Parashat HaAzinu 5786 – 09/19/2026
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. The text we are working from is the two-volume translation by Prof. Shlomo Pines, University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Devarim 32:1-52
Rambam continues his discussion of the eternity of creation. Now there are some schools of philosophy, specifically the Kalām, that agree with the Jewish position that creation took place at a particular moment in time. However, Rambam argues that their proofs are erroneous, and it is hard to buttress a position with weak arguments that can be taken apart. We may remember that the Kalām held that the entire creation was recreated at every moment, with the sequence of creations giving us the impression of an orderly evolution of the cosmos. Also remember that Bertrand Russell once pointed out that we have no way of proving empirically that Gd did not create the universe 5 minutes ago, looking exactly the way it would have had it been created 13 billion years ago and evolved into the exact configuration we find today, complete with all our memories.
So Rambam lays out his program for the next few chapters. He proposes to show that the question of the eternity of creation vs creation in time is not solvable by purely logical means, and then brings in prophetic knowledge to fill the gap. Rambam starts by examining the process of creation of one thing from another:
In the case of everything produced in time, which is generated after not having existed – even in those cases in which the matter of the thing was already existent and in the course of the production of the thing had merely put off one and put on another form – the nature of that particular thing after it has been produced in time, has attained its final state, and achieved stability, is different from its nature when it is being generated and is beginning to pass from potentiality to actuality. It is also different from the nature the thing had before it had moved so as to pass from potentiality to actuality. For example, the nature of the feminine seed, which is the blood in the blood vessels, is different from the nature of this seed as it exists in the state of pregnancy after it has encountered the masculine sperm and has begun to move toward the transition from potentiality to actuality. And even at the latter period, its nature is different from the mature of an animal that, after having been born, achieves perfection. No inference can be drawn in any respect from the nature of a thing after it has been generated, has attained its final state, and has achieved stability in its most perfect state, to the state of that thing while it moved toward being generated. Nor can an inference be drawn from the state of the thing when it moves toward being generated to its state before it begins to move thus.
This passage brings out a number of interesting points about information, entropy and time. Rambam states that “the nature of that particular thing after it has been produced in time, has attained its final state, and achieved stability, is different from it nature when it is being generated and is beginning to pass from potentiality to actuality.” Now it is certainly the case that the fully-developed thing and the prior states, but there also has to be a connection between the two. To use Rambam’s analogy of an embryo, but updating it to modern biological understanding, the embryo has some DNA, and that DNA guides the development of the embryo.
Now the DNA doesn’t determine exactly how the embryo develops; environmental factors also play a role. I have identical twin daughters who have grown into very different individuals in some areas. That means that whatever information is contained in the DNA, it is not sufficient to predict entirely the outcome of the development process. While Rambam may be exaggerating some when he says no inference can be made from the starting to the ending state, it is certainly true that knowing the initial state does not allow us to predict the final state. By the same token, knowing the final state does not allow us to calculate what the initial state was.
One point we can make is this. Rambam is describing something like the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which say that in a closed system, entropy increases with time, or, stated another way, information and structure are lost with time. In his example, this seems to work both ways, although in practice time only has one direction. Of course Rambam’s example was of the growth of an organism, and an organism is very far from being a closed system, so the Second Law doesn’t really apply.
A better way of looking at open systems is a framework first developed by Belgian-Jewish physical chemist Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003, Nobel Prize 1977). Prigogine showed that in an open system with sufficient flow of energy and/or material, the system will make spontaneous transitions to more highly structured states. We have discussed this in the past; what I want to focus on now is the mechanism by which these transitions take place. The flow of energy and material creates what is called a “meta-stable” state in the system. This means that the state is not changing very much, but is as if teetering on a precipice, with the slightest push sending the system over the edge. Now in any thermodynamic system there are always random fluctuations, and if a system is in a metastable state, any one of these fluctuations can be the trigger that causes a transition. Which transition may depend on which fluctuation triggers it. This means that the evolution of systems has a random element – and it is this random element that prevents us from deriving the initial state from the final state or vice versa.
