7 Noachide Laws

[David_2010]

I was wondering, I've heard the term "7 Noachide Laws" before, but, I'm a little unclear about it. From what I understand, it's supposed to be the 7 laws that gentiles are supposed to follow, and I found this site with some info on it, which state the laws are:

1. Do not murder.
2. Do not steal.
3. Do not worship false gods.
4. Do not be sexually immoral.
5. Do not eat a limb removed from a live animal.
6. Do not curse God.
7. Set up courts and bring offenders to justice

While most I would say are followed by the majority, if not all, cultures (although, how far they live up to them depends), how are false gods defined?, like, would they be seen as the deities of other religions, or, are "false gods" more like concepts that people become obsessed by (e.g. greed, money, etc). Could a Buddhist, or someone else, meet the requirements of the 7 Noachide Laws, while still continuing with their religious practices (which, in some cases, involve the use of various deities, although, for most Buddhists, deities are more psychological symbols than anything objective)?.

Also, are the 7 Noachide Laws believed in by all Jews, or does it only belong to certain sects of Judaism?.

Thanks for any help.

David.

 

[Levite]

I was wondering, I've heard the term "7 Noachide Laws" before, but, I'm a little unclear about it. From what I understand, it's supposed to be the 7 laws that gentiles are supposed to follow, and I found this site with some info on it, which state the laws are:

1. Do not murder.
2. Do not steal.
3. Do not worship false gods.
4. Do not be sexually immoral.
5. Do not eat a limb removed from a live animal.
6. Do not curse God.
7. Set up courts and bring offenders to justice

While most I would say are followed by the majority, if not all, cultures (although, how far they live up to them depends), how are false gods defined?, like, would they be seen as the deities of other religions, or, are "false gods" more like concepts that people become obsessed by (e.g. greed, money, etc). Could a Buddhist, or someone else, meet the requirements of the 7 Noachide Laws, while still continuing with their religious practices (which, in some cases, involve the use of various deities, although, for most Buddhists, deities are more psychological symbols than anything objective)?.

Also, are the 7 Noachide Laws believed in by all Jews, or does it only belong to certain sects of Judaism?.

Thanks for any help.

David.

I guess it primarily depends on what you mean by "believed in." I don't think that anyone can deny that, in the Talmud, there are discussions amongst the Rabbis wherein they postulate 7 Noachide Laws applicable, in the views of those who propound them, to all non-Jews. That is recorded: those opinions exist.

As for actually believing that God gave Noah's sons those 7 commandments, and that there have been times since in history where non-Jewish peoples actually consciously followed those commandments...I doubt you'll find many outside of Orthodoxy who believe this, and not even all Modern Orthodox Jews believe it.

Now, believing that it might be a nice idea if everyone else were to follow those commandments is another story. Probably you'd have more luck finding people to agree to that. And you could probably find quite a lot of people who would agree that most of those commandments are inadvertently kept in modern Western society, and probably elsewhere also.

"Sexually immoral" technically refers to incest, although there are those who have argued that it should be interpreted to refer to any kind of sexual act prohibited in the Torah-- though IMO, the exegetical and midrashic arguments for this latter school of thought are singularly unconvincing.

"Cursing God" is an easy one, since it refers to specifically invoking a curse against God using His own Name, by which we mean pronouncing the tetragrammaton. Since nobody knows the correct pronunciation of the tetragrammaton today, nobody, by definition, is violating this.

"Worshipping false gods" has been the subject of debate regarding its interpretation. There are those who say that as long as there is no direct worshipping of idols, people are not in violation of this commandment regardless of what their religious practices or beliefs are. There are those who say that any use of idols or icons is prohibited here. There are those who say that any polytheism is prohibited here. And there are those who say that this prohibits anything but pure and direct absolute monotheism. There are even some who have said that in order not to be in violation of this commandment, one must be an absolute monotheist who acknowledges God by Name (i.e., that the One God is YHVH and none other, using that Name specifically, or at least one of the other Names we Jews know Him by).

I personally think that unless the Rabbis were either in enormous denial, or simply never actually believed any non-Jews had followed the 7 commandments, it seems awfully unlikely that they would have interpreted this commandment in the narrowest sense possible, since there is simply no evidence to suggest that anyone would ever have come close to fulfilling it. They would have had to have interpreted quite broadly if they really believed anyone had ever followed it.

