Drash Cards for Noach (5772)

by Marc Mangel

• 2011 is the 20th anniversary of Education Day, honoring the Rebbe, who started his Noahide Campaign in the late 1980s encouraging non-Jews to keep the Seven Laws of Noah described in the Torah.

• The Seven Laws of Noah were recognize by the United States Congress in the preamble to the 1991 bill that established Education Day

• “Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society upon which our great Nation was founded; Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws”

• They are 1) Prohibition of idolatry; 2) Prohibition of blasphemy and cursing the name of God;  3) Prohibition of murder; 4) Prohibition on robbery and theft; 5) Prohibition of forbidden sexual relations; 6) Prohibition on removing and eating a limb of a live animal; and 7) Requirement to establish a justice system and courts to enforce the other  six laws.

• They have been codified in 2008 by R. Moshe Weiner as “Sheva Mitzvot HaShem”  –  a Shulchan Aruch for gentiles.

• The Talmud (Sanhendrin 105a) says “Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come”

• Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah writes that a non-Jew precise in the observance of the Noahide Laws is considered to be a Righteous Gentile.

• Here is something interesting.  Ch 9, v 1: be fruitful and multiply; v 4: don’t eat live animals; v 6: don’t murder; v 7: be fruitful and multiply again!  This is also the fundamental law of biology!

• Where do the other 5 laws (idolatry, theft, sexual immorality, blasphemy, courts) come from?  The Talmud says that the others are in Beresheet 2:16 but it is not clear there

• Somewhere in Beresheet and Noach are the other laws, but they are hidden — we are required to discover them.