What are the Noahide laws? Why are they important? How are they different from Judaism? These are just a few of the questions people have once they hear about the Seven Laws of Noah. I have already mentioned these laws briefly in these pages. This essay and at least one more will delve into this subject.
One fundamental of Judaism is that the Torah of Moses is universally true: that is, it does not only apply to the Jewish people. At the same time, it does not insist that all people must adhere to the 613 laws in the Torah, nor does it insist that only Jews will go to Heaven. Rather, God gave the Torah to the Jewish people and, along with it, a particular task: to be His holy people, responsible for bringing holiness into the world through the performance of the laws and, through example, teaching others. However, the basic laws are for all people. They were given to humanity so that people could create societies that would be satisfying, peaceful places to live.
Only seven major laws are the responsibility of everyone, Jews and non-Jews, according to the Talmud.[i] These are:[ii]
Recognize that there is only one God in the universe, a God who both cares about us and wants us to take care of the world He created.
Do not curse God, even if you are furious at Him.
Do not murder. Every life is precious; life is given by God so the wanton taking of life is stealing from God. Note that “murder” is not the same as “kill.” Killing someone whose mission is killing others, killing to protect the lives that God gave, may be necessary. Implicit in this is that innocent lives may be collateral damage, that is, killed accidentally as part of killing those whose mission is to kill others. Here are two explanations, one based on a spiritual and one on a linguistic/academic approach.
Do not eat any part of a still-living creature. God gives life. We have the obligation to not cause unnecessary harm to other creatures.
Do not steal. You will receive many benefits in this world; be sure you do not acquire any at the unfair expense of someone else.
Do not abuse sexuality. Incest, rape, adultery, and homosexual relations are forbidden. The sexual act creates life and therefore is holy; do not use it in unholy ways, such as force, coercion, or ways that hurt a third party. And God created male and female as two parts of a whole, so acting on urges that deny this reality is forbidden.
Set up courts of law that will be fair and just to everyone. Without justice, there cannot be harmony within society. God wants people to have good lives, which means to live in harmony with others, and for this there must be a system that prevents people from exploiting others.
Many other laws and recommendations found in the Torah grow out of these seven laws, such as doing acts of kindness, giving charity, honoring parents, prayer, and expressing gratitude for the good things in our lives.
Background
If you are familiar with the Ten Commandments, you will recognize that the Noahide laws are included. Keeping the Sabbath and honoring parents are not part of the Noahide laws, and the prohibitions against stealing, lying about the behavior of others, and coveting (a trait that can lead to antisocial behavior) are combined under the law about courts and justice. And the first commandment—I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt—only applies to the Jewish people. That same God created everyone and is to be acknowledged, but only brought the Jewish people out of slavery.
Judaism does not consider it necessary or even ideal for everyone to be Jewish or to acknowledge God in the way that is set aside in the Torah for Jewish people. It does teach that everyone should live in ways that enhance society and avoid hurting—whether that hurt is people, animals, or the environment.[iii],[iv]
What about Heaven and Hell?
The Talmud says that righteous non-Jews have a share in the World To Come. Jewish belief does not include Heaven-and-Hell. We are taught that after death, almost all souls go through a period of purification.[v] This period lasts no more than 12 months, after which the soul goes to the World To Come. I saw an analogy of this process: picture the World To Come as a large theater. Depending on what you pay for a theater ticket, you are closer or farther from the stage. In the same way, where in the World To Come one ends up depends on one’s actions in this world. Someone following the Noahide laws and avoiding theft, sexual immorality, dishonoring parents, etc. and doing acts of kindness and charity would have a “better seat” than someone whose soul was also purified, but who did more of those forbidden activities. (We are all human, we all do wrong things from time to time. That’s why we have repentence and forgiveness.)
Who does not have this period of purification? The souls of purely evil people are not purified. Our understanding is that upon death their souls are zapped into nothingness; they have no future after life. There is also the question of the souls of those killed because they are Jewish, such as the victims of October 7; some say they do not need purification. This topic is interesting but not relevant here.[vi]
Doesn’t being the Chosen People mean Jews think they’re better than others?
Outside of the requirement that people follow God’s basic laws, Judaism is about the Jewish people. At first it discusses the dawn of civilization, which means all peoples. After the Torah is given—when the Israelites became obligated to God’s laws at Mt. Sinai—it only mentions other nations when they interact with the Jewish people.
There is a lot of resentment and jealousy of our “chosen-ness,” a concept that has been misunderstood by non-Jews. Judaism emphatically does not teach that God decided the Jews were the best and therefore gave us the Torah. We learn that God offered the Torah to all of the 70 nations of the world before He came to us. Each time, the people asked what was in the Law. When they heard, they turned down the offer because they did not want to be burdened by the requirements. For example, the Torah says Do Not Steal; but in some cultures, stealing is considered a viable way of survival. Once, listening to an ethnic song festival on the radio, I heard lyrics that said when times were hard, there was no option but to steal.[vii] People for whom this is not only true, but so commonly accepted that songs are written about it, would not be interested in making a no-stealing covenant.
