Parashat Beshallach 5785 – 02/08/2025
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 13:17-17:15
I want to conclude our discussion of the sources of knowledge about life, gross and subtle, with a bit of an excursion into a modern understanding of how halachah, Jewish law, develops. I was inspired to take this tack by an article in the periodical Torah to Go (December 2024), published by the OU. The article is Ten Reasons Why We Cannot Turn to AI for Psak – Understanding the Nature and Philosophy of the Halachic Process by Rabbi Netanel Wiederblank, who is on the faculty of the Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Theological Seminary, the Rabbinical school of Yeshiva University. See also here for an expanded version of his article.
As you can tell from the title, R. Wiederblank is not a big fan of AI, at least in its Large Language Model implementation. This kind of AI ingests a lot of text and analyzes sequences of words. When asked to produce a piece of text it simply strings together words into pieces of text (there is a clever algorithm for selecting what words and pieces of text to choose, based on the query), but that is about all. There is no more intelligence in it over and above what is built into the algorithm, supplemented of course by massive computing power. Put another way, it is a pattern-matching engine.
Now we have codes of Jewish law, from the Talmud through the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch and a vast literature of questions that were sent to various great Rabbis, right up to the present time, and their answers. One might assume that an AI computer should be able to search through this voluminous literature and come up with an answer to any halachic question. Indeed, in the practice of reaching a halachic conclusion, there is a good deal of pattern-matching that goes on. What other questions is my question similar to? Are there analogies in other areas of halachah that might be relevant? These are areas in which AI might help the posek (one who makes halachic decisions), but it cannot replace the posek entirely. R. Wiederblank explains why:
If psak resembles a solution to a math problem in which there is one correct answer, then it follows that if a computer is more likely to come up with the right answer, it should be followed. However, this approach fails to appreciate what psak is.
Psak is not a pre-existing thing. It is created by the posek. It is not the answer to the question; it is a human answer to the question given by a qualified posek… . It only becomes halacha once it is issued.
R. Wiederblank gives the famous Talmudic example of the “oven of Achnai.” This question had to do with the susceptibility to ritual impurity of an oven with a certain construction. R. Eliezer the Great took one side of the question (not susceptible), all the other Rabbis took the other side (susceptible). R. Eliezer created a series of miracles, capped by a Heavenly voice saying, “Why do you dispute with R. Eliezer? In all matters, Halacha is in accordance with him!” But R. Yehoshua stood up and said that the Torah was given to human beings to interpret and we don’t pay attention either to miracles or to Heavenly voices. The Torah says to follow the majority and the majority ruled against R. Eliezer. When one of the Rabbis, who was privileged to meet Elijah the Prophet (who never died according to Tanach) asked what Gd’s reaction was, he responded that Gd laughed with joy and said, “My sons have defeated Me!”
I might point out that this is very quantum-mechanical. The idea that there is no “objective truth” in halachah, but rather a more fluid type of truth that gets “fixed” when a posek rules on a question, is much like the idea that a particle doesn’t have a specific location (rather, it is a wave-function that exists simultaneously everywhere), but only is found localized when an observer measures its position. Apparently, there is no fixed, absolute halachic truth – rather halachic truth is multilayered and multivalent, at Gd’s level. It only becomes a fixed psak when a posek fixes it.
What this all means is that coming to a halachic decision is not a mechanical process. It is a process that relies strongly on the consciousness of the posek. As described by R. Wiederblank, the posek must navigate many different approaches used in the past to deal with his question, then folds in the specific situation of the person asking the question, the norms of the society, and most importantly, what is called da’at Torah , an intuitive knowledge of what basic values Torah wants to support. None of this is amenable to the kind of AI we have available today.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, an AI machine has no emotions. Emotions are feelings – related to the sense of touch. A computer doesn’t have any senses at all. It can’t feel, it can’t see – all it has is streams of bits. Perhaps at some point sensor technology will be advanced enough that this hurdle can be overcome, but as of now, it can’t. The Ukrainian military is working to produce AI drones that can identify a target and destroy it. We may say that it “sees” the target, but if that target is a human being, even an enemy, does the drone have any qualms killing a human being? The idea of a machine having qualms is on the surface ridiculous.
The reason it is ridiculous is that machines do not have consciousness. They have to be programmed to do anything. How they are programmed is of crucial importance. Isaac Asimov propounded three rules of robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Pretty minimal, yes? Yet AI as we have it now does not appear to have these protections programmed in. It is not that AI is inherently dangerous – it is only that we do not have the self-control and the wisdom to create it and use it properly. And more importantly, AI does not have the consciousness to implement these rules on its own.
