Parashat Ki Tisa 5786 – 03/07/2026
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.
Shemot 30:11-34:35
Rambam goes more deeply into the idea that the spheres are living, thinking beings:
As for the assertion that the spheres are living and rational, I mean to say endowed with apprehension, it is true and certain also from the point of view of the Law; they are not dead bodies similar to fire and earth – as is thought by the ignorant – but they are – as the philosophers say – living beings who obey their Lord and praise Him and extol Him greatly. Thus Scripture says: The heavens tell of the glory of Gd, and [the firmament speaketh of His handiwork]. How very remote from mental representation of the truth are those who think that this is language appropriate to the state of the speaker. For the term speaking and telling are applied together in Hebrew only to a being endowed with intellect. The manifest proof of the fact that Scripture describes their state according to their essence — I mean to say the state of the spheres – not the state according to which people consider them, is the dictum: There is no speech, there are no words; neither is their voice heard.
Having shown that the philosophical view of the spheres is that they are living entities, capable of rational thought and possessing intellects, Rambam goes on to show that this view is consistent with Scripture. He quotes Psalm 19, which I will quote at somewhat greater length. (Psalm 19 is the first of the 9 additional Psalms we say on Sabbath and holidays.)
The heavens declare the glory of Gd, the sky proclaims Gd’s handiwork,
Day to day makes utterance, night to night speaks out.
There is no utterance, there are no words, whose sound goes unheard.
Their voice carries throughout the earth, their words to the end of the world.
[Gd] placed in them a tent for the sun, who is like a groom coming forth from the chamber, like a hero, eager to run his course.
His rising-place is at one end of heaven, and his circuit reaches the other; nothing escapes his heat.
The main point that Rambam is making is that “speaking” and “telling” are indications of intellect and rationality. In fact, the standard Aramaic translation of the Torah renders “…blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being” as “and man became ruaḥ memallelah, a speaking spirit.” In other words, it is speech that distinguishes the lower animals, which do not speak, and humans (and presumably, therefore, higher beings), who do.
In fact, it could be argued that it is specifically speech that makes human beings Gd-like (“in the image of Gd”). Gd created through speech, as we read in Genesis, chapter 1 (“and Gd said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light,” etc.). We have examined in previous essays that, according to Vedic Science, creation is a pattern of vibration of Consciousness, which is the ultimate “stuff” out of which everything is made. These patterns of vibration are actually cognizable within our own Pure Consciousness as patterns of human speech. The most fundamental patterns, out of which all the more complex patterns are formed, are cognized as the sequence of sounds we call the Veda. The Veda is thus called the “blueprint of creation.”
There are very similar traditions about Torah. The Zohar calls Torah the “blueprint of creation,” and contemporary rabbis have compared Torah to a hologram – when the light of Gd shines through Torah the result is creation, just as when a laser light is passed through a hologram, a 3D image appears. But the Torah is also human speech, and as we have discussed, Moshe Rabbeinu apparently cognized the Torah – it was “Gd speaking to Himself, and Moshe heard on his own” (Rashi to Numbers 7:89). So creation is Gd’s speech made manifest.
What then does the Psalmist mean by the heavens “declaring the glory of Gd”? What kind of speaking can the heavens or day and night do? I’d like to suggest the following. Gd created the heavens and earth and everything in them by speech – that is by the internal, virtual vibrations within Gd’s nature. But this description posits a difference between the underlying layer of vibrations within Consciousness and the actual objects in creation. But from the point of view of Unity Consciousness this perspective is not correct. The objects that we think of as separate from ourselves are seen as simply patterns of vibration of Consciousness. In other words, Gd’s speech didn’t create anything outside of Gd. The heavens and the earth and all that is in them are Gd’s speech. When we say the heavens declare the glory of Gd, we’re really saying that Gd is declaring His own glory. The structure of creation is the speech of Gd, and the speech of Gd, if we can cognize it, is a revelation of Gd’s infinite power and glory.
Rambam goes on to give other examples of the material world “speaking” in praise of Gd. I’d like to close with the observation that in European thought in the Copernican era and beyond, the arrangement and movement of the planets are built on simple numerical ratios (this idea actually started in ancient Greece with the Pythagoreans). Now the harmonic intervals in music are also built on simple numerical ratios (and octave is 2:1, a fifth is 3:2, etc.). Based on this, people have made recording of the “sounds” made by the spheres and played on various instruments. Here is a long discussion of this concept and its development. Here is a shorter one with some actual musical examples. You can find more on YouTube.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Ki Tisa
“Ki Tisa” means “when you take.” The parshah begins with “The Lrd spoke to Moses saying, ‘When you take the sum of the Children of Israel according to their numbers, let each one give to the Lrd an atonement for his soul when they are counted so there will be no plague among them when they are counted.'”
