the words of creation. In the latter sense, the first phrase can be mapped onto the first verse of the Torah, “Breisheit bara…“
(This is first seen abstractly, in terms of creation, and then personally, in terms of the inner landscape)
To read the Torah is to engage in a reproduction of the map of creation. One way of seeing the Torah is as a combination of ideas, and as a system for their organization and inter-referencing. This can be compared with any cultural text.
Consider the Greek central textual traditions, for example, Homer’s Iliad and Oddesy. These texts described epic narratives and contained constellations of moral and advisory anchor points, (e.g.) in the ways that certain decisions are highlighted as involving deliberate judgement, or certain procedures for problem-solving are extolled by way of demonstration. Values and judgements are not necessarily anchored literally, but the texts are the anchors against which values and judgements can be positioned (whether or not the culture is self-aware of this use for their text).
“Ha’azinu ha’shamyim” – from these words let possibilities discover what they hear, “vetishma haaretz” – from these words let what can be done/doing seek its meaning.*
* “veadabera“, relates to daber, relates to intellectual. “imrei” relates to amar, relates to emotionally derived concepts – our thoughts move the skies, our hearts move the ground.
So when thinking of Ha’azinu as a synopsis for the Torah, it is possible to discover a way of reading the Torah.
This can be thought of as “installing” the Torah, or as drawing songlines onto a life through time (that is both static and unfolding). (Btw, in some way kindred to the act of creation). [E.g. making associations between life and Torah, this is a form of engagement, not a form of production]
Moshe alludes to many things, including the aspect of Israel that is all Israel; the aspect of the self that the sum of all parts. It is the part that is ultimately leading us. Part of the discovery / installing / redemption-from-slavery involves this part of the self-herding towards freedom. This occurs both / either consciously, or implicitly (since the whole is moving).
The Midrash tells that after the golden calf, Moshe negotiated that there was no point having Moshe (the sum of all) without the nation (all). This can be seen in many ways, but it occurs at the imposition between utter sacrifice to the fire, and the desire to have a self. It is not the same as opposing tendencies. It is all the different ways in which the infinite can be climbed towards (like a rope) which are not literally the same as the experience of the force of devotion (like the force which contorts the nun, like one bowing to a king). It includes all variegations of life, both common (e.g. smell) and developed (e.g. investigation within the study) – all of these are the self which could not be given up, no matter how much the infinite was thought beautiful. It was a contradiction.
It is a corollary of this metaphysical-determined (via the Torah) existential conundrum (viz. that we value the being of what we value being), that the aspect of Moshe is hidden in part of our life. It is like a blind-spot insofar as it is an artefact of how we see, but unlike a blind-spot, it is not truly blind (since we see its inverse – whereas with a blind-spot there is a neurally-computed illusion generated to hide the space from common awareness). (These are taught in relation to “ve’atah“).
Our “Moshe” is capable of gifting itself in the journey into infinite (i.e. to give teruma, e.g. to gift the force of devotion), but cannot be the source of the power for that devotion, not always.
For that source, the variegations of life must provide.
Back a few steps.
“Veata” is taught to be the essence of Moshe, not delineated by his name. The essence of the self is (a) the sum of the self through all parts, (b) through time, (c) as a silhouette of the flames of the infinite. We would not be said to exist (by our standards of independence) if absolutely devoted (like angels), except that (like the thornbush that isn’t consumed) we simultaneously operate as an interlocking plurality of selfs (sic).
“Veata tetzaveh” – there is no voice which can give this order, except the voice to which we are secondary (viz. the infinite expressing itself via what is happening within the person); however every part of the self can know this order. (To the extent to which there is already a force to the self’s voice, this is due to light that was already given, but it is not sustained by its own right).
The methodology of this instruction (for the behalf of those aspects of self who must obey it) can be seen in the letters of “vayikchu“: Yud is like a hand and is the hand of the mind which reaches (for an idea, a motivation, a feeling). Kuf is like a monkey which was a vehicle for man, it is the end-unto-itself which is done for something-beyond-what-that-self-can-imagine*. Chet is like a rope which, the further it is constructed, the further it can be used to construct other things and to reach other things. And we can see here a lesson regarding the difference between singular and group since it is “vayikchu” not “vayikach“, it reveals how all the different internal possibilities within the chet are unfolded**. To take something is to build towards the thing – the more “towards” the closer one has it.
** Cf. Mishna on whether to lie down for evening Shema regarding vav here.
* This relates to the idea that Mitzrayim hangs a weight on the neck, and to the sheep which was the Nile which was believed to be owned by the crocodile and which was used for its blood on the doorposts, which is basically the human limits of existence without an infinite entry point (Torah).
“Vayikchu” – all the different ways of getting the oil to Moshe are unfolded.
“Shemen” is concentrated motivating force. Chemically, this is seen in the triglyceride molecules, which are not merely carbohydrate energy sources but compacted into a form of concentration, which not merely collects efficiently, but potentiates and creates new energy by doing so. The concept of purity can be seen in the transition of chemical energy into electromagnetic radiation (ie. light, which is seen in the sense of oil light, or in the intermediary electron excitations which form the cogwheels of biochemical transduction of force, e.g. from sugar to ATP to kinase reaction).
What makes “shemen” also unique is the process of acquisition. In the history of agriculture, it can be compared to the discoveries of fermentation and distillation; the discovering of hidden potential.
Sidebox:
“Yayin” is normally thought of in terms of “gefen“, but it is like “shemen zayit“, it is rather a relationship between a fruit and a route of experience which is discovered through it, and thereby by-it. Consider Pharoah’s daughter who it is said reached for the floating box even though it was beyond her reach, cf. yayin as a hand grasping a hand to reach for something true, it is a wonky-contraption.
Sidebox:
The primordial spark of possibility is the: conceivability of “possibilities coming out of possibilities”. Shin splits the chaining into three columns; out of the gimmel matures new possibilities. To “ha’azinu” relating to the amorphous-imagination-power, this is like how out of perspectives (lamed) matures new possibilities (i.e. this relationship of perspectives to possibilities is the imagination, is gimmel times lamed equals tzaddik, which is the bow and arrow shooting further, which is like tet times yud, which is using the wheel to iterate until a new thing is found.
Zayit is the tool/weapon/food which nourishes/sustains/enables you to reach (yud) for what is the highest truth (taf).
This is seen in many ways, for example, the olive tree is amongst the oldest-bearing of the fruit-bearing trees which are commonly planted by humans. Thus their fruit represents the acts of kindness which link the ultimate purpose of creation (viz. “planting trees”, to enrichen the future).
Or also: the suitability for extracting the essence of the biological substrate (which I don’t mean is the energy, which I mean is the transformability of energy; nb. The substrate of biology is not sugars, it is the transformability of sugars). (This is seen especially via looking at the yud).
Each person knows what x sustains their reach for the truth.
The channelling of the energy towards a single channel like the menorah is not possible to build within oneself (truly), this relates to the Midrash that the menorah can only be understood in theory, but it is produced through the infinite fires.
{Part 2 – 16/3/2017}
Cf. http://chumash-ha-arizal.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/tetzaveh-clear-illuminating-oil.html
6 lights (vav) combine into 7th (zayin*), but this operates through ayin, which is can be seen as overlaying aleph. This relates to the back-and-forth of Menorah & ascension in general.
* E.g. cf. Shabat as Malchut female vs masculine 6 days.
