Parashat Mishpatim 5786 – 02/14/2026
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 21:1-24:18
Rambam next turns to what Aristotle called “separate intellects,” which earlier Rambam had associated with angels, and he comments that these sayings are compatible with Jewish thought. He therefore proposes to continue by explicating Aristotle’s statements and showing how they correspond to Rabbinic statements, chiefly drawn from the Midrashim.
That the sphere is endowed with a soul is clear upon reflection. However, he who hears this may deem this a matter that is difficult to grasp or may regard it as impossible because of his imagining that when we say, “endowed with a soul,” the soul referred to is like the soul of a man, or an ass and a bull. Now this is not the meaning of that dictum. This meaning is rather that the local motion of the sphere is a proof of there indubitably being in it a principle in virtue of which it is moved. And this principle is undoubtedly and incontestably a soul.
The Greek word for soul is ψυχή (psyche), meaning the inner life, breath, or essence of a person (AI search result by CoPilot). The Hebrew word is either רוח (ru’ach), נפשׁ (nefesh ) or נשׁמה (neshama ), all of which also have the sense of “breath.” The Latin word is “…anima, which refers to the life force, breath, or the immortal essence of a person. It is the most common term for “soul” in classical and later Latin texts, often emphasizing the spiritual or vital aspect of life.” (CoPilot again). So in all three languages, the soul is associated with breath and the spirit. This makes a lot of sense, since the most obvious indicator of death, when the soul disconnects from the body, is the cessation of breath. This is codified in Jewish law – a person is considered dead when he is no longer breathing. (The generally accepted view in the Orthodox community is that brain-stem death is equivalent to “no longer breathing” as unaided breathing is not possible when the brain stem is no longer functional. “Brain death,” where cognitive function, but not autonomic function, is no longer possible, is not equivalent. For more information about this topic and end-of-life issues generally, see www.ematai.org.)
In Jewish thought, the soul has 5 levels:
- Nefesh – basic life force and instincts
- Ruach – emotions and intellect
- Neshama – higher, spiritual consciousness
- Chaya – Divine life force and awareness
- Yechida – Connection with the Divine
The nefesh corresponds to what is sometimes called the animal soul , as it controls basic activities like moving around. We can see from our interaction with animals that they have a ruach as well, as they display likes and dislikes, and other emotions such as fear and pleasure. There are plenty of videos on YouTube showing animals solving problems (usually involved in getting food) that demonstrate that animals display some intellectual capabilities as well.
The Greeks identified three levels of soul: Vegetative / Appetite; Sensitive / Spirit; and Rational. As in the Jewish schema, motion is identified with the lower levels of the soul, and it appears that it is this level of soul to which Rambam is referring when he asserts that it is the motion of the sphere that indicates that it has a soul. In his words, the soul is “a principle in virtue of which it is moved.” In other words, the anima is what animates the system.
Incidentally, it doesn’t appear that the two subtlest levels of the soul in Kabbalistic thought, namely Chaya and Yechida, have corresponding Greek terms. I suspect Rambam will speak to this as we go on, and this may be just a function of my ignorance of the subtler points of Greek philosophy. It appears to me that Yechida, which means unity , can be identified with the transcendental level of human existence which we experience in TM and which becomes stabilized eventually with regular practice. Perhaps the Chaya is the level that is just barely sprouting from the universal, pure consciousness at the basis of our personality – in other words, the finest level of our individuality, right before the universal Pure Consciousness that is our ultimate reality. This is my tentative guess at this point, and we will see what unfolds from the Rambam’s exposition.
Rambam continues:
This may be explained as follows. It is absurd that the circular motion of the sphere should be similar to the rectilinear motion of the stone downwards or to the motion of the fire upwards, so that the principle of that motion would be a nature and not a soul. For what is moved in natural motion is only moved by the principle subsisting in it, when the object to be moved is not in its place, and it is moved in order that it may seek to come to its place. However, when the object in question reaches its place, it comes to rest. The sphere, on the other hand, is moved in its own place in a circular motion.
Rambam has come back to the distinction between “natural motion” of objects back to their “proper” places, after which they come to rest, and other kinds of motion which have to be continually maintained by some force or principle. Apparently this includes circular motion, which, as we have seen, was considered to be the most perfect motion. In other words, bodies characterized by the earth element fall to earth, because it is their nature to return to earth. Fire goes upward due to its nature. But the spheres revolve, not because it is their “natural” motion, but because there is a “soul,” or some sort of inner, perhaps conscious in some way, facility that drives that motion.
In the case of animals and humans, the soul has different aspects. It has feelings / emotions and it has intellect. The emotions are separate from the intellect, but guide that intellect based on its desires. As Maharishi puts it, the feelings provide the desire, and it’s then the job of the intellect to figure out how to fulfill that desire. In the Talmud, the same idea is expressed as, “the eyes see and the heart desires,” and it is then up to the intellect to fulfill the desire in an appropriate way (i.e. to avoid sin).
This idea of motion is quite different to the physical laws of motion, as described by Newton and Einstein. In physics there is no idea of things having a natural place and moving towards that place, where they come to rest. Rather, straight-line motion at a constant speed (of which “rest” is a special case of zero speed) is considered natural motion, and any deviation from this motion is caused by an outside force. Even gravity is described as the curvature of space-time, and the motion of objects is along geodesics of space-time – the analogy of straight-line constant speed motion.
The introduction of the idea of a soul, which guides the motion of objects, I believe adds a dimension of will or intentionality to the purely physical description of the universe. Physics tends to be reductionist, trying to explain all phenomena using only a few simple principles working on a small set of simple, elementary particles. The idea is that what we experience as consciousness is an “emergent property” of the activities of the elementary particles.
From the point of view of both Jewish thought and Vedic Science this reductionist approach lacks merit. According to Vedic Science, Pure Consciousness is the ultimate basis and “stuff” of creation. All the different layers of creation are subtler or grosser manifestations of Pure Consciousness, internal, virtual structures of consciousness as it were. This includes matter. Matter is a manifestation of consciousness; consciousness is not something that emerges from the dynamics of any material system. Likewise, in Jewish thought, Gd is the ultimate reality, and all of creation, including material creation. It is clearly absurd to imply that Gd is something that emerges from the material world, when Gd is the Creator of that world.
The difference between the reductionist approach and more traditional approaches can be summed up in the statement of Laplace’s:
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past could be present before its eyes.
In other words, the universe is purely mechanical. There is no room in such a world for the soul. Movement is determined by the laws of nature. There is no room for personal decision-making, nor preference, nor morality. The world and they that dwell therein are all automata. Now advances in physics, especially quantum mechanics have weakened this view, but have not entirely erased it. The more traditional approaches, as we have seen, put consciousness and Gd back into the picture, as the primary movers of creation. This, of course, leaves the way open to the idea that we can make individual choices, including moral choices – an idea which corresponds to our deepest experience.
Rambam will go on to consider this issue further in the next weeks.
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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