ADAM TO NOACH -
A HISTORICAL & SPIRITUAL
PERSPECTIVE
From the
time of Creation, the Seven Universal Laws were understood and taught as G-d’s
commandments for mankind. Observance of the Seven Universal Laws,
however, has been a totally different issue.
These Seven
Laws were the first introduction to Torah ever received by mankind. A number of Midrashim tell us that Noach’s
son Shem and his grandson Eber established study houses to instruct people how
to fulfill these seven laws. Rashi
states, on Parasha Toldot, that after he left Yitzchak, Yaakov spent
fourteen years in the yeshiva of Eber before he traveled to Paddam-aram to seek
a wife. Fourteen years is a long time,
so it is obvious that the Seven Universal Laws are far more complex and
comprehensive than presently regarded.
According
to Rambam, in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim, Chapter 9, Law 1,
six of the Seven Universal Laws were presented to Adam and Chavah on the day of
their creation. As such, they are the
most ancient of all religious doctrines.
Paradoxically, the Seven Universal Laws are today considered among the
newest of religious doctrines.
“Six
precepts were commanded to Adam: a) [the prohibition against] worship of false
gods; b) [the prohibition against] cursing G-d; c) [the prohibition against]
murder; d) [the prohibition against] incest and adultery; e) [the prohibition
against] theft; f) [the command to establish laws and courts of justice.”
(Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim
9.1)
The seventh
command, the prohibition not to eat a limb torn off a life animal, always
existed in potential, but did not apply the man prior to The Flood because
mankind were vegetarians. It was only
after the Flood that G-d instructed Noach that man could eat the flesh of animals
provided he did not eat the life blood with the flesh (Genesis 9:9).
These
Universal Laws were given to Adam for all mankind. They were reinstituted with Noach after the
Flood, practiced and taught by Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and reaffirmed to Moshe
by G-d as being that which
“Moses
was commanded by the Almighty to compel all the inhabitants of the world to
accept the laws given to Noach’s descendents.”
(Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim
8:10)
The Creator
of the Universe gave these laws to mankind at the time of Creation and ensured
that they were passed down throughout time, even to the point of establishing
an entire nation to be His witnesses and to teach the Seven Universal Laws to
the other nations.
The Sages
derive from the Babylonian Talmud, in Sanhedrin 38a, that the Seven Universal
Laws originated in G-d’s command to Adam in Genesis 2:16,17 …
“And the
L-rd G-d commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you are free
to eat, but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of
it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”
The story
has resonated within mankind for six millennia.
Adam and Chavah did eat of the tree of knowledge, and, while they did
not die instantly, they did bring upon themselves and all their future
descendents a form of spiritual death – a descent for their original elevated
level of spirituality – and the inevitability of physical death for all
mankind: “For dust you are, and to
dust you shall return.” (Genesis 4:19)
How are we
to understand Adam’s sin? It is
important to remember that both good and evil find their source in G-d. Hashem is the definition and source of all
good; however, He also created the potential for evil in order to bring about
the opportunities necessary for our rectification and the redemption of the
universe. In Isaiah 45:7, we are told:
“I am
the One Who forms light and creates darkness; Who makes peace and creates
evil: I am Hashem, Maker of all these.”
The Torah
teaches that man has an inclination towards good and an inclination towards
evil. In Judaism, these are referred to as
the Yetzer haTov and the Yetzer haRa. Nonetheless, Genesis 1:31 is very clear: “G-d saw all that He had made, and
behold it was very good.” Therefore,
the Yetzer haRa is considered “very good” in the eyes of G-d, as
is the evil He allows for His purposes. G-d
is Sovereign and All-Knowing, unbounded by time and space. The prophet Isaiah wrote that Hashem knows
the end from the beginning. Whatever He
allows in this world ultimately has a purpose for good. The Rambam, referring to Genesis 1:31, taught
that the words “very good” refer to the evil inclination, the Yetzer
haRa.
How can the
evil inclination be considered good? The
Rambam explains that evil became part of man’s nature after the sin, that it
suddenly became a natural impulse within man.
Is this always bad?
If someone
is starving, they will get food in any way they can, even if it means stealing
it. If someone is starving, stealing is
a natural impulse because the instinct of hunger is blind to right and wrong;
therefore, in certain circumstances, stealing just comes naturally … is
stealing right? No. We are commanded not to steal and to overcome
this impulse when it arises; however, we must also recognize that this
inclination towards what is wrong becomes a method of life preservation in
certain instances.
