This work deals mainly
with the effort of defining the commandments that
the non-Jewish nations should fulfill or make an effort
to do so. In addition to the seven basic commandments,
there are several other active commandments that have
not been clarified and explained in depth in the scriptures
and subsequent Torah literature. Just the same, according
to what is written in the Torah the Talmud and the
Midrash, we are able to learn something from the actions
of those that existed before the Torah was given to
Israel. According to the Talmud (Yomah 28b), the Patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob upheld more commandments
than what the children of Noah were called upon to
do. Even commandments that the sages turned into laws
many generations later were kept by the Patriarchs.
According to these
same sources, Jacob already upheld all of the 613
commandments of Judaism. This is why Jacob’s
children are no longer called children of Noah but
children of Israel. Just the same, we can learn from
some of their actions and from their expectations
from those that lived during their generation regarding
the ways that any person who wants to come closer
to G-d and attain spiritual fulfillment, should act.
The matters that
we are trying to explain in this work are not in any
way an effort to try and establish a new religion.
It is rather an attempt to look at the Scriptures
and other Torah literature and reach conclusions concerning
what a person should do or try to do. Our prayers
are that this modest beginning will bring others to
write a complete book and that it should cover a greater
scope. In order to help all those among the nations
who are looking for ways to come closer to G-d.
Judaism forbids establishing
a new religion, as explained by the Rambam (Kings
10, 5:6-9): “The principle of the matter: You
cannot allow them to establish a new religion or to
carry out commandments from this knowledge...”
Anyway, what we are doing here in connection with
the Children of Noah is not the establishment of a
new religion. Since a foreigner (Gentile) is not ordered
in writing to fulfill them, but only, if by his own
free will, he wishes to carry out such commandments
as the Rambam wrote: “We are not allowed to
stop a child of Noah that seeks to be compensated
by fulfilling the (some of those) laws of the Torah
(that were only commanded to the Jews).” So
it seems that the establishment of a new religion
occurs only when a person comes and says that he has
been ordered by G-d to fulfill such and such a law
and not when he is trying to reach a degree of spiritual
perfection by fulfilling the commandments that the
children of Israel have been ordered to carry out.
