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.
