Noah (Rambam)

The Seven Noahide Mitzvot

One of the salient characteristic of Rambam’s code of law, the Mishneh Torah, is its comprehensive nature. Unlike other codifications of the halakhah, such as R. Yaakov b. Asher’s Arba’ah Turim or R. Isaac Alfasi’s Hilkhot ha-Rif, which only address themselves to those laws observed nowadays, omitting entire blocs and even tractates of material that are not applicable today, such as the laws of Temple sacrifices and ritual purity (i.e., two of the six orders of the Mishnah!), agricultural laws applicable in Eretz Yisrael alone, laws of the judiciary (Sanhedrin) and the procedure for judging capital cases, etc., Maimonides codifies and presents Jewish law as a complete, comprehensive system, whether one or another detail is observed today or not.

In this spirit, he is the only posek (codifier of Jewish law) whose system includes the “seven commandments to the children of Noah,” or Noahide laws. These mitzvot may perhaps best be described as a kind of capsule code of ethical behavior for all mankind: those rules that are in principle applicable to all, and which in practice a Jewish court is meant to impose upon those non-Jews living under their jurisdiction. These are: to set up courts of law, and proscriptions against blaspheming God’s name, idolatry, bloodshed, sexual immorality, theft, and eating the limb of the living.

Actually, the so-called or Noahide mitzvot are actually a misnomer, as they were originally given to all the children of Adam. Indeed, the biblical verse from which they are inferred appears in Parshat Bereshit (Gen 2:16; v. 24 serves as the source for the details of specifically sexual transgressions). However, since all human beings but the family of Noah were killed in the Flood, the children of Adam and Eve and those of Noah and Naamah are in fact one and the same; hence, the mitzvot are as if addressed to the children of Noah, and their adherents are known as Noahides. More important, one could argue that conceptually these innately pertain to the human being from his very creation—upon which we shall have more to say later.

To my mind, the most interesting and significant issue presented by this entire concept is: does Judaism have a concept of universal natural law; or, what is the relationship between human reason and/or moral sense, and revelation? Maimonides’ presentation of these laws, in Chapters 9 & 10 of Laws of Kings—the very last treatise in the final book of the fourteen that constitute the Yad—is more or less a summary of the Talmudic discussion in Sanhedrin 56a-60a. His position on these larger issues is articulated in two introductory paragraphs. This discussion is complicated by an important textual variation; I shall bring these, first, according to the standard printed editions, and then mention the alternative reading. Hilkhot Melakhim 8.10-11:

10. Moses our Teacher did not pass down the Torah and the commandments except to Israel, as is said, “an inheritance to the congregation of Jacob” (Deut 33:4); and to all those who wish to convert from the other nations, as is said, “Like you, so shall be the stranger [ger]” [Num 15:15}. But one who does not wish to do so, is not compelled to accept Torah and mitzvot.

And Moses our teacher was likewise commanded by the Almighty to compel all the inhabitants of the world to accept those mitzvot which were commanded to the children of Noah. And whoever does not accept them is to be killed. But one who accepts them is referred to throughout as a resident alien (ger toshav), and he must accept them in the presence of three haverim. And whoever takes upon himself to be circumcised, and twelve months passed and he was not circumcised, is like [a heretic] {one} from among the nations.

This halakhah articulates two concepts: on the one hand, that the system of Torah law per se, with its 613 commandments, is exclusive to the Jewish people (whether born or converted), and is not incumbent upon humanity at large. On the other hand, the Noahide code, to which this serves as an introduction, is incumbent upon all mankind, its non-acceptance carrying with it the harshest possible sanctions. From whence derives this obligation, and the accompanying sanctions? Rambam describes the origin of these laws as being in revelation: they were revealed to all mankind, through either Adam or Noah, and this fact was in turn subsequently revealed as part of the Mosaic Torah.

Interestingly, this legal theory is not found anywhere in the classical Rabbinic literature, in the Talmuds or midrashim, but is based upon Maimonides’ own speculation—thus one of the classical commentators on the Rambam, R. Joseph Caros’ Kesef Mishneh, on this passage.

