Parashat Shoftim 5785 – 08/30/2025
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.
Devarim 16:18-21:9
Rambam now considers at some length the 10th premise of the Kalām:
It consists in the affirmation of admissibility that they mention. This is the main proposition of the science of Kalām. Listen to its meaning. They are of the opinion that everything that may be imagined is an admissible notion for the intellect. For instance, it is admissible from the point of view of intellect that it should come about that the sphere of the earth should turn into a heaven endowed with circular motion and that the heaven should turn into the sphere of the earth. Or to take another example, it is admissible that the sphere of fire should move toward the center of the earth and that the sphere of the earth should move toward the encompassing heaven. For as they say, according to intellectual admissibility, one place is not more appropriate for one particular body than another place. They also say with regard to all things that are existent and perceptible that supposing anything among them should be bigger than it is or smaller or different from what it is in shape or place – should a human individual, for instance, have the size of a big mountain having many summits overtopping the air, or should there exist an elephant having the size of a flea, or a flea having the size of an elephant – all such differences would be admissible from the point of view of the intellect.
We seem to have moved from the realm of substance and accidents (although later in the passage we shall return to it) and into the realm of the conceptual. Rambam doesn’t speak here directly to the motivation behind this principle, but it seems consistent with the desire of the Mutakallimūn to preserve Gd’s Omnipotence. Certainly, if we can conceive something, Gd should be able to create it.
This leads us back to a problem that we have considered before – the problem of logical inconsistencies. For example, we can intellectually conceive of the confrontation between an immovable object and an irresistible force, but that doesn’t make such a situation actually feasible, as we discussed a number of weeks ago. Rambam gives a couple of examples that are less extreme, yet equally impossible, no matter how we might picture them, as they violate laws of physics. For example, consider the flea blown up to the size of an elephant. Now the mass of an object scales with the cube of the size, but the strength of a limb, say the legs, only scales with the cross-section of the limb – which means the square of the size. That is why an elephant’s leg is so large relative to its bulk, as compared to a human being or a flea. If its thickness were proportional, it would not be able to bear the weight of its body. If we took the flea and simply scaled it up to elephant size, its legs would not be able to bear its weight. Also, where would it find a dog big enough to infest?!?!
On a more cosmic level, there are a few basic physical constants that govern the entire universe. Among them are the unit of charge, Planck’s constant, the gravitational constant, etc. It turns out that the course of physical evolution, both of the cosmos and of the terrestrial ecosystem and its denizens, is critically dependent on the value of these parameters. For example, if the gravitational constant were too small, stars and galaxies could not form; if it were too large, stellar evolution would proceed too quickly and the heavier elements would not form. If the charge on the electron were much different, chemistry would be impossible. What this means is that, although we can intellectually conceive of a universe with different parameters, when we work out the numbers we find that these parameters are inconsistent with human life, for example. So a universe with human beings and different parameters is as logically inconsistent as the immovable object and irresistible force.
This dependence of human life on the physical parameters in the universe is called the “anthropic principle.” There are a couple of ways to look at the anthropic principle. Since human beings only have one data point – the universe we live in, we can’t distinguish why the universe is the way it is. One possibility is that there are many parallel universes, and human beings only arise in those universes where the parameters are aligned to allow it. This is called the “weak anthropic principle.” The other possibility is that the existence of human beings is so integral to the purpose of creation, that only those parameters that allow the evolution of humans are possible. This is called the “strong anthropic principle.”
Since science deals with questions of “how,” and not with questions of “why,” it would seem that trying to prove the strong anthropic principle might be out reach. Religions are under no such restrictions, and in fact Jewish thought posits that the purpose of creation is to have creatures who recognize Gd. It is kind of a self-Referral thing – Gd creates a universe through which He can know Himself. This would be in addition to Gd’s intrinsic Self-knowledge. In any event, in order for such a universe to exist, it is argued that the physical parameters must be in a narrow range of values – the strong anthropic principle.
Einstein had another approach, which predates the anthropic principle. He conjectured that the values of all the physical parameters must be derivable from the properties of the counting numbers. Despite considerable effort, he didn’t seem to make much progress in actually demonstrating how this might work. Nevertheless, the idea is tantalizing. Numbers, and indeed all mathematical systems, are creations of human consciousness, and yet they seem to work uncannily well in describing physical phenomena. That being the case, why would it be surprising if we found that the essentials of the physical universe were actually structured in our consciousness?
