Parashat Mishpatim 5783 — 02/18/2023
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.
Shemot 21:1-24:18
This week I received a very interesting question in the email, and I replied in some detail. The questioner and our editor both thought the answer was worth disseminating – so here it is. We’ll return to Rambam next week Gd willing.
Tolstoy and the Ten Commandments
Dear Bob,
In my Bhagavad Gita class Sunday evening, in response to some discuss on about the spontaneous development of all eight limbs of yoga from the experience of samadhi, one of the participants brought up a story about Tolstoy. L. suggested you might be able to help confirm and/or clarify the points he raised in our meeting.
He said that Tolstoy was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, he was not satisfied with the translations of the Bible that he was reading. Therefore, he made a study of ancient Hebrew and translated some of the Bible for himself. According to this story he found that the text of the 10 Commandments was not in the form of an imperative, not in the form of a command. Instead, they were in the future tense, (he even said future perfect…?) and gave the idea that when one was established in the divine then one would naturally not steal, one would naturally not kill, one would naturally not take the name of the Lord in vain, etc. Then, when he made public his findings, the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him.
According to my subsequent, very limited web search Tolstoy was excommunicated for his rejection of religious rituals, of some of the stories in the Bible, of the Bible itself as a sacred text not to be questioned, and for a general rejection of many norms of government and religion in the Russia of his time. However, there was nothing specific about the Ten Commandments. So, leaving aside what Tolstoy actually said, as there is not enough time to undertake research into the significant amount of material available, the question remains:
What are the actual verb forms in the Ten Commandments and what is the real meaning in the light of those forms? Are they commandments or are they statements of the nature of a Gd-guided life?
I am most curious to know!
– – – – – ——————
My answer, slightly redacted:
Hi L. and L.,
Excellent question! So first a couple of preliminary thoughts.
0. I assume L. warned you that if you ask me what appears to be a simple question that you will get a small dissertation in response. As my students at MIU used to say, “Learning from Bob is like trying to drink water at a fire hydrant.” So, get some snacks and read on.
1. The Russian Orthodox Church has been a slave to the Russian government for centuries. It was true under the Czars, where the ROC was tasked with keeping the serfs down; it was true under the nominally atheist communist regime, and it’s visibly true under Putin — just listen to Archbishop Kirill, who I saw somewhere used to be a KGB agent. He is particularly vile and hateful. So, if Tolstoy got out of line it’s no surprise that they threw him out — he was too well-known and popular, and a member of the aristocracy, so they couldn’t just kill him. Nowadays he probably would have been killed along with all the other oligarchs who have gotten out of line and tragically have fallen out of windows.
2. The 10 Commandments are not called that in Hebrew — they are Aseret haDibrot = the 10 Utterances or Sayings or Speeches. The root used is D-B-R, which does connote harsher or commanding speech, as opposed to the root A-M-R, which connotes softer or gentler speech. It also doesn’t use the root Tz-Vav-H, which is the root of mitzvah = a command. That said, most of the “10 commandments” are prescriptive. “Don’t steal, don’t lift, 20 years of schooling and they put you on the day shift.” However, if you look deeper, I think we can see that Tolstoy was right on. (Note: there are two V’s in Hebrew: First is Vet which alternates with Bet as in Bet Sefer = “House of the book” = school vs B’Vet HaSefer = “in the school”; this is more common. Second is Vav which was originally a bilabial fricative [we don’t have it in English, the closest is a “W”]. It is most commonly used as the vowel “O” or “U” but sometimes is a consonant, as in mitzvah.)
3. Now to the main course. The first “commandment” is clearly not a command at all: I am Hashem your Gd Who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, the place of bondage. It’s a necessary preamble to the 10 “Commandments” that delineates (a) Who is doing the commanding and (b) by what authority He is commanding. Some commentators struggle to turn this into a command, e.g. a command to believe in Gd or to accept Gd’s authority or role in history. Note that it does not say I am Hashem, Creator of heaven and earth. Gd identifies Himself to the Jewish people in terms of His historical relationship to them, and not in His universal aspect as Creator of everyone and everything. Perhaps this is because the 10 commandments are binding on the Jewish people, as are all the 613 commandments in Torah, and not on anyone else. (Everyone else has the 7 “Noachide Commandments,” which, traditionally, were given to Noach after the Flood — prohibitions against murder, theft, idolatry, blasphemy, incest/adultery, eating the limb of a living animal, and the positive commandment to establish courts of law — so that society can function.) If anyone else wants to take on the other commandments of the Bible (and people generally pick only the ones they like!), they can do that. Someone can also convert and become Jewish and is then obligated in all the commandments just like any other Jew.