The upshot of this is that creating Jewish Law is a uniquely human undertaking. It requires human consciousness. In particular, what it really requires is fully expanded consciousness, so that the posek can cognize the “absolute” Heavenly halachah and then project it down to the specific, earthly, concrete situation. This is the knowledge that is available in higher states of consciousness, where the mind is fully expanded and totally comprehensive. And, to come full circle, this is the level of knowledge that Rambam wants to cultivate through both intellectual and experiential means. The knowledge and technologies of consciousness that Maharishi has given us can help us grow towards this state of consciousness so we can spontaneously perform Gd’s Will in everything we do.
I’d like to close with a quote from the Upanishads:
Know That by knowing which all things are known.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Beshallach
Beshalach” means “and he sent, let go.” After the death of the Egyptian first born, including Pharaoh’s, Pharaoh finally sends Moses and the Children of Israel out of Egypt, Mitzraim, the Land of Restrictions. The whole community leaves, with all their possessions plus wealth they borrowed from their Egyptian neighbors and which they will never return.
Gd hardens Pharaoh’s heart again and he chases after Moses and the Children of Israel who are trapped between the army and the Sea of Reeds, the Red Sea.
Gd commands Moses to raise his staff and split the Red Sea so that our ancestors could pass through it on dry land.
This is an example of how Gd sometimes performs miracles through human hands, to allow us to participate in Gd’s Greatness.
We can look at the Red Sea as what it at first seemed to be: another obstacle that arose just after our ancestors felt they had become free from the slavery in Egypt. But the obstacle turned out to be a Blessing when Gd’s Power expressed through Moses allowed our ancestors to pass through while Pharaoh, the King of Enslavement, and his army drowned, thus freeing our ancestors not only from the land of slavery but from pursuit by the slave-master. In a deeper sense, the Red Sea symbolizes the finest level of the quality of limits, of restrictions: parting it and crossing it symbolizes passing beyond localization and into the Wholeness of the Transcendent – a step in the direction of getting to the Unity of the Promised Land, the Teshuvah, Complete Restoration of Awareness that All there is is Gd and our individualizes are roles Gd plays.
In our own lives, we may often find that we escape one difficult situation and after only a short time of relative peace find ourselves in another difficulty, one which may even seem worse.
We might quit a job in which we feel we are treated unfairly but then begin to run out of money without yet having a new job.
The same type of situation might happen with relationships, contracts, hobbies, travel plans, shopping trips.
The miracle that saves us happens when we are guided by our own wisdom, a Gift from Gd, to relax into our situation, not to become frightened but just to innocently become aware of the possibilities within us and outside us, and then to act on some good possibility and to cross over the obstacle into a new freedom. having gained confidence and lost fear.
Our religion helps us to trust that Gd is always present and Gd is always making possibilities available to us even when at first glance none seem available. With this trust, we let go our nervousness and deepen our ability to perceive opportunities, to act on them, and to cross whatever sea of obstacles seems to be presenting itself.
More important than the physical opportunities Gd gives us are the spiritual ones. In this Parshah, the physical opportunities include: water from a rock in the desert with Moses’ hand guided to strike it so it releases water; manna and quail in the desert; a Sabbath to rest from toil; and a leader (Joshua) to defeat our enemies: the Amaleks who attacked our ancestors.
Each of these symbolizes spiritual opportunities: “water from a rock” symbolizes how Gd guides us to experience the Water of Gd’s Presence in what may seem to be the hardness of our material existence: this is the Water that truly quenches our thirst.
“Manna and quail” appear regularly, sufficient for the day: this symbolizes the Reliability of Gd, sufficient for the moment, ever fresh and new.
“Sabbath to rest” symbolizes not only the experience of Gd’s Restfulness on the Sabbath Day but the experience of Rest in every physical object and every moment of time, especially the Rest within our own bodies, thoughts and feelings.
“A leader to defeat our enemies” symbolizes the Love within us that allows us to dissolve doubts, fears and every selfish motive and to raise them to the level of “Love the Ld thy Gd with all thy soul, all thy heart, all thy might” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself/Self.”
Our religion helps us to reveal this Love within our self and return to Full Awareness: Oneness beyond the duality of Gd and us.
Baruch HaShem