Anyone who
has ever raised children knows that children can be cruel. Until a child gains some maturity, his
primary instinct is to satisfy his own desires, as immediately as possible,
irrespective of the situation at hand, the needs of his parents, or whether his
parents have the resources necessary to comply with his demands. Sometimes, their reaction to not having their
way can be quite vicious, especially to their peers. Is cruelty sanctioned by Torah? No. Do
young children always honor their mother and father? No.
Are children evil? Of course not,
but they do have a natural Yetzer haRa that they must learn with age and
maturity to control.
Within
Christianity, there is basic distortion that can have lingering influence on
new Bnei Noach. Christianity errs in
equating the evil inclination with evil.
In its opening passages, the Torah tells us that G-d has declared
everything He made to be “very good”, including the natural impulse for evil
within man. Christianity teaches that
man is born with a tainted soul as a result of the sin of Adam. Nothing could be further from the truth; this
would mean that G-d created something that was not good, and that the soul
within us, the life breath G-d breathed into our ancestor Adam, was
tainted. This life force, the nefesh,
is a spark of the Creator. It is the “image
of G-d” that man was created in.
Every
morning upon waking, Jews thank Hashem for the pure soul He has placed within
us. As a result of the sin of Adam, we
must now wrestle to maintain the purity of that soul, but when it was placed
within us, it was pure and very good. We
learn to overcome our natural inclination for evil when it influences us to do
wrong and to favor the good inclination instead; this builds spiritual maturity
and elevates our soul.
G-d’s
commandments give us the instruction book we need to recognize and separate
good from bad; in other words, to rectify Adam’s sin of eating from tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. We are human
beings, not animals. G-d gave us the
capacity for free choice, and we do have a choice. The Christian doctrine of a tainted soul from
birth casts humanity as helpless victims of fate, incapable of remedying the
situation without their proscribed cure.
The doctrine stands in clear contradiction to Genesis 1:31.
Since
ancient times, pagan ideology has maintained that good and evil are mortal
enemies. Light and darkness were
perceived as independent powers locked in a constant struggle. Two powers.
One good, one bad. There is a
fundamental problem with this premise.
If we believe as Torah teaches that G-d is One, and there is none other,
then to claim that good and evil are powers in their own right … two powers …
is to imply that there is more than one G-d.
Most Christian doctrines teach the Trinity … a three-in-one Deity of supernaturally
linked, yet independent entities. Evil
is personified by Satan within Christianity, and most doctrines regard Satan an
independent power or spirit locked in a battle to the end with Christianity’s
god and his followers. Some quick
arithmetic arrives at four independent powers or deities – so much for
monotheism.
The Tanach
reveals that evil has a purpose in the world, that it was created to fulfill a
sacred task. The Malbim (Rabbi Meir Lob ben Yehiel Michael) gives
the example of the first chapter of Job, where we find Satan in a meeting with
Hashem, together with the heavenly hosts.
The Malbim contends that if Satan was allowed by G-d to participate in
this Divine assembly, then evil must have a holy purpose.
The Prophet
Isaiah tells us that Hashem alone creates good and evil; therefore, evil and
the evil inclination within every human being are part of His plan and are holy
within their purposes.
The existence
of evil allows for gradations of goodness, which is evident throughout
Creation. If all Creation proclaims G-d’s
glory, then Creation is composed of increasingly constricted levels of
Divinity. Rabbi Uziel Milevsky in his
commentary on Parasha Bereshith, comments that “Evil provides the
barriers, the crucial points of resistance that demarcate one level of Divinity
from the next.”[1]
So, Adam
and Chavah were created and placed in this world. They were given the Seven Universal Laws and
they were given freedom of choice.
According to Rabbi Milevsky, “freedom of choice meant that the
thought crossed Adam’s mind, ‘G-d tells me to do this, but in theory I could do
otherwise; I am capable of doing otherwise.”[2] Adam did do “otherwise”, and so have his
descendents ever since, either fulfilling their potential as humans or
depleting it. However, even here there
is good …
Given human
nature, when do we truly exceed our potential?
Do we do it when we are within secure parameters, safely within our limits,
or do we really excel and expand our potential when we are faced with a
challenge? It is a fact that any act
that involves overcoming difficulties is an act that promotes personal growth. With the giving of the Seven Universal Laws
and the capacity for freedom of choice, G-d presented all mankind with a
lifetime of opportunities for personal growth and connection to our Creator.