11. Whoever accepts the seven mitzvot and is careful to perform them is considered among the pious of the nations of the world, and he has a portion in the World to Come. And this, providing that he accepts them and performs them because he was commanded to do so by the Holy One blessed be He in the Torah, and that it was made known by Moses our Teacher that the children of Noah had previously been commanded concerning this. But if he did them by dint of [his own] rational decision (hekhra’ hada’at), he is not a resident alien, and he is not one of the pious of the nations of the world, nor one of their sages (velo mehakhmeihem).

Here Rambam assures us, on the basis of a famous discussion in Sanhedrin 105a, that the righteous people among the Gentiles also enjoy a portion in the World to Come. He takes the more liberal position in the Talmudic dispute between R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, allowing the possibility for non-Jews to be beloved of God, as signified by the life of the World to Come. But this is immediately qualified by his statement that the proper fulfillment of the Noahide laws demands that they be performed specifically due to belief, not only in their Divine revelation in antediluvian history, but in their Mosaic revelation; one who arrives at them by reason is not to be considered one of the pious of the nations. In short, he seems to require Gentiles to believe in the unique revelation of God to the Jewish people as the exclusive valid source of universal human morality. This sounds very much like a Judaic counterpart to the Christian claim that “there is no salvation outside of the Church” (Extra ecclesiam nulla salus).

All this, as mentioned, according to the standard printed texts. But the critical edition of the late Rav Joseph Kapah, based upon meticulous examination and comparison of the manuscripts, has a small but significant variation. In the final phrase, rather than the words “nor one of their sages” (velo mehakhmeihem), we find the reading “but of their Sages” (ela me-hakhmeihem). That is, one who arrives at these basic moral teachings by his own reason belongs to a special category, known as “the wise” or “sages of the nations,” rather than “the pious of the nations.” Which of the two is superior remains to be seen.

Before turning to the implications of this alternative reading, we need to understand the underlying concept of the text as a whole. While the alternative reading may soften the bite of this last halakhah, it by no means removes all difficulty. The key question here is whether or not Maimonides understood the idea of the Noahide laws as something similar to the “natural law” conception of the Christian Church—that is, that there are certain basic moral principles that are somehow innate to the human being, or accessible by thinking and moral reflection, without Divine revelation. At first blush, Maimonides would seem to be rejecting such a concept, insisting that Divine revelation is indispensable for arriving at moral truth; possibly, motivated by a certain skepticism as to the capacity of the human being to arrive at moral certainty unaided by God.

Moreover, if Rambam so celebrates reason, why is he so seemingly critical of “rational decision” as a source of moral knowledge? It is interesting—and we shall return to this point during the course of our studies the year—that in many areas Rambam is what might be called a theological “minimalist”: that is, he tends to play down those aspects of traditional Jewish beliefs demanding suspension of ones rational, critical faculties and acceptance of massive and constant Divine intervention in life. This includes such areas as miracles, Divine Providence, Messiah, the nature of the Afterlife, Resurrection of the Dead, etc. However, he is very insistent regarding belief in revelation, “the prophecy of Moses our Teacher.” Indeed, one could say that revelation is the linchpin of his entire system; without it, everything falls.

One reason for this is what might be called his “elitism”: Maimonides held the conviction that only a small number of people can arrive at truth in a clear way by reason. To arrive at truth by philosophical inquiry requires long and arduous preparation, the working through of numerous preliminary axioms (haqdamot), etc., all of which demand great dedication—not to mention considerable mental powers, with which not every person is blessed. Maimonides works, so to speak, along two tracks: in the one, he is concerned with the proper functioning and conduct of society, which requires proper conduct and belief by all of its members, regardless of their intellectual capacities; the other, with the pursuit of truth and knowledge of God by those capable of it. This is not to say that he advocated the type of deliberate obfuscation and the teaching of comforting lies to the masses, in the manner of Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor.” To the contrary: I think he would have described himself as presenting the same religious truths to all, but on different levels of sophistication, and with different proportions, so to speak, of authority and independent reason, depending upon the capacity of the people involved.

