Reading Room

ViewPoint

Noahide Contentment

Speaking for myself, I am content because where I am today, and the level of spiritual contribution I am able to make, is the result of haschgacha perotis, Divine Providence. Am I satisfied? Absolutely not. Why? Because I know there is infinitely more I could be doing spiritually as a Noahide. I can go even higher.

I read a short story once: In the little town of Nemirov, there once lived a rabbi who was thought to be the holiest man in the universe. It was even said that each year just before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the rabbi was lifted up to heaven to talk with G-d. Everybody agreed that this was so, except for one man. That one man was the Litvak, a born doubter. He believed only in what he could see, and the rabbi looked like an ordinary man to him. To prove his point, the Litvak decided to find out where the rabbi went when the townspeople thought he was in G-d's presence. What the Litvak discovered is something for every doubter the world over to think about. There is a way for an ordinary man to raise himself even higher than heaven.1

G-d created me as a non-Jew for a very special reason, and I will attempt to spend this lifetime in service to Hashem as a Noahide, at the level and responsibility of a Noahide, b'li neder. In the past fifteen years I have seen new levels of Torah revealed concerning the Seven Laws. In Pirkei Avot, Ben Bag Bag states: "It's all in the Torah. Delve into it, turn it and turn it again." Rabbis have been doing this: the Rambam found halacha for the Seven Laws and wrote it in the Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Melachim. The Rebbe taught that the teaching of the Sheva Mitzvot precedes the coming of Moshiach. His source: Yad, Hilchos Melachim. Look at what precedes the last chapters about the Moshiach - the Seven Laws of Noah! Rabbi Bindman shows us from pnimyus haTorah (the soul of Torah) the direct relationship between the Middot, the Seven Emotives (the seven lower Sefirot) and the Seven Laws of Noah, and the seven colors of the rainbow. Rabbi Ginsburgh now teaches us the Chassidic dimension of the Sheva Mitzvot at his Gal Einai Website, http://www.inner.org/noahide/noach1.htm .

And we anticipate so much more to be revealed at all levels of PaRDeS (86KB), the four levels of Torah interpretation.

About Pirkei Avot
In all of the sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah, there is only one non-halachic tractate that can be found. Yet, it is this one tractate that prepares one's heart for the full acceptance and observance of the mitzvot that are required of him. Within it one finds rules of moral conduct, maxims of ethical behavior, pithy formulations of wise guidance in everyday life.2 This tractate is Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers.

The word Avot (avos; avoth; aboth), Fathers, has two connotations. One connotation is the literal father which begets biologically. The other connotation is that of the spiritual father. Pirkei Avot comprises the collective wisdom of the spiritual fathers of the Jewish people. These great intellectual and spiritual Sages, through their teachings, establish the primary principles of human behavior. Of Israel, the nation of the Torah, such behavior is expected; of the Noahide such behavior can also be accomplished if he so chooses in order to reach spiritual perfectness.

Self-improvement is not an easy task, and it is not easy to lift oneself from a world where personal peace and affluence are the major goals in life; yet, through the study of Avot is one able to see, and learn, the ethics, values, and morals which lead to human perfection as defined by G-d in the Torah.

Pirkei Avot is a collection of the sayings of the Synagogue Fathers from the Men of the Great Assembly, maxims which summarized the anguish, ecstasy and understanding they had experienced in their penetrating study and practice of the Torah. The earliest Sages quoted are men who lived sometime between the latter half of the fifth and third century B.C.E.. The latest are descendants of Rabbi Judah HaNasi (Rabbi Judah the Prince), who lived in the third century C.E.. Their maxims record their reflections on what constitutes G-d-fearing, civilized conduct and thought.3

Through the study of Pirkei Avot, the Noahide can prepare himself more fully for the acceptance and observation of the Sheva Mitzvot B'nei Noach, the Seven Laws of the Children of Noah.

The Rabbis speak of chasidei umot ha-'olam, "the righteous among the Gentiles." Loyalty to the moral principles of the Torah, not membership in the group, makes for righteousness. Hence the statement, "I call heaven and earth to witness that whether one be a Gentile or an Israelite, man or woman, slave or handmaid, according to their deeds, will the Shechina rest upon them."4

2. Pirkei Avos, Mesorah Publications, 1984.

3. The Wisdom of the Fathers, Judah Goldin, Yale University Press, 1955.

4. The World of the Talmud, Morris Adler, B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations, Inc., 1958. (also Tanna d'bei Eliyahu, p. 48.

Back to the Reading Room