Seven Laws of Noah

[12] The Seven Laws of Noah include prohibitions against worshipping idols, cursing God, murder, adultery and sexual immorality, theft, eating flesh torn from a living animal, as well as the obligation to establish courts of justice.

[19] The non-Jews that choose to follow the Seven Laws of Noah are regarded as "Righteous Gentiles" (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם, Chassiddei Umot ha-Olam: "Pious People of the World").

[31] The Tannaitic and Amoraitic rabbinic sages (1st–6th centuries CE) disagreed on the exact number of Noahide laws that were originally given to Adam.

[7][9] The earliest complete rabbinic version of the seven Noahide laws can be found in the Tosefta:[3][34][35] Seven commandments were commanded of the sons of Noah: According to the Genesis flood narrative, a deluge covered the whole world on account of violent corruption on the earth, killing every surface-dwelling creature except Noah, his wife, his sons, their wives, and the animals taken aboard the Ark.

[3] After the Flood, God sealed a covenant with Noah with the following admonitions as written in Genesis 9:4–6:[36] The Book of Jubilees, generally dated to the 1st century BCE,[3][37] may include a substantially different list of six commandments at verses 7:20–25:[3] (1) to observe righteousness; (2) to cover the shame of their flesh; (3) to bless their creator; (4) to honor their parents; (5) to love their neighbor; and (6) to guard against fornication, uncleanness, and all iniquity.

[40] According to Michael S. Kogan, professor of philosophy and religious studies at Montclair State University, the Seven Laws of Noah are not explicitly mentioned in the Torah but were exegetically extrapolated from the Book of Genesis by 2nd-century rabbis,[41] which wrote them down in the Tosefta.

[41] According to Adam J. Silverstein, professor of Middle Eastern studies and Islamic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jewish theologians started to rethink the relevance and applicability of the Seven Laws of Noah during the Middle Ages, primarily due to the precarious living conditions of the Jewish people under the Medieval Christian kingdoms and the Islamic world (see Jewish–Christian relations and Jewish–Islamic relations), since both Christians and Muslims recognize the patriarch Abraham as the unifying figure of the Abrahamic tradition, alongside the monotheistic conception of God.

[42] Silverstein states that Jewish theology came to include concepts and frameworks that would permit certain types of non-Jews to be recognized as righteous and deserving of life in the Hereafter due to the "Noachide Law".

While a simple reading of the Talmud might suggest that the ideal punishment is the death penalty, a number of prominent commentators, including Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, have argued that it is up to the courts to decide.

[63][64] David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra, a commentator on Maimonides, expressed surprise that he left out castration and sorcery which were also listed in the Talmud.

He only lists three, namely the three that the gentiles follow: not to create a Ketubah between males, not to sell carrion or human flesh in the market and to respect the Torah.

One from the 16th-century work Asarah Maamarot by Rabbi Menahem Azariah da Fano and a second from the 10th century Samuel ben Hofni which was recently published from his Judeo-Arabic writings after having been found in the Cairo Geniza.

[67][68] Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes suggests Menahem Azariah of Fano enumerated commandments are not related to the first seven, nor based on Scripture, but instead were passed down by oral tradition.

[74] According to Christine Hayes, an American scholar of ancient Judaism and early Christianity serving as the Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, the gerim were not necessarily Gentile converts in the Hebrew Bible, whether in the modern or rabbinic sense.

[75] For example, they could offer sacrifices, actively participate in Israelite politics, keep their distinct ethnic identity for many generations, inherit tribal allotments, etc.

[76] He also states that if gentiles want to perform any Jewish commandment besides the Seven Laws of Noah according to the correct halakhic procedure, they are not prevented from doing so.

[44] Nevertheless, the majority of rabbinic authorities over the centuries have rejected Maimonides' opinion, and the dominant halakhic consensus has always been that Jews are not required to spread the Noahide laws to non-Jews.

[44] Maimonides held that gentiles may have a part in the World to Come (Olam Ha-Ba) just by observing the Seven Laws of Noah and accepting them as divinely revealed to Moses.

[2][18][30][78] According to Maimonides, such non-Jews achieve the status of Chassid Umot Ha-Olam ("Pious People of the World"),[18] and are different from those which solely keep the Noahide laws out of moral/ethical reasoning alone.

[18][80][81] The 15th-century Sephardic Orthodox rabbi Yosef Caro, one of the early Acharonim and author of the Shulchan Aruch, rejected Maimonides' denial of the access to the World to Come to the gentiles who obey the Noahide laws guided only by their reason as anti-rationalistic and unfounded, asserting that there is not any justification to uphold such a view in the Talmud.

[78] Other Jewish philosophers influenced by Spinoza, such as Moses Mendelssohn and Hermann Cohen, also have formulated more inclusive and universal interpretations of the Seven Laws of Noah.

[78][80] Moses Mendelssohn, one of the leading exponents of the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah), strongly disagreed with Maimonides' opinion, and instead contended that gentiles which observe the Noahide laws out of ethical, moral, or philosophical reasoning, without believing in the Jewish monotheistic conception of God, retained the status of "Righteous Gentiles" and would still achieve salvation.

[85] Menachem Mendel Schneerson encouraged his followers on many occasions to preach the Seven Laws of Noah,[10][44] devoting some of his addresses to the subtleties of this code.

[39][40][86] Since the 1990s,[10][16] Orthodox Jewish rabbis from Israel, most notably those affiliated to Chabad-Lubavitch and religious Zionist organizations,[10][16][87] including The Temple Institute,[10][16][87] have set up a modern Noahide movement.

[10][16][87] These religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis that guide the modern Noahide movement, who are often affiliated with the Third Temple movement,[10][16][87] are accused of expounding a racist and supremacist ideology which consists in the belief that the Jewish people are God's chosen nation and racially superior to non-Jews,[10][16][87] and mentor Noahides because they believe that the Messianic era will begin with the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to re-institute the Jewish priesthood along with the practice of ritual sacrifices, and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy in Israel, supported by communities of Noahides.

[10][16][87] In 1990, Meir Kahane was the keynote speaker at the First International Conference of the Descendants of Noah, the first Noahide gathering, in Fort Worth, Texas.

[89] The United States Congress, recalling House Joint Resolution 447 and in celebration of Schneerson's 80th birthday, proclaimed 4 April 1982, as a "National Day of Reflection".

[90] The United States Congress, recalling House Joint Resolution 173 and in celebration of Schneerson's 87th birthday, proclaimed 16 April 1989, and 6 April 1990, as "Education Day, U.S.A."[90] In January 2004, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafak Tarif, met with a representative of Chabad-Lubavitch to sign a declaration calling on all non-Jews in Israel to observe the Noahide laws; the mayor of the Arab city of Shefa-'Amr (Shfaram) – where Muslim, Christian, and Druze communities live side-by-side – also signed the document.

Support for the use of "Noahide" in this sense can be found with the Ritva, who uses the term Son of Noah to refer to a gentile who keeps the seven laws, but is not a ger toshav.