.jpg)
There is some confusion over when the Noahide executions and punishments are enforced and by whom. Jews are not the ones to enforce the Noahide Law on non-Jew, Jews simply convince non-Jews to implement these laws on their fellow non-Jews. Jews are a priestly class, but non-Jews are put on trial and executed or punished by other non-Jews in their own society who have accepted the Noahide Laws. The only requirement for a Non-Jewish society to implement the death penalty is a majority of the society to accept the Noahide Laws. Rabbi Schneerson said there is no need for a Sanhedrin to implement the Noahide Laws in all times and in all eras. Jewish writer on Noahide Laws Michael Dallen states that while execution is mandatory in EVERY instance only within the land of Israel during the time of the Messiah, but that outside Israel in all times and all eras the Noahide Laws are to be applied; the difference is that punishments may be handed out that are not the death penalty, but the death penalty is still an option. Noahides have written that the Rabbis are waiting for another age to implement the Noahide Laws, but the Noahides want punishments now. Jewish writers have also called for the Noahide death penalty now in our age. See below exhibits.
ASK NOAH: The Noahide Laws may be applied with capital punishment when there are enough Noahides in a non-Jewish society
The Rabbinical authorities of our generation have taught that the Torah Laws concerning an obligation for Noahide Courts to administer capital punishment apply only if the majority of the society’s population (1) believes in the One True G-d and (2) specifically observes the Seven Noahide Laws as Divine commandments that they accept upon themselves. In that situation only, an individual who leaves the behavioral boundaries of the society to transgress one of those specific commandments would liable to the specified punishment from a governmentally-empowered Noahide Court.
SOURCE: Justice and Righteous Courts are Foundations of Peace by Dr. Michael Schulman, Executive Director of Ask Noah International. Delivered as a talk at the 4th International Noahide Conference, Jerusalem, Israel, 5779 / 20’19 [1]. https://asknoah.org/essay/
SOURCE: The Divine Code by Rabbi Weiner, 3rd edition, p 675
Some Jews say beheading in every instance; others say beheading for all only during the messianic era in Israel, but punishment is enacted up to the death penalty for non-Jews in their own lands at all times, even prior to the Messiah.
"Several writers have said, in effect, that the notoriously harsh and unjust laws of benighted countries like ancient Syria, Rome and Persia provide humanity with examples for enlightened Noahide courts to follow. Solemnly, they argue that Gentiles may properly enforce their own laws with horrible severity, and that the regular, statutory punishment administered by Noahide courts must always be capital punishment, die death penalty.
This sort of ghastly misconception does little credit to the logic of the Law. Analysis reveals the error. The key teaching is Maimonides', in his seminal work, the Yad HaChazaka or Mishneh Torah ("Repetition of the Torah"), Hilchot Melachim ("Laws of Kings"): "A Ben Noah who transgresses one of these Seven Commandment laws shall be executed by the sword."
Let's take a close look at this:
Execution by the sword: this means, as the Torah teaches, that society shll effect the death penalty only by the quickest and least painful method possible, decapitation in one stroke. The grotesque final penalties so often imposed in humanity's bloody history — flaying, drawing and quartering, keelhauling, burning at the stake, and other mutilating tortures to kill men really, really dead — are forbidden.
Must every convicted criminal be executed? Must every teenaged shoplifter be punished just as murderers are punished? The context of this passage, setting out the duties of Israel's kings once the line of (King David has been restored to sovereignty and the Messianic era has begun, explains everything. Plainly, it directly pertains only to B'nai Noah who have elected to live alongside the people of Israel, within the land of Israel, in the future — that is, in Messianic times, when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
Recently, many scholars have taken us deeper into this supposed harsh rule of Maimonides. Love and mercy make up the bare bones of the Law and here we have another instance where the exemptions, exacting safeguards and loopholes of divine jurisprudence make a harsh penalty — capital punishment — mostly important only as a symbolic legal benchmark. God wants us to know just how seriously He takes our every failure to live up to our humanity, to His minimal moral expectations for us. Every time we fail to act fully human we die at least a little anyway; the symbolism of the harsh general penalty — the technical penalty — ought to bring that moral value home. As for the practical working details of Noahide jurisprudence, actual penalties are for each nation to determine for itself, based on the facts and circumstances of every case and over time.
...
God doesn't act as a tyrant to His creatures. The fact is, persuasive ancient as well as modern scholarship insists, that God has established the substance of His Law while He grants B 'nai Noah freedom to legislate its details.
Such details include minimal amounts or threshold quantities and the mechanisms for the Law's enforcement, to be determined in accordance with their — the nations' — own communal needs. So the nations may devise whatever structure or hierarchy of penalties they think appropriate to secure compliance with their laws.
