Parashat Nitzavim 5782 — 09/24/2022
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.
Devarim 29:9-30:20
Continuing on his discussion of the language of Tanach, Rambam writes:
Thus you know that motion belongs to the perfection of a living being and is necessary to such a being for its perfection. For just as it requires eating and drinking in order to replace what has been dissolved, it also requires motion in order to direct itself toward what agrees with it and to escape from what disagrees. There is, accordingly, no difference between, on the one hand, predicating eating and drinking of Gd, may He be exalted, and, on the other, predicating movement of Him. However, in accordance with the language of the sons of man, I mean the imagination of the multitude, eating and drinking are considered in their opinion as a deficiency with reference to Gd, whereas motion is not considered as a deficiency with reference to Him; and this notwithstanding the fact that only need obliges recourse to motion. It has already been demonstrated that everything that is capable of motion is endowed with a magnitude that, without any doubt, can be divided. And it shall be demonstrated further on that He, may He be exalted, is not endowed with magnitude, and that in consequence motion does not pertain to Him, and that rest should not be predicated of Him either – for it can only be predicated of one who is characterized by the capacity for motion. All these terms indicative of various kinds of motions of living beings are predicated of Gd, may He be exalted, in the way that we have spoken of, just as life is predicated of Him. For motion is an accident attaching to living beings. There is no doubt that when corporeality is abolished, all these predicates are likewise abolished. I mean such terms as to descend, to ascend, to go, to stand erect, to stand, to go round, to sit, to dwell, to go out, to come, to pass, and all terms similar to these. To speak at length of this matter would be superfluous, were it not for the notions to which the minds of the multitude are accustomed. For this reason it behooves to explain the matter to those whose souls grasp at human perfection and, by dint of expatiating a little on the point in question just as we have done, to put an end to the fantasies that come to them from the age of infancy.
Remember, it is Rambam’s goal to reconcile the notion that Gd is completely unified wholeness of life with the use of language that describes Gd as a composite being, with human features, albeit writ large. He therefore tackles the concept of motion. Motion of course involves space if we consider it in its most obvious sense, but there are other kinds of “spaces” in physics which describe changes in state of a system. These changes of state are no more relevant to Gd than changes in position, because a change in state involves a rearrangement of the relationship between the parts of a system, and Gd is a simple Unity, not composed of parts. Thus Rambam writes:
It has already been demonstrated that everything that is capable of motion is endowed with a magnitude that, without any doubt, can be divided. And it shall be demonstrated further on that He, may He be exalted, is not endowed with magnitude, and that in consequence motion does not pertain to Him, and that rest should not be predicated of Him either – for it can only be predicated of one who is characterized by the capacity for motion.
Something that has a magnitude is of course not infinite, and something that can be divided is something that is composed of parts. It appears that Rambam is summing up both finitude and system-made-of-parts under the rubric “motion.” Perhaps we can call the rubric “change.” So the question is, in what way does the idea of change apply to Gd?
I’d like to veer into some physics for a bit. Rambam states: For just as it requires eating and drinking in order to replace what has been dissolved, it also requires motion in order to direct itself toward what agrees with it and to escape from what disagrees . What is “dissolved” and how does “eating and drinking” replace what has been dissolved?
We all experience that left to themselves, systems decay. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and it states that in a closed system a quantity called entropy maximizes. Entropy is a measure of disorder or lack of information, and the reason that it increases in a closed system is that there are many more messy ways to arrange the components of a system than there are orderly ways to arrange them. Consider a jigsaw puzzle. There is exactly one way to put it together properly, but there are millions of ways to mess it up. So if you have a put-together puzzle, there are a million ways to rearrange it that will look like a mess but if you have a mess, there is only one way to rearrange the pieces into the correct solution, and a million ways to rearrange the pieces that will still look like a mess. And all messes basically look the same.
Now we clear the dining room table, prop up the jigsaw puzzle box so we can see the picture, spread out all 1000 pieces face up, and painstakingly start to put pieces together – first the ones with the smooth edges that we know go on the outside, then gradually working our way inwards. Of course eating is impossible, because we are focusing all our energy and intelligence on solving the puzzle (and the dining room table is covered by the work in progress). With each new piece the order latent in the puzzle becomes more and more manifest. The chaos (entropy) of all the pieces spilled out of the box is being decreased as order emerges from chaos. This is the opposite of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but it requires an open system and one in which energy and intelligence is being supplied from outside the system.
One further point. The work of Ilya Prigogine on non-equilibrium thermodynamics has demonstrated that a thermodynamic system far from equilibrium (i.e. that has a sufficient flow of energy and/or material traversing it) will spontaneously make transitions from less organized to more organized states. What happens is that certain small fluctuations in the system are supported and grow, leading to more complex structures. In biological evolution these fluctuations are mutations in DNA, while in thermodynamic systems they are the undetectable fluctuations caused by the constant movement of the molecules that make up the system. Evolution in general works through selective amplification of fluctuations.
Now to come back to Rambam. We see that “eating and drinking,” i.e. the input of energy and organization to our system, are required to offset “what has been dissolved,” i.e. the effects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If we don’t eat and drink, the body does become a closed system and disintegrates. (This is not permission to not fast on Yom Kippur by the way – anyone in reasonable health can store up enough food and water to survive for 25 hours!) But of course we are talking about systems that are composed of parts, as it is the arrangement of the parts and their interaction that is orderly or not. Thus, all talk about eating, drinking, motion, wants and needs and dissolution, belongs only to the created world and not to Gd.
Gd is a Unity, not composed of parts. Being unique, Gd’s state is always zero entropy (this is actually mathematically precise: the entropy is ln( N) where N is the number of configurations that look the same at the surface level – and ln( 1) = 0). Zero entropy corresponds to maximum knowledge, maximum information, maximum intelligence and maximum order. The notions of orderliness and entropy only enter when we consider parts, and Gd has no parts. All of creation is nothing other than virtual fluctuations within Gd. It is only our limited perception that keeps us bound to the parts and worried about creeping disorder. If our awareness is tuned in to the source of perfect intelligence and infinite energy, then our actions do not increase disorder, and in fact increase it. The universe is in fact not a closed system. It is always open to Gd.
L’shanah Tovah to all!
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Nitzavim
In Parshat 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 we will incur 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 Gd, 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, 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! Baruch Hashem.