Parashat Mishpatim 5784 — 02/10/2024
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.
Shemot 21:1-24:18
Having laid a foundation to analyze what we call Gd’s attributes (e.g. the attribute of mercy or strict justice) as actually referring to Gd’s actions, Rambam gives some specific examples.
Accordingly the apprehension of these actions is an apprehension of His attributes, may He be exalted, with respect to which He is known [RAR: i.e., Gd’s essence is not known, just his actions] . The proof of the assertion that the thing, the apprehension of which was promised to him, was the actions of Gd, may He be exalted, is the fact that what was made known to him were simply pure attributes of action: merciful and gracious, long suffering [RAR: rachum v’chanun, erech apayim – this is from the “13 Attributes of Mercy” in Ex Chapter 34]. It is then clear that he says – for a knowledge of which he had asked and which, in consequence, were made known to him – are the actions proceeding from Gd, may He be exalted. The Sages call them characteristics and speak of the thirteen characteristics [RAR: Heb: midot, which modern translators render as attributes, but which can also mean characteristics, as Rambam goes on to demonstrate]. Thus: There are four characteristics among people who give charity; there are four characteristics among people who go to the house of learning [Pirke Avot V:13-14]. … The meaning here is not that He possesses moral qualities, but that He performs actions resembling the actions that in us proceed from moral qualities – I mean from aptitudes of the soul; the meaning is not that He, may He be exalted, possesses aptitudes of the soul.
I think what Rambam is doing here is extending the consideration of physical anthropomorphisms (Gd’s Hand, Foot) to more mental, or moral characteristics (Gd’s Mercy, Anger). As Rambam will go on to make clear, Gd no more gets angry than He has a Hand or a Foot. Saying that he does is just our way of trying to understand Gd in some kind of human terms, but that understanding is by nature incomplete, as Gd is not like a human being. It is only our constricted vision that forces us to think this way. Thus, he continues:
Accordingly, whenever one of His actions is apprehended, the attribute from which this action proceeds is predicated of Him, may He be exalted, and the name deriving from that action is applied to Him. For instance, one apprehends the kindness of His governance in the production of the embryos of living beings, the bringing of various faculties to existence in them and in those who rear them after birth – faculties that preserve them from destruction and annihilation and protect them against harm and are useful to them in all the doings that are necessary to them. Now actions of this kind proceed from us only after we feel a certain affection and compassion, and this is as it is said, Like a father is merciful to his children [Ps. 103:13], and it says, And I will pity them as a man pitieth his own son [Mal 3:17]. It is not that He, may He be exalted, is affected and has compassion. But an action similar to that which proceeds from a father in respect to his child and that is attached to compassion, pity and an absolute passion, proceeds from Him, may He be exalted, in reference to His holy ones [RAR i.e. the Jewish people] not because of a passion or a change.
Here Rambam makes the point explicitly: those actions which, if they came from us, would bespeak a particular emotion in us, when they come from Gd, we ascribe those emotions to Gd, such as mercy, pity, anger, etc. This is similar to the case where we might complete an action using a limb of our body (walking, listening), so when it seems to us that Gd is doing that kind of action we ascribe to Him possession of the same limb (feet, ears).
Similarly, Rambam returns to an issue that he had with physical anthropomorphisms – how can Gd act, or even appear to us to be acting, if He is unchanging, eternal and transcendental to the world of action? “It is not that He, may He be exalted, is affected and has compassion.” Not being affected means the situation to which He appears to be reacting does not cause any change in Gd whatsoever. In fact, Gd’s appearing to act also brings up the same dilemma – action, at least as we know action, involves change in the outside world, and, by the law of action and reaction (Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion), it means there’s a change in us, the actor. But that cannot be in Gd’s case either, as Gd does not change. In other words, how do we reconcile a transcendent Gd with a Gd Who is engaged in the universe of action?
As before, I think we can attempt to answer this very fundamental question by noting that while from our limited point of view there is a difference between subjective and objective. Since we are created, we have boundaries, and boundaries have two sides. Since we perceive ourselves as bounded in time and space, there is always room for the non-self to exist, and therefore for there to be an interaction between our self and the non-self. This interaction is the “doing” that we believe ourselves to be engaged in, as long as we identify ourselves with the changing aspects of our personality – our mind, our emotions, our bodies.
As we have discussed, regular experience of Pure Consciousness alternated with waking state consciousness leads to a situation where Pure Consciousness and waking, dreaming and sleeping states of consciousness coexist – Pure Consciousness becomes a permanent background to all the activity of living that we participate in. At this point we identify our self with unbounded, eternal and non-changing Pure Consciousness, and all the activity of creation, including the actions of our individual personality are separate from the Self. Our Self, Pure Consciousness, is transcendental and activity is radically separate from it.
As we continue to evolve, we begin to perceive the objects of perception more and more in terms of the Self – we see progressively finer and finer levels of the object, until perception and intellect leap the gap between the finest manifest level of the object and unbounded Pure Consciousness, which is at the basis of all objects, actually comes to our perception. The Self is identified as the subject and now the Self is also identified as the essential nature of the object. A Unity is created between the subject and the object, on the level of Pure Consciousness.
As this Unity Consciousness continues to mature, the Self in our perception expands to encompass more and more of our peripheral vision, until the Self, Pure Consciousness, becomes the all-pervasive reality – we see Pure Consciousness as the ultimate reality and all the creation is merely a fluctuation of this underlying reality. I believe that this level of consciousness is the closest we can come to Gd’s perspective. As Rambam has stated, Gd’s knowledge and Gd’s activity are identical with Gd’s essence. All of creation, which we, from our waking state, bounded perspective, think of as separate from the transcendent, from Gd’s perspective is the transcendent, is His own innermost nature, fluctuating within itself – not separate from Gd’s essence, but identical to Gd’s essence, which, apparently, has an internal, virtual dynamic that appears as creation.
Approached from this perspective, I think we can understand the attribution of time- and space-bound action to an unchanging, unbounded, eternal Gd, as our limited perspective on Gd’s essential nature. As the verse says, “No person can see My Face and live” [Ex 33:20]. The best we can do is rise to a truly mature understanding and perception of nature as the unbounded ocean of Being moving within itself.
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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 Lord, 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 service to Gd and Love and kindness 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 worshipped 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