Looking at this system logically, we see that it must be so. Which means that we can say plainly: B'nai Noah legislators have the right to enact the death penalty to punish any crimes committed under the Noahide Law. After all, these aren't just crimes committed against other men, offensive to the good order of society. They are crimes of idolatry, committed against God and His sovereignty, which are direcdy offensive to Him. But a legal right is not an obligation: a right need not be exercised.
God's Universal laws are also laws of sublime justice. They aren't merely ideal or far off, designed for application only in some spiritual or Messianic future: it is another Revolutionary principle that God's laws are practical laws, meant to govern man's practices now? We see that He has designed them accordingly, to commend themselves to the enlightened conscience and sense of justice of every nation. The nations can adjust the details to suit themselves." (Dallen, 2003, p. 82-85)
SOURCE: Dallen, Michael E. (2003). The Rainbow Covenant. Light Catcher Books & The Rainbow Covenant Foundation.
No Need For A Sanhedrin (Rabbi Schneerson)
"It is obvious that this obligation [found in Maimonides, Malachim 8:10] is not limited only to a Jewish court, since this commandment is unrelated to the presence of a ger toshav (resident alien), and thus what is the need of a beit din. . . . Thus, this obligation is in place in all eras, even the present, when no gera toshav can be accepted and it is obligatory on all individuals who can work towards this goal. So too, this commandment is not limited to using force -- where, in a situation we cannot use force, we could be excused from our obligation -- since the essence of the obligation is to do all that is in our power to ensure that the seven Noachide commandments are kept; if such can be done through force, or through other means of pleasantness and peace, which means to explain [to Noachides] that they should accept the wishes of God who commanded them in this rules. This is obviously what is intended by Maimonides." - Rabbi Schneerson
SOURCE: JLAW, The Obligation of Jews to Seek Observance of Noachide[1] Laws by Gentiles: A Theoretical Review by Rabbi Michael J. Broyde[*]. https://www.jlaw.com/Articles/noach2.html
https://stopnoahidelaw.blogspot.com/2017/04/enforcement-of-noahide-law-how-and-when.html
Noahide calls for Noahide punishments (but not always decapitation) now
Clarion Call
SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
ACADEMYOFSHEM
There are many in our society who oppose the Noahide Code. All one has to do is to Google “Noahide Laws” and you will see the proliferation of anti-Noahide websites that have infested the internet. For those familiar with the Noahide Law, the distortions of these haters is easy to spot. For those unfamiliar with the Torah, not so much.
The majority of these anti-Noahide websites are Christian websites, although there are more than a few that are atheist. The fear of the Christians is that the Noahide Law has the power to destroy their religion; the atheists fear that the Noahide Law will take away their hedonism, or force them to accept that there is a God and an ultimate morality.
The anti-Noahides have it right in that we are out to destroy organized religion, particularly Christianity, the main organized religion in America. It would be difficult to find a more divisive ideology than organized religion. Since organized religion is prohibited under the Noahide Code, their fears are certainly justified. It is the task of the Noahide to remove this divisive ideology from the face of the earth.
It is the fear-mongering about decapitation that is the anti-Noahide’s weapon of choice. They use this threat to incite others against the Noahide Code, spreading fear that, if Noahide Law becomes the “law of the land,” then Noahides will decapitate not only Christians but anyone who violates the law. To think that we would promote a legal system that would mete out death for someone who steals a loaf of bread is ludicrous. This inflexible interpretation of dinim makes Javert look like Mother Teresa.
Where do these anti-Noahides get such crazy ideas? Unfortunately, it is from the Jews themselves, particularly the supporters of Rambam. Many of the Jews out there who are involved in the Noahide movement teach that decapitation is the only punishment for violating any of the Noahide Laws. This sad fact is not lost on the enemies of the Torah, and it is these Jews who have become unwitting allies of the anti-Noahides and furnish the haters with the ammunition they need to install fear among the ignorant.
In Bava Metzia 90a–90b, there is a discussion about Noahides. The topic is about Jews who get Noahides to castrate bulls (which is halakhically forbidden to Jews). Rav Pappa says that Jews who do this transgress the prohibition “do not put a stumbling block in front of the blind.” This is a mitzvah from Leviticus 19:14, “which prohibits causing another person to stumble in sin. It includes causing a non-Jew to violate one of the laws commanded to him.” (Schottenstein Talmud).
To my knowledge, this part of the Talmud has never been taught or even mentioned by any rabbi who is involved in the Noahide movement. The reason for this is clear: any Jew who interferes with the Noahide’s observance of the Seven Laws is in violation of halakha. It is bad enough for the rabbis to fill the Noahide’s head with obligations which have nothing to do with the Noahide Law, but to tell Noahides that they must not attack the idolatrous religions which permeate our society, to tell them that our obligation to dinim is only to set up courts of justice, to tell Noahides not to campaign for social change but to let God handle everything, to tell the Noahide that every violation of a Noahide law in a sovereign Noahide state must result in decapitation—these things are what cause Noahides to stumble by preventing them from fulfilling the observance of dinim. It is a violation of halakha.
