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Seven Laws of Noah
The Rainbow is the modern symbol of the Noahide Movement reminiscing the rainbow that appeared after the Great Flood of the Bible. The seven laws listed by the Talmud are[3]
The Noahide Laws were predated by six laws given to Adam in the Garden of Eden.[4] Later at the Revelation at Sinai the Seven Laws of Noah were regiven to humanity and embedded in the 613 Laws given to the Children of Israel along with the Ten Commandments, which are part of, and not separate from, the 613 mitzvot. These laws are mentioned in the Torah. According to Judaism, the 613 mitzvot or "commandments" given in the written Torah, as well as their reasonings in the oral Torah, were only issued to the Jews and are therefore only binding upon them, having inherited the obligation from their ancestors. At the same time, at Mount Sinai, the Children of Israel (i.e. the Children of Jacob, i.e. the Israelites) were given the obligation to teach other nations the embedded Noahide Laws. It is actually forbidden by the Talmud for non-Jews on whom the Noahide Laws are still binding, to elevate their observance to the Torah's mitzvot as the Jews do.[5] While some Jewish organizations, such as Chabad have worked to promote the acceptance of Noahide laws, there are no figures for how many actually do. Noahides exist predominantly in the United States, South America and Europe. BackgroundAccording to Judaism, as expressed in the Talmud, the Noahide Laws apply to all humanity through mankind's descent from one paternal ancestor who in Hebrew tradition is called Noah (the head of the only family to survive during The Flood). In Judaism, ??? ?? B'nei Noah (Hebrew, "Descendants of Noah", "Children of Noah") refers to all of mankind.[6] The Talmud also states: "Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 105a). Any non-Jew who lives according to these laws is regarded as one of "the righteous among the gentiles". Maimonides writes that this refers to those who have acquired knowledge of God and act in accordance with the Noahide laws out of obedience to Him. According to what scholars consider to be the most accurate texts of the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides continues on to say that anyone who upholds the Noahide laws only because they appear logical is not one of the "righteous among the nations," but rather he is one of the wise among them. The more prolific versions of the Mishneh Torah say of such a person: "..nor is he one of the wise among them."[7] According to the Biblical narrative, the Deluge covered the whole world killing every surface-dwelling creature except Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives, sea creatures, and the animals taken by Noah on Noah's Ark. After the flood, God sealed a covenant with Noah with the following admonitions ():
The Talmud states that the instruction to not eat "flesh with the life" was given to Noah, and that Adam and Eve had already received six other commandments. Adam and Eve were not enjoined from eating from a living animal since they were forbidden to eat any animal. The remaining six are exegetically derived from a seemingly superfluous sentence in .[8] One rabbinic opinion holds that not only are non-Jews not obligated to adhere to all the laws of the Torah, but they are actually forbidden to observe them.[9] Rabbinic Judaism and its modern-day descendants discourage proselytization. The Noahide Laws are regarded as the way through which non-Jews can have a direct and meaningful relationship with God or at least comply with the minimal requisites of civilization and of divine law. A non-Jew who keeps the Noahide Laws in all their details is said to attain the same spiritual and moral level as Israel's own Kohen Gadol (high priest).[10] Maimonides states in his work Mishneh Torah[11] that a non-Jew who is precise in the observance of these Seven Noahide commandments is considered to be a Righteous Gentile and has earned a place in the world to come. This follows a similar statement in the Talmud.[12] However, according to Maimonides, a gentile is considered righteous only if a person follows the Noahide laws specifically because he or she considers them to be of divine origin (through the Torah) and not if they are merely considered to be intellectually compelling or good rules for living.[13] Noahide law differs radically from the Roman law for gentiles (Jus Gentium), if only because the latter was an enforceable judicial policy. Rabbinic Judaism has never adjudicated any cases under Noahide law (per Novak, 1983:28ff.), although scholars disagree about whether the Noahide law is a functional part of Halakha ("Jewish law") (cf. Bleich). In recent years, the term "Noahide" has come to refer to non-Jews who strive to live in accord with the seven Noahide Laws; the terms "observant Noahide" or "Torah-centered Noahides" would be more precise but are infrequently used. The rainbow, referring to the Noahide or First Covenant (Genesis 9), is the symbol of many organized Noahide groups, following . A non-Jewish person of any ethnicity or religion is referred to as a bat ("daughter") or ben ("son") of Noah, but most organizations that call themselves ??? ?? (b'nei noach) are composed of gentiles who are keeping the Noahide Laws. Subdividing the Seven LawsVarious rabbinic sources have different positions on the way the seven laws are to be subdivided in categories. Maimonides[14] lists one additional Noahide commandment forbidding the coupling of different kinds of animals and the mixing of trees. Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz), a contemporary commentator on Maimonides, expressed surprise that he left out castration and sorcery which were listed in the Talmud[15]. The tenth century Rabbi Saadia Gaon added tithes and levirate marriage. The eleventh century Rav Nissim Gaon included "listening to God's Voice", "knowing God" and "serving God" besides going on to say that all religious acts which can be understood through human reasoning are obligatory upon Jew and Gentile alike. The fourteenth century Rabbi Nissim ben Reuben Gerondi added the commandment of charity. The sixteenth century work Asarah Maamarot by Rabbi Menahem Azariah of Fano (Rema mi-Fano) enumerates thirty commandments, listing the latter twenty-three as extensions of the original seven. Another commentator, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes (Kol Hidushei Maharitz Chayess I, end Ch. 10) suggests these are not related to the first seven, nor based on Scripture, but were passed down by oral tradition. The number thirty derives from the statement of the Talmudic sage Ulla in tractate Hullin 92a, though he lists only three other rules in addition to the original seven, consisting of the prohibitions against homosexuality and cannibalism, as well as the imperative to honor the Torah. Talmud commentator Rashi remarks on this that he does not know the other Commandments that are referred to. Though the authorities seem to take it for granted that Ulla's thirty commandments included the original seven, an additional thirty laws is also possible from the reading. The tenth century Shmuel ben Hophni Gaon lists thirty Noahide Commandments based on Ulla's Talmudic statement, though the text is problematic[16]. He includes the prohibitions against suicide and false oaths, as well as the imperatives related to prayer, sacrifices and honoring one's parents. Prohibition against idolatry
Prohibition against blasphemy
Prohibition against murder
Prohibition against theft
Prohibition against sexual immorality
Prohibition against eating the limb of a living animal
Establish courts of justice
The contemporary Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein counts 66 instructions but Rabbi Harvey Falk has suggested that much work remains to be done in order to properly identify all of the Noahide Commandments, their divisions and subdivisions. Theft, robbery and stealing covers the appropriate understanding of other persons, their property and their rights. The establishment of courts of justice promotes the value of the responsibility of a corporate society of people to enforce these laws and define these terms. The refusal to engage in unnecessary lust or cruelty demonstrates respect for the creation itself as renewed after the Flood. To not do murder would include human sacrifice. Maimonides, in his Mishnah Torah, interpreted the prohibition against homicide as including a prohibition against abortion.[17] Legal status of an observer of Noahide LawsFrom the perspective of traditional halakhah, if a non-Jew is to be accepted to live among the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, then that person must keep the Noahide Laws, and a number of additional Laws and regulations apply as well. Such as person is called a Ger Toshav "Sojourning Alien" amid the people of Israel. A "Ger Toshav" is the only kind of non-Jew who Jewish law permits to live among the Jewish people in the Land of Israel when the land is run according to Halacha and there is a Sanhedrin and a Temple. Jewish law only allows the official acceptance of a "Ger Toshav" as a sojourner in the Land of Israel during a time when the Year of Jubilee (yovel) is in effect. A Ger Toshav should not be confused with a Ger Tzedek. A Ger Tzedek is a person who prefers to proceed to total conversion to Judaism, a procedure that is traditionally discouraged by Judaism and allowed to take place only after much thought and deliberation over converting. Noahide laws as a basis for secular governanceSome Jewish thinkers regard the determination of the details of the Noahide Law as something to be left to Jewish rabbis. This, in addition to the teaching of the Jewish law that punishment for violating one of the seven Noahide Laws includes a theoretical death penalty (Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 57a), is a factor in modern opposition to the notion of a Noahide legal system. Jewish scholars respond by noting that Jews today no longer carry out the death penalty, even within the Jewish community. Jewish law, in contemporary practice, sees the death penalty as an indicator of the seriousness of an offense; violators are not actually put to death. Some Jewish thinkers believe that penalties are a detail of the Noahide Laws and that Noahides themselves must determine the details of their own laws for themselves. According to this school of thought - see N. Rakover, Law and the Noahides (1998); M. Dallen, The Rainbow Covenant (2003)- the Noahide Laws offer mankind a set of absolute values and a framework for righteousness and justice, while the detailed laws that are currently on the books of the world's states and nations are presumptively valid. Public endorsement of Noahide LawsUnited States CongressThe Seven Laws of Noah were recognized by the United States Congress in the preamble to the bill that established Education Day in honor of the 90th birthday of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement: Israeli DruzeIn January 2004, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafak Tarif, signed a declaration calling on all non-Jews in Israel to observe the Noahide Laws as laid down in the Hebrew Bible and expounded upon in Jewish tradition. The mayor of the Galilean city of Shefa-'Amr (Shfaram) - where Muslim, Christian and Druze communities live side by side - also signed the document. The declaration includes the commitment to make a better, more humane world based on the Seven Noachide Commandments and the values they represent commanded by the Creator to all mankind through Moses on Mount Sinai. Support for the spread of the Seven Noahide Commandments by the Druze leaders reflects the Biblical narrative itself. The Druze community reveres the non-Jewish father-in-law of Moses, Jethro, whom Arabs call Shoaib. According to the Biblical narrative, Jethro joined and assisted the Jewish people in the desert during the Exodus, accepted monotheism, but ultimately rejoined his own people. In fact, the tomb of Jethro in Tiberias is the most important religious site for the Druze community. http://www.arutzsheva.com/news.php3?id=56379 Christian observance of Noahide LawsThe 18th century rabbi, Jacob Emden proposed that Jesus, and Paul after him, intended to convert the gentiles to the Noahide laws while allowing the Jews to follow full Mosaic Law.[18] It is however controversial to directly compare Christian ethical obligations to the Noahide laws; for example one claim is that Christianity is a principle-based, rather than a law-based religion. These principles can be subject to personal interpretation, see also Cafeteria Christianity. Also, the actual understanding of Noahide Law in the first century is unclear, see also Cultural and historical background of Jesus, though an early form is already attested in the second century bce Book of Jubilees[19]. Christian ethics is rooted in Jesus' answer to the question, "Which of the commandments is most important". Jesus answered that ()[20]:
These are well known Old Testament (Jewish) teachings, known respectively as the Shema () and the Great Commandment (), see also Ministry of Jesus, The Law of Christ, and Mark 12. Over the last 2000 years Christian denominations have used a variety of ethical philosophies to convert these very general principles into a specific set of obligations. They include natural law theory, the divine command theory, moral relativism, and cultural relativism.[21] According to the Natural Law theory of ethics, there is an immutable set of moral rules which govern the universe, society, and the human person. These rules can be perceived by a rational analysis of human nature and society. A classic example of this approach can be seen in the ethics of the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas.[22] However, even Thomas Aquinas was forced to acknowledge that some moral norms are simply revealed law.[23] For these laws, Thomas Aquinas turned to the Bible.[24] According to the divine command theory of ethics, God's revealed will is the basis of all ethics. This theory does not of itself provide a set of rules. It needs a source for identifying God's commands. For Christians, this source is the Bible[25]. In the early Church there was considerable debate about which (if any, see Antinomianism) particular commands in the Bible applied to gentiles.[26] 
The Ten Commandments on a monument on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. The third non-indented commandment listed is "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy". They also accept the command to rule and subdue the earth[27] (). Two of the Noahide laws - the injunction to set up courts of justice and the prohibition against eating the limb of a live animal - are not explicitly mentioned in the ten commandments, but were considered a natural implication of the commandments to love God, love one's fellow human being, and take responsibility for creation. Christians prohibit cruelty to animals because God considers God's creation good and human kind is responsible for it[28] or because the Apostolic Decree () forbids things strangled and blood[29]. The Apostolic Decree also forbids idolatry and fornication. Christians also accept the obligation to set up courts of justice and maintain the social order as a natural consequence of the responsibility to love one's neighbor as oneself.[30]. The Christian Trinity and the prohibition against idolatryChristians consider themselves monotheists and as such non-idolators. However, rabbinical Jewish opinions have questioned whether Christians can be said to obey the prohibition against idolatry. Much of the debate centers on how rabbis have understood the Christian concept of Trinity. Some rabbis have understood the Trinity in terms of shittuf (trans. "participation, joining, sharing, forming a partnership"[31]). Shittuf is defined as any doctrine that recognizes one Supreme God, but ascribes power, albeit secondary, to a created being (the term refers to one who does not deny the monotheistic and exclusionary aspect of God, but "associates" something else with Him). Rabbinic sources clearly prohibit any form of shittuf for Jews, but it is a matter of dispute if it is prohibited for non-Jews. The Tosafist Rabbeinu Tam (Rashi's grandson), in Bekhorot 2b and Sanhedrin 63b, imply that trinitarianism could be permitted to gentiles as a form of shittuf. This view was echoed by Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet (Rivash, responsa 119) and apparently accepted by Rabbi Moses Isserles (Rema, Orah Hayyim 156:1.) Nevertheless, many rabbinic sources disagree and prohibit shittuf to gentiles as well. Most Christians reject a shittuf definition of the Trinity. They view the Trinity as a form of monotheism and hold that this type of partnership is in contradiction to monotheism. The only major group that clearly holds a concept of shittuf is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of the Jehovah's Witnesses, which translates John 1:1 so that Jesus is not God Himself, but a secondary being with divine attributes.[32] In Christian theological terms this type of view is often referred to as Arianism, though that term is often used (imprecisely) for all types of Non-trinitarianism. See also Alogi. Louis Berkhof describes the doctrine of the Trinity requiring belief in a "simplex unity" and not a partnership or composite being. "There is in the Divine Being but one indivisible essence" and "The whole undivided essence of God belongs equally to each of the three persons."[33] Joseph Telushkin formulates an understanding of Christianity without the concept of shittuf: "the majority of Jewish scholars concluded that although Christianity speaks of a trinity, it does not conceive of the three forces as separate with different and conflicting wills. Rather, the Trinity represents three aspects of one God. While Jews are forbidden to hold such a belief, it is not avodah zarah."[34] See alsoReferencesFurther reading
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ar:????? ??? ????? da:Noatiske bud de:Noachidische Gebote es:Siete preceptos de las naciones fr:Lois noahides ko:?? 7? he:??? ????? ??? ?? lt:Septyni Nojaus ?sakymai nl:Noachitische geboden pl:Siedem Praw Noego pt:Leis de Noé ru:???? ??????? ???????? ??? sv:Noakidiska lagarna tr:Nuh?un Evrensel Yasalar? yi:?? ???? ????? ??? ?? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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