4. The second commandment is Lo yihyeh l’cha elohim acherim al panai. Artscroll, which usually translates pretty literally according to the tradition of Rabbinic commentary, renders: You shall not recognize the gods of others in My Presence. Very literally it’s There will not be to you other gods [or gods of others — the Hebrew can be read either way] in My Face. One can write books on this, and many have, but here are a few thoughts. The word translated here as “gods” is elohim. This word comes from the word el which has the connotation of “power” (e.g. Laban threatens Ya’akov yesh l’el yadi, “it is in the power of my hand (to harm you)…” Gen 31:29). It has three meanings. It can mean “judges,” it can mean “gods” with a small “g,” and it is one of the Names of Gd. As a name of Gd it is associated with Gd’s Attribute of strict justice (midat haDin), and it is also associated with nature: the numerical value of the word is the same as the numerical value of haTeva = “nature.” This makes sense — the laws of nature are strict. You can be the kindest, most moral person in the world, but if you step off a cliff, even by accident, you will fall to the bottom, Gd forbid (unless you have perfected the sidhis). So, extrapolating to the use of elohim as “gods,” we might say that “gods” are laws of nature. This is exactly the way Maharishi describes the devatas which word is generally rendered “gods” as well. I heard a lecture by R. Akiva Tatz where he said that the angels were laws of nature, even going so far as to say that gravity is an angel.
The expression “in my Face” means that we are not to equate the laws of nature (“the gods”) with Gd. I have seen idolatry defined as “ascribing Divinity to anything other than Gd.” (We call Guru Dev “His Divinity” as a title of respect and reverence, not because we think Guru Dev was Gd, or even a god. The great 16-th century Kabbalist, R. Isaac Luria, was called “the Ari” (“the Lion”) from the acronym haElohu Rabbi Yitzchak / “the Divine R. Isaac” in the same vein.)
5. Lo ta’aseh l’cha fesel… / “Do not make for yourself any graven image.” Lo tishtachaveh lahem / “You shall not prostrate yourself to them…”
6. Lo tisa et shem Hashem… / “You shall not take Gd’s name in vain…”
7. Lo tirtzach / “You shall not murder.”
8. Lo tin’af / “You shall not commit adultery.”
9. Lo tignov / “You shall not steal/kidnap.”
10. Lo ta’aneh v’re’acha eid sheker / “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
11. Lo tachmod / “You shall not covet…”
(I have left out the 4th (Honoring parents) and 5th (Sabbath) for now.)
12. All these commandments have the form “You will not <do whatever>.” Now, depending on your tone of voice, this can be read either of two ways. With a stern tone of voice, when your mother would tell you, “You will not go over to Joey’s house until you finish your homework,” it is obviously a command. If said in another tone of voice, it could mean that your mother knows that you are so dedicated to finishing your homework that it wouldn’t even enter your mind to go to Joey’s house before you finished your homework. Both the Hebrew and the English are ambiguous, and in general, when it comes to ambiguous statements in Scripture, I think they should be read both ways. The two readings describe different realities, or different levels of consciousness.
13. The reading as a command refers to a lower level of consciousness where proper behavior has to be legislated, because people are acting not in accord with natural law. Therefore, the principles of correct behavior have to be inculcated from outside. These principles get codified in law codes (Mishnah, Gemara, Shulchan Aruch, later Responsa literature in Judaism, Laws of Manu in the Vedic tradition, etc.) and are applied either to teach people how they should behave, or to sanction those who do not behave in this way. The codification (some would say ossification) of law occurs because as consciousness declines our intuitive ability to perform right action declines. So, for example, “Thou shalt not murder.” Seems straightforward, doesn’t it? Don’t go around killing other people! But suppose you kill by accident? How much of an accident was it? Was it something you could not reasonably have foreseen, or were you just not paying enough attention to what you were doing? You can see how this process (“Talmudic hairsplitting”) can lead to massive codes of conduct and commentaries on the codes, to the point where you need experts (Rabbis) to answer questions that are anywhere out of the ordinary (“If you please Reb Tevye, Pardon me Reb Tevye. Posing questions that would cross a Rabbi’s eyes!”).
14. The other reading is the one Tolstoy prefers. It refers to a higher state of consciousness (we would say CC) where the mind is established in the “home of all the laws of nature.” Since our action is always from the level of our awareness, a person who has this “home of all the laws of nature” established in their awareness will naturally act in a way that all the laws of nature are taken into account. Such a person’s actions will be beneficial not only to themselves, but to the entirety of creation as well. Although we cannot consciously compute all the ramifications of any action out to the end of time, nature certainly can, so if we have this “Cosmic Computer” in our awareness, this computation takes place automatically before the first electrical impulse is dispatched to the relevant muscles, It would never occur to us to murder someone, but if we saw someone attacking someone else and the only way to stop the attacker is by killing him, then that’s what we would do, Gd protect us from such situations.
15. Incidentally, both readings are contained in the word mitzvah (commandment). Mitzvah can mean a signpost, and a signpost can have two purposes. It can point the way to a goal (“Jerusalem, 2000 miles”), or it can mark the goal (“Welcome to Jerusalem!”). There is the mitzvah of the path, which Gd gives us so that we can use our behavior to adjust our consciousness, and there is the mitzvah of the goal, when our unbounded consciousness guides us to spontaneously behave in the correct manner.
So, whether we prefer Tolstoy’s reading or the common reading will depend on the purpose we feel is primary — are the commandments a guide to get enlightened, or are they a confirmation that one is acting properly (a mahavakya so to speak).