Philosopher Eugene Korn discusses our text in an important article entitled “Gentiles, The World to Come, and Judaism; The Odyssey of a Rabbinic Text” (Modern Judaism 14 [1994], 265-287). He sees the choice between the ela’ text and the velo text as, so to speak, emblematic of a whole series of attitude regarding the relation of Judaism to the non-Jewish world. Such issues as involvement in secular studies and culture, participation in general ethical discussions within wider society, openness to spiritual and intellectual dialogue with non-Jews: all these are implied in the interpretation of this text. (He also sees these same issues as typifying the internal rift within Orthodox Jewry between modern Orthdooxy and cloistered or Haredi Orthodoxy.) If non-Jews are totally dependent upon Mosaic revelation for their basic moral principles, then the entire enterprise of moral philosophy—from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics through Kant’s Critique of the Metaphysics of Morals and beyond—is a sham; non-Jews ought to turn to learned rabbis to instruct them in the proper way to be pious Noahides, as per the laws in these chapters, and to reject all else. If, on the other hand, those who arrive at knowledge of morality, who essentially reconstruct the Noahide code for themselves by “rational decision,” are in fact to be respected as “wise men,” the picture is different. In such a case, reason and revelation take their place side by side as in some way complementary, if not necessarily equal, sources of moral guidance.

On the face of it, all this seems to be reading too much into the change of one letter. Even with the ela reading, the main thrust of this Rambam passage is that the non-Jew is beholden to accept the acknowledge the Divine origin and Mosaic revelation of these laws; one who arrives at it by reason, by his own independent autonomous line of thinking, is to be acknowledged as a thinker , as a wise man, but not as truly pious.

But towards the end of this paper, Korn mentions an interpretation by Rav Kook (in Iggeret ha-Reiyah, vol. I: p. 100), in which he suggests that “but rather one of their sages” in fact indicates the highest level of Gentile spiritual attainment. One who arrives at truth by his own understanding, rather than by mere acceptance of a tradition of revelation, is in fact on a higher level than the merely pious. As Korn puts it, “acquiring moral wisdom is more than sterile cognitive act within secular experience. It is, rather, a transcendent moment filled with religious significance, a moment that elevates the hakham to a high level of spirituality and endows him with holiness” (p. 278).

The discovery of moral truth, of the good and the right, through one’s own understanding of the inevitability of these moral laws, is the most sublime possible level of understanding. Because he comes to understand the truth of these laws through his own powers, the person who experiences this type of, as it were, rational revelation of law, is imbued with a far stronger conviction of their rightness than one who simply receives a tradition that God told it to Adam aeons long past. The moment of rational understanding here becomes almost a kind of personal epiphany! (It may be that something of that feeling underlay the romance of a certain kind of early modern Jew with Kant and Kantianism.)

This view prompts in turn a host of other questions. What is the nature of inner knowledge? What do we mean when we speak of conscience, of moral intuition, of innate or inborn “knowledge of good and evil”? It may be that we need to introduce another factor, somewhere in between reason and revelation, for there is another problem: it is difficult to speak of human morality based purely upon reason, because it is the nature of reason to draw conclusions from axioms, from first principles. Yet the questions involved in ethical thinking entail basic value judgments. Ultimately, the question asked is: what is the good? This is, in fact, the central problem that has exercised moral philosophers since time immemorial. What Kant sought to create, in formulating the “categorical imperative,” was a definition of the god based upon innate categories of thought alone, upon principles that could be accepted by any “rational being”-- that the moral, the good, is that act whose maxim could be made universal. Whether or not that maxim is indeed adequate in itself remains to be seen.

In any event, one could well argue that the conscience, the heart, the soul, that innate moral faculty within man by which he knows the good, is something other than the mind alone. Certainly, the moment described by Rav Kook, in which the hakham feels himself lifted to a kind of holiness, undergoing an experience akin to revelation, involves such a faculty—that described by mystics and visionaries as the spark of the Divine within humankind. One is reminded here, too, of the midrash that Abraham’s two kidneys became like two fountains of wisdom: that he came to knowledge of God from somewhere within himself. The fact that goodness, that purity of soul is not a function of intelligence, and that there are many tzaddikim who are not particularly bright, while there are geniuses who are unscrupulous cads, seems further indication of the validity of this line of argument.