And this is precisely what Vedic Science asserts – that consciousness is the basic “stuff” of creation, as well as the laws of nature by which it manifests creation as an expression of itself. The basic level of Self-knowledge is on the level of Pure Consciousness itself, but a higher level of Self-referral takes place when Pure Consciousness appears to manifest, and through some of those manifestations (the human being in Unity Consciousness) it also knows itself as the source, course and goal of all of life. When our consciousness is on that level, not only is anything imaginable theoretically acceptable, but we can actually manifest anything imaginable. And Maharishi emphasized: Everything means every thing.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Shoftim
Parshat Shoftim has the theme of “Justice” and illustrates through this the discussion of appointment and behavior of judges and kings, the need for witnesses to prevent violations of Torah law and witnesses to attest that a crime has been committed.
In discussing Gd’s Judgment given on Rosh HaShana, Rebbetzin Tiporah Gottlieb said something very lovely, in a recent jewishworkshop.com webinar: “Gd Judges us to see what we need” – judgment is not a matter of punishment or reward: it is a matter of determining (so to speak – Gd always knows, no need to make a special point of determining on a particular occasion) on Rosh HaShanah, the Head of the Year, what we need. Gd gives us Justice, what we need.
“Justice” means that which will bring us to Full Attunement with Gd: only in perfect attunement can we act completely justly – but good intentions and good actions from innocent hearts can move us in the right direction.
“Shoftim” means “judges” and this parshah speaks about judges, kings and prophets, people who might be sufficiently attuned to Gd that they can serve as intermediaries between us and Gd to know what we need and to guide us to act more and more justly until our hearts are completely pure, our souls are just and we are “Holy, as Gd is Holy”.
In this parshah, Moses tells us that in Hebron, Mt Sinai (Exodus says “Sinai”, Deuteronomy says “Horeb”) our ancestors heard Gd’s voice and bid Moses to go on the mountain and speak with Gd, lest they die. Gd tells Moses they have said well: an intermediary is needed.
And Moses speaks of judges, kings and prophets who will be appointed and will arise: intermediaries who will guide us when we are still not pure enough to be completely at ease in Gd’s Presence, to “love Gd with all our heart, all our soul and might” which includes perceiving Gd everywhere and so “loving our neighbor as ourselves” – which requires us to know our self as Self, One, and to Love our neighbors as expressions of our Self, within our Self.
Fortunately, there can be a situation and come a time when we do not need intermediaries, when we know Gd directly:
In Jeremiah 31:33-34, Gd says we will all know Him: no intermediary is necessary.
“And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying `Know G d,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31:33)! (translation from “Modern Times”, by Jacob Immanuel Shochet, posted on chabad.org ).
Joy is rising in our world, though the headlines may not seem to show it. Soon we will be pure enough, our world will be pure enough, open enough to Gd, to Love, so that the fear of Gd’s voice which existed at Sinai/Hebron will no longer rise.
“Justice” seems a bit of an austere word: Think of it as “Love”, as in “Love Gd above all else” and “Love Thy neighbor as thy self [Self]” and it feels better. Where there is Love, there is no blemish, no violation – there is Perfect Attunement, Justice.
“Shoftim” means “judges” and the commandment to establish judges indicates that people are not able to act completely in harmony with Gd’s Will, so there will be disagreements. The appointment of judges also suggests that there are some people, the judges, who are able to act at least to a good degree in accord with Gd’s Will – promising help to those a bit out of tune to get into tune and participate in a harmonious society.
Judges will be appointed in every generation and they will administer justice without bias and they will teach Torah law and people must follow, not deviating. Teaching Torah law means not just teaching the 10 utterances, the 613 commandments, for people to memorize and follow: it means teaching harmony with Torah, which is harmony with Gd, teshuvah, return to Oneness. It means teaching people to realize they are impulses of Gd, characters in a story Gd, One, tells within Himself/Herself/The Self.
At this time, we don’t seem to have judges at the level Gd intends. But, fortunately, we are growing in the ability to spontaneously Love and to create the world so pure that judges will be prophets, as will we all; rabbinical courts will be temples for Torah recitation, singing, dancing in the Joy of Oneness – no disagreements to resolve, no needs to diagnose and prescribe paths to satisfaction.