16. Zachor et yom haShabbat l’kadsho … / “Remember the Sabbat day to sanctify it. …”
17. Kabed et avicha v’et imecha … / Honor your father and your mother…”
These are positive commandments (“Thou shalt…” rather than “Thou shalt not…”) and are stated in the imperative. I suppose it could have said Atah tizchor…” / ” You will remember” but it didn’t, so it appears that Tolstoy’s way of reading this as a future tense doesn’t work here. The point about the two meanings of a mitzvah are still the same, in my opinion.
18. Sof davar hakol nishma / “The end of the matter, everything having been heard, be in awe of Gd and keep His commandments, for this is the whole person.” ( Eccles 12:13) Torah can guide us at all levels of consciousness, if we learn how to read it properly. This means attaining Unity and then enjoying the waves of eternity flowing through Torah and through life.
Enjoy!
Bob
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Mishpatim
“Mishpatim” means “laws.” In this parshah, Gd gives many laws: The most important is “And you shall worship the Lrd, your Gd, and He will bless your food and your drink, and I will remove illness from your midst.”
How are we to know that we are doing well in our worship?
Joy in eating and drinking is a sign that we are doing well and illness is a sign that we are lax in our worship.
Gd gives 53 laws in this parshah — 30 positive mitzvot and 23 prohibitions.
Moses tells the laws to the people and they say, “All that the Lrd has commanded we will do”!
These 53 mitzvot are details in our worship of Gd — so worship is not just saying a blessing, praising Gd, but acting in daily life, in and out of formal services, according to Gd’s Will — as best we can. The mitzvot in this parshah illustrate in many ways how we can worship Gd by “loving our neighbor as ourself”— as our Self.
Our ancestors heard Gd speak on Mt Sinai/Mount Horeb (there is disagreement as to whether this is one place or two separate places, whether the Ten Utterances/Words/Commandments were given out on Mt. Sinai or Mt. Horeb) and they heard Gd speak through Moses which Gd does also in this parshah. This is a sign that despite such faults as worshiping the Golden Calf, our ancestors were quite good in their worship. To hear Gd through Moses they must have been doing quite well, generally, in performing the mitzvot — doing what should be done, avoiding what should not.
Some of these laws though clearly moral seem very secular: laws about slaves, homicide, insults, assault, crops. Only a few of the laws pertain directly to duty to Gd.
How are we to know in our time that in our daily life we are worshiping Gd and not just taking care of our individual selves, families, property?
Most of the mitzvot in this parshah are things that good people everywhere learn from their parents and their culture but also there are specific details for which regular reading of Torah and studying Torah can be helpful so that we become more and more attentive to the details of a good life, a life of worship. An example is offering first fruits to Gd. Unless we’re farmers or gardeners we have to think about what this means in our life. It could be symbolic of offering some part of any money we receive to Gd or to charity. It could mean that we need to align with what we know of what Gd wants. The first fruit of any thought we think.
Worshiping Gd is an ongoing learning experience: Comfort in our life is a sign that happiness is growing, Joy is growing. Comfort is a sign that we are learning how to be natural, unstrained, to act in harmony with Life, with Gd’s Will. And definitely when comfort rises to be Joy in our life we have a sign we are getting better, we are learning. We are becoming increasingly aware that Joy is Gd and by helping others to be comfortable, unstrained, we are sharing Joy, sharing Gd, Loving Gd. We are growing in our ability to know our Self–The Self–and to share this with others: we are growing in our ability to “Love Gd with all our heart, all our soul and all our might” and in our ability to “Love thy neighbor as thyself [Thy Self].”
Opening ourselves to comfort, Joy and Love is opening our awareness to Totality, the Primordial Oneness within which everything and everyone exists as an impulse, a flow, a ripple of Oneness flowing within Oneness.
Because this is Reality, our growing sense of Gd in this way is a real taste and by devoting our self through comforting and kindness to Gd and to our neighbor. we commit ourselves innocently to develop Full Comfort, Full Kindness Oneness with Gd.
The mitzvot in this parshah help us to do this.
Through this commitment, our ancestors worshiped and we worship. Whatever words we recite in service and in prayer raise our awareness to deeper and deeper Tastes of Gd and help us innocently dedicate ourselves only to One and to nothing less.
Whatever acts we perform outside of formal religious service become service, acts dedicated to Totality.
We settle for no partial value: Even in the ordinary routine acts of daily life we become more and more dedicated to nothing less than Totality – Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omni-Joyful, Omni-Loving, Totality, All-in-All, everything included, nothing left out.
Through this innocent dedication our daily lives become worship and we grow in appreciating every aspect of life as truly Gd, we grow in our ability to love every detail of life as our Self, we grow in our ability to “love Gd with all our heart and soul.” We grow in fulfillment, restoring awareness of Oneness within our self and everywhere and we grow in the extent to which spontaneously this Fulfillment is shared, experienced by everyone and every thing, every where and every when.
This is a life worth living. The various laws of Mishpatim, some seeming secular and some clearly sacred, are aids in living this life and finding that Fulfillment always Is, never is missing, always Is.
Baruch HaShem