When the Jewish people were asked if we would accept the Torah, we said, “We will do and we will hear.” We are the descendants of Abraham. His teachings about God and morality were taught, father to child, before the giving of the Torah. We already knew God and trusted that He was concerned for our well-being, so we accepted the laws before we had heard the details.
I suspect, but this is an idea from my own mind for which I have absolutely no evidence, that originally God gave different gifts to different peoples. While I suspect these gifts have carried down to this day, their origins from God have been forgotten. These gifts account, in my opinion, to many of the differences we find in the world. If you are a world traveler, think about how you shop for products and choose activities in different countries: you look for what makes that country famous. But keep in mind that not all differences can be attributed to God. People are ingenious and can be manipulative, so cultural differences that go against God’s laws have grown over the millennia. These have proliferated in the West in the last 50 years since knowledge of and respect for the Judeo-Christian religions have diminished.
How I became aware of the Noahide laws
To encourage Jewish practice and learning, back in the 1990s I volunteered through my synagogue to spend an hour or two every few months handing out information about the Jewish Sabbath and the laws of kindling lights for the Sabbath. The supermarket that had a large kosher section let us set up a card table inside the store on Fridays where we could talk to people and pass out information and little candle-lighting kits. I was surprised how many non-Jewish people stopped to talk to us. We had a hand-out of the Noahide laws and I think we passed out more of those handouts than candle kits.
What I learned through these conversations was that many people today are seeking guidelines for life different from those promulgated by the dominant US culture. They may or may not consider themselves spiritual seekers. Many grew up without religion at all. Others were force-fed a coercive form of religion, usually one in which God was portrayed as vindictive and cruel. Some joined cults, later escaped from them, and have a deep-seated fear of organized religion. Then there are Unitarian-Universalists who have come to reject that church’s strong, left-leaning politics;[viii] Christians who accept the moral laws of Christianity but reject the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus; Moslems who reject the violence of some Islamic groups; and others who have come to believe in the concept of one universal god but are unwilling to join a formal religion.
Is the Noahide Movement New?
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Lubavitcher rebbe (1902-1994), is credited with bringing the Noahide laws out of theory and educating non-Jews about them. He believed that as Jews, the most important thing we could do was to live in ways that would bring the Messiah sooner. To accomplish this, he began reaching out to Jews who were far from the tradition. First he sent young rabbis out to build Jewish day schools in communities that did not have them. Then he began other activities to bring traditional Judaism to these people. He sent young rabbis and their wives to remote communities where they attracted widely dispersed Jews who until then had lived without meaningful Jewish content in their lives. Today there are vibrant Jewish communities in many small cities as well as centers of traditional Judaism near dozens of universities. Thousands of men and women have found deep meaning through the prayer, education, and community provided in these Chabad Houses.
But many Jewish thinkers through the ages have said that the Messiah will only come when Jew and non-Jew alike do God’s will. So Rabbi Shneerson began another outreach campaign. The Noahide handout that I used was part of this program. This campaign was still young when he passed away in 1994, but in the ensuing thirty years it has blossomed.
What Does Being a Noahide Mean
In my next Adult column I will be explaining the Noahide movement as it exists today: what it consists of and the lives of Noahides as they take on these seven commandments.
[i] Talmud, Sanhedrin 58b
[ii] The 7 Noahide Laws: Universal Morality. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/62221/jewish/The-7-Noahide-Laws-Universal-Morality.htm, accessed May 23, 2024
[iii] For some information about Judaism and nature, see my “Environmentalism and Jewish Law,” Jan. 23, 2024, https://www.tantehannawrites.com/p/environmentalism-and-jewish-law?utm_source=publication-search.
[iv] A longer article on this subject is Tzvi Freeman’s Seven Laws for a Beautiful Planet, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4157474/jewish/Seven-Laws-for-a-Beautiful-Planet.htm#4 , accessed May 26, 2024.
[v] For more information see “The Afterlife,” https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4157474/jewish/Seven-Laws-for-a-Beautiful-Planet.htm#4 , accessed May 26, 2024.
[vi] The essay “Martyrdom in Judaism” at https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/martyrdom-in-judaism/ (accessed May 26, 2024) goes into this subject in depth.
[vii] The song was included in a Celtic Hour and was identified as Irish. If the concept had been deemed wrong the song would not have found its way to a Celtic Hour show. In my mind, there is a huge difference between a song documenting an event in history, such as the Pogues’ Jesse James, and a song in which the singer says, “Times are tough, I have no choice but to steal.” Meaning no insult to my many friends of Irish descent, I think there is a connection between this tacit acceptance of theft and Ireland being one of the countries that is, at the time of this writing (May 26, 2024) rewarding terrorism by recognizing a Palestinian state.
[viii] See the Unitarian Universalist Association web page, “Justice & Inclusion,” at https://www.ua.org/justice, accessed May 26, 2024.
Very well presented and informative