Chavurath B'nei Noach: About B'nei Noach: Everlasting Life

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Everlasting Life

The idea of everlasting life is rather appealing to most folks. A somewhat primal yearning seemingly tugs at us to somehow reclaim that certain something which Adam and Chava lost when they sunk their teeth into that Gan Eden Delicious plucked from the Tree by Chava.

On a more serious note, we find in Bereishis that Hashem created Adam in this, the World of Asiyah (Action), and gave Adam a prohibition not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As we know from studying the Torah, Adam and Chava transgressed the Prohibition, and as a result of their transgression, they suffered a physical loss - or, in other words, because of their physical transgression of eating the forbidden fruit, they suffered a physical punishment. And what did Adam and Chava lose “physically” by transgressing the Prohibition? The answer is very clear - Adam and Chava lost immortality. The punishment meted out by Hashem was the forfeiture of everlasting life - the ability to live forever without aging or dying.

Now, at this point, the reader must realize that the concept of everlasting life is nothing new to most B’nei Noach. Considering that most B’nei Noach were practicing Christians before they turned to G-d, Torah and Israel, we cannot help but remember the teachings of Christianity concerning everlasting life; according to Christianity, everlasting life is a fundamental element of the “good news” or “gospel” of Jesus Christ. The only way, according to Christianity, for a human being to attain everlasting life is to accept Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior. And we were also taught, of course, that those who do not accept him are doomed to everlasting damnation. Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth... remember? Soul winning became a primary focus of the Church - and during the Dark Ages, for example, those individuals who would not accept Jesus as the savior and proclaim him as lord were consigned to a fiery death at the stake in order to save their immortal souls (out of Christian love for the lost, of course)!

B’nei Noach should now recognize the significance of the punishment Adam and Chava received. Their punishment, the death sentence, was physical, not spiritual! Their souls were not punished in the sense that their souls were not condemned to death; their souls were never lost. In fact, the soul is G-dly, as it is taught in Mishlei 20:27,

The soul of a man is the lamp of Hashem.

It should be noted that, according to Chassidus, the soul has three garments: thought, speech, and action. In our world, the World of Action, the soul, which is spiritual in nature, does not have the means to give expression to thought, speech, or action unless it has a physical body in which it is united. Therefore, as a result of their transgression, the very thing which Adam’s and Chava’s souls lost was the ability to remain permanently in a physical world within a physical body.

Mankind’s dilemma of not having the G-d-given ability to live forever is remedied by the Torah. The antidote for the poison of transgressing G-d’s prohibition to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is the Torah and its mitzvot. The Torah teaches there will be a Resurrection of the Dead, and everlasting life for those who keep the mitzvot, both Jews and non-Jews. For the Jews, the Torah’s teachings concerning everlasting life are quite clear, but for B’nei Noach the Torah’s teachings concerning everlasting life for the non-Jew (and the Seven Laws of Noah) have been impossible to find without the help of the Jews.

For centuries, a great number of non-Jews have persecuted and murdered the Jews, either by being active participants or by being silent witnesses. Jews were, for the most part, unable to teach their non-Jewish neighbors about the Seven Laws of Noah for fear of losing their lives. Therefore, the important teachings concerning the Seven Laws of Noah and the Covenant of the Rainbow were forced into hibernation as a result of gentile oppression and Jewish assimilation. However, with the reemergence of the Noachide movement in the twentieth century, several Jewish books concerning the Seven Laws of Noah and B’nei Noach have appeared in print - but something has been missing in these books - especially in those books which talk about the origins of the Noachide Laws.

During your studies, search the corpus of Jewish books which deal specifically with the Seven Laws of Noah, and see if any of them reflect upon the deeper meaning of the Covenant of the Rainbow. Oddly, this concept is lacking in all but one book currently on the market. It appears only one author has recognized such an important concept - Rabbi Yirmeyahu Bindman, author of The Seven Colors of the Rainbow. All the other books i.e., The Path of the Righteous Gentile and The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism, etc., miss the mark in this area - and they miss something of grave importance for B’nei Noach. Of course, I am referring to the concept of everlasting life for B’nei Noach!

For example, David Novak, in his book The Image of the non-Jew in Judaism, is missing something very important concerning the Seven Laws of Noah - he does not recognize the extent or “fullness” of the Covenant of the Rainbow, nor does he adequately explore the Covenant. He was content to explore the sources which speak of the Seven Laws, the gentiles, etc., but he does not focus on the “Covenant of the Rainbow,” which is embedded with the Seven Laws. In other words, he does not lay down the essential elements of which the Covenant is comprised. The history of the origin of the Seven Laws of Noah is an interesting study, and Novak delivers that information to the reader. He traces the origin of the Seven Laws in Tosefta, Seder Olam, and the Bavli. In the latter, the baraisa takes us to Bereishis 2:16 in the Torah, wherein the text reads,

And Hashem God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you shall surely eat.

Here, we are taught that this is the first mention of the Seven Laws. Indeed, we find that by expanding or “unzipping” (in the computer vernacular) this condensed or “zipped” information, the Seven Universal Laws are made clearer yet, and the Torah’s basic ethics for living are unveiled for mankind’s observance. Judaism teaches that Moshe Rabbeinu again received these seven laws and gave them to us at Har Sinai. We will discuss this bl”n in the near future.