The Oral
Torah states that Moshe was instructed by Hashem that
It is a principle of the Torah that there are no superfluous
words. If a word appears to be
unnecessary, it is there to alert us that there is something to learn that is
deeper than the obvious. Rabbis
Adam taught his children the Seven Universal Laws, instructing them
that they were to teach their children and so on down through the generations. How do we know that Adam did this? How do we know his descendents knew these
Seven Laws and were expected to obey them?
The answer is simple and the proof is clear: The Flood.
Would G-d have judged the world with such devastating totality if man
had not been culpable, if they did not know they were required to abide by
certain laws, if they did not knowingly choose NOT to observe them? Hashem is a Righteous and Compassionate
Judge. Had the inhabitants of the world not
known and understood what G-d required of them, willfully disobeyed and refused
to repent, the Flood would not have occurred.
“The earth became corrupt before
G-d; the earth was filled with lawlessness.
When G-d saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its
ways on earth, G-d said to Noach, ‘I have decided to put an end to all flesh,
for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy the earth.” (Genesis
6:11-13)
Unless there was an accepted standard of righteousness and laws which
defined this standard for everyone, how could the earth be judged as corrupt, and
how could mankind be deemed to have corrupted their ways? What provided the standard for ways that were
not corrupt? The Seven Universal
Laws. In an earlier verse, we are told, “Noach was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noach walked
with God …” (Genesis 6:9). There had
to be laws that defined blameless behavior.
Rashi, on Parasha Noach, states
that mankind had corrupted themselves through idolatry and sexual immorality,
and that the “lawlessness” or “wickedness” mentioned in Genesis 6:13 refers to
theft. These are violations of three of
the prohibitions contained in the Seven Universal Laws; therefore, the Laws had
to exist in order for man to be judged for violating them.
Mankind had 120 years to repent of their ways; it was not that G-d
lacked mercy. Noach built the ark before
their very eyes, a visible warning of impending destruction. Despite this, the wicked generation felt
themselves invincible and ignored the opportunity to mend their ways.
Noach was deemed “righteous in his generation”, but the Torah does not
tell us that Noach interceded with G-d on behalf of mankind. It does tell us, in detail, of Avraham’s
repeated attempts to avert the decree of judgment against
The Midrash tells us that not only did G-d graciously extend mankind
120 years in which to repent while the ark was being constructed, but He also
gave them an additional seven days before the commencement of the Flood. During these seven days, G-d changed the laws
of nature and threw the world into a state of chaos that could not be ignored,
even the sun reversed its course.
Concurrently, the Midrash tells us, Hashem created a heavenly refuge
amidst the chaos, a veritable Gan Eden, hoping to arouse a spirit of repentance
within mankind by giving them a taste of the reward reserved for the World to
Come. During this time, Noach busied
himself with gathering together the clean animals G-d had instructed him to put
on board the
On the 17th day of Cheshvan, in the year 1656, the raindrops
began to fall, gently at first, still giving mankind a chance to repent and
avert a deluge, transforming it into a blissful rain, but they did not. And so it was that the Great Flood provided a
global mikveh in which the impurity of the world was removed and mankind was
given a new father, a new world, and a new beginning.
Prior to
Avraham there were obviously individuals with a sense of Hashem’s reality: Adam and Chavah, Enoch, Noach, his son Shem
and grandson Eber, but it was Avraham who contemplated and crystallized a definitive
belief in G-d which caused him to forsake the idolatry in which he had grown up
and adopt a new system of beliefs, a religion of One G-d, which he then taught
to his household and everyone he encountered.
Avraham was the father of monotheistic faith. Avraham knew, studied and practiced the Seven
Universal Laws that Hashem had confirmed to his ancestor Noach.
When a Jew
says the Shema, we proclaim the Unity and Existence of G-d. The doctrine of the Seven Universal Laws is a
vehicle which carries this doctrine of Unity to the nations of the world.
Unity, as
understood by Judaism, applies to both G-d and to mankind. Judaism and the faith of Bnei Noach are both
monotheistic. Both doctrines seek the
unity of mankind with one another and with G-d; namely, a world in which all
people acknowledge the One True G-d, approach Him in accordance with His Torah
guidelines for Israel and the nations, and live in peaceful accord with one
another, observing G-d’s commandments for each.
Judaism’s
approach to the unity of God and of man is unique. Other religions are very proprietary in their
concept of unity, teaching, “Believe as we believe and you will know G-d and
the world will be one.” History has
proven that this approach is flawed.
There has been more wars and more bloodshed over religion that any other
issue. Judaism teaches that the whole
world does not have to follow the same path; indeed, we are not supposed
to. The Torah establishes two paths to
the knowledge of G-d and to world redemption.
One path has been established for