In truth, it appears that Rambam is talking about transitions from one state to another. But the reality is that everything is in constant flux. There are no stopping points, even at the gross level, and certainly not at the quantum level. Change is the only thing that is permanent when we’re talking about creation. Whether this affects Rambam’s subsequent arguments we’ll discover in the coming weeks, Gd willing.
An easy and meaningful fast!
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Ha’azinu
What is the connection between Rosh HaShanah and Parshat Ha’Azinu. One connection is that Rosh HaShanah begins a period of restoring the connection between our individual selves and Gd, The One, The Wholeness – “Ha’azinu” means “Listen”: not just “hear” but “listen, listen with full attention.” Listening with full attention lets us hear not only the words of Moses and Torah but to experience Gd as the Wholeness within Whom the words are vibrations,
As Moses speaks to our ancestors (and to us), Moses calls upon Heaven and Earth to listen. Not only Heaven and Earth outside us, but within us.
He praises Gd and rebukes Israel from turning away from Gd. Moses concludes by telling our ancestors (and all generations) to set our heart to his words so that we may command our children to obey Torah. Better than this is to live so Torah is alive in us and our words and lives will be so alive we need not command our children to obey Torah – they will Live in our Universal Love, in Torah and will naturally be and act in harmony with Torah.
The central message in Moses’s song is that there is no god besides Gd.
Gd Says, “See now that it is I! (who Am your Rock and Your Shelter). I Am the One and there is no god like Me.” Deuteronomy 32:39, chabad.org translation.
As we realize this, we realize the implications of Gd Being One: not only is there no god besides Gd, there is nothing but Gd and all that exists is an expression of Gd, within Gd. Everything is Gd from the Universe, to galaxies, stars, planets, mountains, trees, people, ants, stones and quantum bubbles; all actions, thoughts, feelings, decisions, memories and plans.
And so, when Gd praises or rebukes, Gd is Praising or Rebuking Gd; Gd is playing a game in which Gd is the Director, Screenwriter, Actors, Camera Crew, Audience and Reviewers. Gd is the virtuous and the villains.
Gd is all thoughts and all decisions, all actions and all roles.
When we read in Torah that our ancestors turned away from Gd, it is clear that Gd was the One who Is the Thought that made them turn and they were roles Gd played so it was Gd turning away from Gd
It is good to remember this so that we are not hard on those who stray, whether it was our ancestors or our neighbors or ourselves. When we make a decision to turn toward or away from Wholeness, it is Gd who is making the decision and it is Gd playing the roles of all who turn.
But, that said, we can’t spend our lives constantly thinking “Gd is All, Gd is my thought, I have nothing to do with anything…” and so on.
We have to act naturally, spontaneously, just being the people we are, with the personalities and skills we have, yet always favoring what we know to be right, letting our heart always filling with love for Gd and all beings..
Torah is Divine Sounds and Glowing Streams in our consciousness: Torah is meaning, literal and symbolic ; Torah in the vast range of commentaries on it; Torah in our feelings, thoughts and conversations. Acting with virtue, with Love, helps us to sense Torah, to sense Gd, to develop a firm sense of right and wrong, to act with wisdom, and to better and return to our Source – Gd.
Gd Hides, playing the roles of every limited value: humans, galaxies, ants, stones, quantum strings; Gd Guides the seeking to return for all roles and Reveals Gd to the roles as Gd Chooses.
So not only at the time of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur but every moment always, let us do the greatest kindness, the greatest love, to ourselves and our neighbors and attune ourselves to Torah, to Gd: naturally, spontaneously comfortably, easily but steadily, consistently, routinely, uniting more and more with Universal Love and Joy, the One and Only “I”: Gd.
Baruch HaShem