Shoftim repeats the law against idolatry and adds a law against sorcery: both involve putting trust in a partial value not in the Wholeness that is Gd. Our synagogue community is growing in Wholeness, as we can see in the Joy shining in us so that we are guiding our life more and more within Wholeness, in Fulfillment, so there is less chance we will get drawn into fragments of Life.
Shoftim talks about kings: they are like judges in their power and Gd commands them to be humble, not to think themselves better than others, and each king is commanded to write a copy of the Torah Scroll for himself, to keep it with him [or her!] always. Greatness comes from humility, because humility is the awareness that the individual is only great through connection to Wholeness, Gd, the Self. What is commanded for a king can certainly be useful for anyone. Learning to create our own Torah scroll in the way that the trained soferim, Torah scribes, do would be a wonderful experience in attuning ourselves to Torah on the level of meaning, language, words, but also on the level of letters, the level of the way body, mind, feeling, ink, pen and parchment interact to produce letters, words, spaces, words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, all of Torah in written form. This delightful action can help reveal to us the Torah that is not words on paper but the Liveliness of Gd, One with Gd.
To become a Torah scribe requires considerable training and Torah scrolls created by them are quite expensive so for most of us, we will probably have to substitute reading the Torah, reciting Torah, and keeping a printed copy of Torah by our bedside or some other place that is convenient. But, now and again, we can copy the words by hand, the best we can and rise through this Joy.
Torah is on the Internet in many places and so anytime we are near a computer, we can take a few minutes now and again to dip into Torah and return to our other activity with some fine refreshment. In a deeper sense, “writing our own Torah” means experiencing Torah as fundamental vibrations of Consciousness, of Gd – experiencing this within our own consciousness. Writing and reading Torah in our everyday world can help this experience to grow. To make a real Torah scroll would take long training but we can write with regular pens and regular paper, a paragraph, a page a day, whatever we have time for. Even one word or one letter has Gd’s Wholeness within it,
Shoftim describes the creating of cities of refuge: Here we see justice in another form – places where someone who accidentally killed someone will be safe from retribution. Better to rise in purity so that our world rises with us and there are no accidents, much less accidental killings, and no need for cities of refuge.
Symbolically, “cities of refuge” are places within our own awareness where stressful thoughts, memories, anticipations do not arise – A Transcendental realm within our awareness.
Unblemished offerings:
These symbolize the purity that justice is – unblemished. Since the real offering is not the physical offering, or even the prayers that we offer today as a substitute for the physical offerings: the real offering is our self. So we offer ourselves to Gd as the Mi Shebeirach prayer says: “Give us the courage to make our lives a blessing.”
Witnesses:
As an example of standards of evidence, two adults witnessing someone about to break Torah law were required to warn him. In a world, where all live in Canaan, the Promised Land, fully realized Synchronicity/Integration, this might not even be necessary for small children. But even when it is, in a world where everyone experiences “The World is My Family” anyone seeing any child in danger of breaking a law would certainly unhesitatingly, lovingly warn the child. Symbolically, two adults mean both our waking state self and our Transcendental Self. A child is a thought rising that wants to blossom into action.
Rules of war:
Peace terms are to be offered before attacking a city. In a world where everyone is in harmony with Gd, with One, wars will not arise. Similarly, wars will not arise within our mind regarding different choices, interpretations.
No Wanton Destruction:
For example, no cutting down a fruit tree that is bearing fruit in order to use its wood to build a house. A harmonious world shows us exactly the appropriate materials and tools at exactly the right time. A harmonious mind bears fruit for action and the action leads to not merely a wooden house, but to The Home of Fulfillment.
Action:
When a dead body is found without witnesses to the murder: the whole community is held responsible; it is the community’s lack of attunement to Torah, to Gd, that led to the crime. With each of us becoming more and more attuned, the community becomes attuned, murder does not occur. Similarly, no useless thoughts, dead thoughts, arise in our mind: we think from the Source of Thought and every thought that arises is Live.
These specific examples of justice depend on our attunement to Wholeness, to Oneness, and this depends greatly on the justice, the purity, of our daily routine. When our daily routine is healthy, we see things as they are, act appropriately in a spontaneous way.
Shoftim is an aspect of Torah that gives specific examples of the qualities of judges and specific examples of ways to ensure that justice is done. Through our reading, reciting, hearing, writing this passage we can move to the Universal Justice that is Love, Joy, Harmony, Oneness, Wholeness, Gd, Self.
How nice!
Baruch HaShem