This brings us several important points about our drawing on Torah as a help in our return to Oneness, Teshuvah.
The first is that taking a census is a way of revealing that a community is not just a mass of people: each one matters, each one is to be known.
The second is that taking is not just something that Moses was commanded to do so that he would know the community in detail but also something that showed to every member of the community that they mattered.
The third is that this principle of knowing the details of the community applies to knowing anything, anyone, including knowing Gd – and it applies not only to Moses but to everyone at all times.
Fourth is that, having shown they matter to Gd, they need to show that Gd matters to them: they need to make a donation as “an atonement for their soul,” a donation to dissolve any impurity that clouds their soul so they can experience “at-Onement,” Oneness with Gd. The donation in this parshah is a half-shekel and this is symbolic of our relation with Gd: we do our part and Gd does the rest. It is extremely kind of Gd to suggest to us that we are doing half and Gd is doing half. The reality, of course, is that we do our maximum and it is only a tiny drop of the Unbounded Doing that Gd does.
If impurities are not dissolved, then they will distort our perception of Gd’s Presence and the Eternal Blessing that is Gd will be experienced as a plague.
Fifth is that the half-shekel will go to provide oil.
In the previous parshah, we presented the view that the oil intended to provide fuel for the Eternal Flame is by our Sages considered symbolic of wisdom and that wisdom and eternity belong to Gd so the Eternal Flame is symbolic of Gd.
The oil people bring will be enhanced by the “art of the perfumer” with various spices and will be used in anointing the Tabernacle, the Ark, the priests and various parts of the Tabernacle. This anointing oil will be holy and everything anointed becomes holy as does everyone who touches the holy objects. “Holy” means “Whole,” Teshuvah, Full Restoration of the Awareness of One beyond the duality of Gd and individual.
One way to look at this is that the enhancing brings out qualities in the pure oil that were latent without the enhancement. This is like the census that revealed details within the community. My guess is that not only were these qualities perceivable in the anointing oil but they also began to be perceivable in un-enhanced oil and in Gd’s Presence not only in the Tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting but everywhere and in everyone. These qualities would be not only that of fragrance but of visibility, audibility, touch-ability. Gd would be experienced as Concrete and Detailed: The reality that Gd is All and Everyone, Everything, Everywhere would be perceivable in the Eternal Flame and the Eternal Flame would be perceivable everywhere in everything. Our ancestors would be gaining Omniscience, they would be making significant progress to complete Teshuvah, complete restoration of the Awareness that all is One, beyond the duality of Gd and persons, Gd and things.
The fact that enhancement of the oil and the enhancement of perception was needed is suggested by the fact that in this parshah we are also told that when Moses came down from listening to Gd at the top of Mt. Sinai, he found the people worshiping the Golden Calf, dancing around it. Despite hearing Gd’s voice, and seeing Gd in flame and smoke, our ancestors needed something concrete to trust in.
To make Gd Concrete in our lives, we need to offer not only abstract wisdom, symbolized by pure oil, but also something we ourselves create, not some way to worship Gd concretely, not like the Golden Calf created by Aaron from vessels brought by our ancestors but something to enhance our worship of Gd, to make it personal, like the enhancements of the pure oil with the spices and the art of the perfumer. “Loving our neighbors as ourself, Self” is a way to give love to Gd concretely because everyone and everything are roles Gd plays.
Living our daily life with such Love. Gd becomes more perceivable to us, and we do not need a Golden Calf to substitute for Gd: we perceive Gd by Direct Experience sufficiently to trust that Gd is Real, Almighty, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omni-Joyful. Omni-Compassionate, Omni-Loving and to realize that Gd disguises Gd as us and all, Gd plays the important roles all individual lives have in the Divine Story.
The cheerful respect and competence that our Congregation displays not only at services but on the street, at the gas stations, supermarkets suggests we are doing well in our lives to be pure, loving, generous, simple and making our relationship with Gd, concrete and personal. This makes me very happy.
Baruch HaShem