Unfortunately, Novak does not see the Seven Laws as belonging to the Covenant of the Rainbow, which is in fact the Covenant of Everlasting Life. He approaches the concept in his chapter on Aggadic Speculation, but only achieves a near-miss - and the non-Jew intent upon understanding the Covenant and the Laws misses understanding the relevance of the Covenant.

“Orthodox” B’nei Noach should be looking to rabbinic Jewish scholarship to give additional depth and meaning to the Covenant of the Rainbow, much like what Rabbi Yirmeyahu Bindman has accomplished in his book The Seven Colors of the Rainbow. Rabbi Bindman shows the relationship between the Seven Laws of Noah and the Seven Emotional Attributes, and relates them to the Jewish mystical tradition. He also explains the relationship between the colors of the rainbow and the mitzvot, again from the perspective of the Jewish mystical tradition. Fascinatingly, it is in Rabbi Bindman’s book where the Covenant of Everlasting Life is mentioned. Although he exposes the concept rather briefly, Rabbi Bindman is still able to reunite the ultimately important concept of everlasting life with the Covenant of the Rainbow, thus once again unveiling Hashem’s promise of everlasting life relating to B’nei Noach as it is found in the Torah. Unfortunately, Rabbi Bindman does not give credit to the source of his information. Let's explore further: In the first chapter of his book, Rabbi Bindman writes concerning the purpose of the mabul, the Great Flood as is recorded in Bereishis:

When the waters of the flood retreated, the ark settled on the ground in the Caucuses mountains, and Noah and his sons emerged with their families. Noah built an altar at the Temple site in Jerusalem and offered sacrifice in thanksgiving for the deliverance and for the opportunity to start again. The Torah states that G-d smelled the sweet odor of the sacrifice (Gen. 8:21), meaning that He was gratified that His will had indeed been carried out. At this point, G-d made a covenant with the whole creation that in the merit of Noah He would never again destroy it because of the sins of humanity.

...All non-Jews in the world, of every land and color, are heirs to Noah’s achievement. All of humanity, diverse as it is, descends from the three sons of this one man, whose great scope made the foundation for them all. This covenant of everlasting life was given through the sign of the rainbow, which G-d told Noah would be the reminder in the heavens of His eternal decision. Now everyone need only to look up after a rain, and they can see the beautiful display that assures them that evil will never be allowed to overcome them. And G-d gave the rainbow seven distinct colors - to remind men and women of the Seven Commandment that lay behind the covenant, the laws that will bring all of humanity to merit their ultimate redemption.

It is evident from the promise by Hashem to Noach that his descendants, through the merit of Noach and as a result of their observance of the Seven Laws of Noah, would have Everlasting Life. Contrary to the latter teachings of Christianity concerning everlasting life, the Torah teaches us that we can regain what Adam and Chava lost through their failure to keep the Prohibition (not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), and that our souls will be able to give physical expression of praise to Hashem in the Olam Haba. All that is required is that we observe the Seven Laws of Noah.

Rabbi Bindman's source must have been Sefer Ba'al HaTurim, written by Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (circa 1303 C.E.). R' Yaakov's Ba'al HaTurim explains words, phrases and even entire verses of the Torah at the level of remez (allusion), one of the four levels of Torah interpretation.

R' Yaakov explains Bereishis (Genesis) 9:9:

mekim et b'riti it'chem ...I establish my covenant with you...

The final letters of these four words spell the dead.

According to Ba'al HaTurim, this is a direct allusion to the Resurrection of the Dead, and this is where God establishes His covenant to bring them all back to life! The Covenant of the Resurrection of the Dead is NOT explicit in the Hebrew Scriptures - you won't find it spelled out anywhere. However, the Talmud and Midrashim comment on the various verses that allude to it, and commentators through the ages have found additional allusions to the Covenant of the Resurrection of the Dead. (See Baal HaTurim Chumash, published by Mesorah Publications, Ltd.)

And now a personal observation, if you please: If (indeed, IF: hypothetical speculation with such an example is, at best, an exercise of futility - the socio-historical situation speaks for itself in the archives of Jewish history) the righteous Jews of the Second Temple period had taught the Seven Laws of Noah to the non-Jews, there would never have risen a religion such as Christianity. With the knowledge that (through the observance of the Sheva Mitzvot B’nei Noach) everlasting life could be attained as promised by Hashem to Noach, the resulting fabrication that everlasting life could come only through belief and worship of a human being would never have happened. Instead, as we have noted, the teaching concerning the Covenant of the Rainbow - The Covenant of Everlasting Life, had been forced into hiding by the vicious persecution of the Jews, and the “new covenant” of Christianity was but a pagan attempt to replace the eternal Covenant made by Hashem to Noach. Thankfully, the truth and light of Torah concerning the Covenant of the Rainbow now emerges and illuminates the Path of Life for B’nei Noach and beckons majestically to a needy world.

Thank Hashem for Rabbi Bindman and for the editors at Mesorah Publishing for studying Torah and for keeping the mitzvah of being or l’goyim by teaching us Torah and important truths such as this. The Covenant of Everlasting Life, given by God, has been with us since Bereishis (Genesis) - and it predates Christianity by many, many centuries. Thank God.

Glossary

Adam

The first man and progenitor of the human race, according to the Torah. In the general sense, adam is also “man.”