Actually, of the 7, the commandment probably most consistently violated is ever min ha-chai, taking limbs from living animals, or otherwise killing them in grossly inhumane ways.Anyone who has ever eaten lobster, oysters, clams, or frog's legs is guilty of transgressing this commandment, and I believe that there are other common examples to be found in cuisines around the world, such as the Korean custom of eating small live octopi, or the traditional Chinese method for preparing dog, wherein one beats the dog to death slowly, in order to tenderize it.

 

[TaqiyyaWatch]

Can one be an agnostic and follow the 7 Laws or do you need to believe "in a god" in order to do this?

 

[HiddenDjinn]

I'd think that one claiming to be Noachide is off the fence about HaShem, otherwise, why would one claim it?

 

[Levite]

Can one be an agnostic and follow the 7 Laws or do you need to believe "in a god" in order to do this?

I'd think that one claiming to be Noachide is off the fence about HaShem, otherwise, why would one claim it?

On the one hand, I totally see yosi's point. On the other hand, the majority of the 7 commandments are purely ethical. And I suppose, if one is not even convinced God exists, one is unlikely to either worship false gods or curse God. One could, in theory, keep all 7 commandments, even if a couple were by default, and be agnostic. I would imagine it being an incidental observance, though, rather than a deliberate choice to observe the 7 commandments, given the very fair point yosi has raised.

In any case, God has always seemed to be far more concerned with ethical and moral behavior than He is with theology and doctrine, so better to be an ethical agnostic than a hypocritical and immoral religious person. Though of course I think most Jewish scholars would agree that the ideal is certainly to be an ethical and moral religious person.

 

[Zardoz]

Do not worship false gods.

From what I know, this refers to physical idols only.

Do not eat a limb removed from a live animal.

A more common and IMHO important aspect of this law is not to eat blood.

That's a hard one, many people like rare steaks.

 

[Levite]

A more common and IMHO important aspect of this law is not to eat blood.

As far as I know, there are multiple schools of thought on what precisely constitutes ever min ha-chai, but I have not heard that consuming blood is part of it. Perhaps this is a chumra (stricture) on ever min ha-chai that I am unfamiliar with-- you don't happen to have some sources on it, do you? I would be interested to read them. But in any case, to me it makes little sense.

We have a separate mitzvah entirely that concerns the eating of blood, and it is not among those listed in the 7. So there should be no reason to suppose that it applies to non-Jews.

But even if we were to apply halakhic reasoning to the Noachide ever min ha-chai, then a prohibition on eating blood should still only apply if the blood in question were on or in an animal or piece of an animal that had been killed or taken in such a manner as to be ever min ha-chai (e.g. the blood in frogs' legs). In such a case, it might be forbidden as what we call an issur yotze (that something which comes out of something prohibited is, by extension, itself prohibited, even if no specific halakhah exists prohibiting it by name). But blood from an animal that is decently slaughtered before butchering and consumption should not be prohibited in and of itself to non-Jews.

But of course the application of such halakhic reasoning is, in and of itself, a little ludicrous, in that there is no binding halakhah of the 7 Noachide commandments: the entire idea of them is aggadic-- it's midrash pure and simple. Which, I guess, leaves us free to interpret them any way we like. And personally, I am inclined to interpret ever min ha-chai more strictly when it comes to the ethical treatment and slaughter of animals, and more loosely when it comes to pseudo-kashrut types of rules for non-Jews. To me it seems clear: even supposing that there were such a thing as the Noachide commandments, with the exception of the two about God, all of them are purely ethical commandments. Not treating animals cruelly is very good ethics. What on earth does eating blood have to do with ethics? The only reason we don't eat blood is because we have a specific mitzvah not to do it, and that mitzvah is a chok (lacking rational justification-- we do it because we were told to do it). Without that specific mitzvah, I really fail to see any reason for such a prohibition.

 

[Zardoz]

What of Berei**** 9:4?

4. But, flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat. ד. אַךְ בָּשָׂר בְּנַפְשׁוֹ דָמוֹ לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ:

 

[Levite]

What of Berei**** 9:4?

4. But, flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat. ד. אַךְ בָּשָׂר בְּנַפְשׁוֹ דָמוֹ לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ:

I have always heard that that is only the prefigurement of our commandment not to do so. But it seems to me that if it were truly intended to be a Noachide mitzvah, then it would be counted among them-- probably in place of ever min ha-chai, for which there is no explicit commandment prior to the one given to us.

But I suppose it's all fair game in midrash....