Some years ago, when I started to wonder about why the rabbis were teaching the Noahides Judaism instead of Noahide Law, I told my concerns to a friend of mine, a rabbi who was sympathetic to the cause. He discreetly talked to some of the rabbis involved in the Noahide movement, and my fears were confirmed. The rabbis involved in the Noahide movement are deliberately teaching the Noahides that the Seven Laws are only a vehicle for personal salvation, steering them away from the social dimension of dinim. The rabbis do not want the Noahide movement to grow, at least not in the direction it is supposed to. The last thing they want is for Noahides to campaign against the current social order, to instigate society-changing reforms. They feel that Noahides would rile up the public and cause problems for the Jews. This is, of course, a valid concern, but what are we to do? It’s our tuchas on the line, not theirs. We are ultimately responsible for keeping the Seven Laws, and the Seven Laws cannot be observed in their entirely unless we make them the basis for our society’s legal system. However, by interfering with the Noahide’s observance of dinim, the rabbis themselves violate the halakha outlined in Bava Metzia 90b by placing a stumbling block in front of the Noahides.
It is obvious that the rabbis are leading the Noahides down the wrong path. It is also obvious that they want to be in control, and will not follow our lead in directing the course of implementing Noahide Law in our own society. The only recourse is for them to get out of our way.
SOURCE: Clarion Call, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016, ACADEMYOFSHEM. https://academyofshem.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/clarion-call/?fbclid=IwAR2qjrdGrUtXoOOZbcWw8XwKrMdoi6X6hoMLi81YzzDwOW9xZ4wSJPAskuA
Jewish writer says apply Noahide death penalty now
Like It or Not,
the Seven Noachide Laws Are Still Pending
There are many good, solid reasons to support applying the death penalty to a variety of crimes.
By Menachem Ben-Mordechai
- 10 Heshvan 5774 – October 13, 2013
During a recent Shabbat, I was reading volume one of Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s A Code of Jewish Ethics. In a discussion of permissible lying under oath, Rabbi Telushkin writes of a situation where “the punishment to be imposed on the basis of the testimony is so enormously disproportionate to the crime committed as to be a worse offense than perjury.” As an example, Rabbi Telushkin notes how pickpocketing in eighteenth-century England was a capital offense, then states:
“It would seem to me that a person who saw an act of pickpocketing and was summoned as a witness would be morally obligated to lie under oath if his truthful testimony could result in a person being killed for an act of pickpocketing (it is better to lie under oath, if one cannot avoid testifying, than to be responsible for bringing about a non-violent felon’s death).”
This position seems admirable, but was England’s policy in fact contrary to Torah?
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”lwrote in Abraham’s Journey, “From a halakhic viewpoint, the universal mission of Abraham crystallized in seven mitzvot, the covenantal mission in 613.” The universal mission refers to the Seven Laws of Noah (Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach) that apply to gentiles. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch zt”l described the Noahide laws as “the moral code for all of mankind” (commentary to Bereshit 2:16) and observed in this vein during a speech in 1859:
“The Jewish mind understands that the law of Judaism was intended only for the sons and daughters of Abraham as the God-ordained norm for the nation that has been chosen as a nation of priests, as consecrated torchbearers of the truth that is destined to redeem all of mankind. But the Jewish mind also understands that truth as such, that justice, that enlightenment and that moral civilization are intended to be the heritage of all to whom God has given breath on earth.”
In relation to Rabbi Telushkin’s example, one of these seven universal commandments prohibits theft. What is the punishment for theft under Noahide law? Rabbi Moshe Weiner writes in his study of the Sheva Mitzvot:
“An adult Gentile is warned about the prohibition of theft, and can be subject to capital punishment in a court of law for this transgression. This applies whether one forcefully robs or secretly steals money or any moveable property, or kidnaps a person, or withholds the wages of his employee or other similar acts, or even an employed harvester who eats from his employer’s produce without permission to do so. For all such acts, a Gentile is liable for a capital sin, and one who commits any of these types of transgressions is considered as a robber.”
Likewise, in his 2012 book We’re Missing the Point: What’s Wrong with the Orthodox Jewish Community and How to Fix It, Rabbi Dr. Gidon Rothstein dedicates two chapters to the Noahide laws and writes on the prohibition of theft:
“Like murder, theft as a broad concept is intuitive, but its exact definition and the punishment accorded it in the Noahide code goes beyond the expected. First, Noahide law punishes theft of even minimal amounts of money, even if the victim is not the rightful owner. Second, like all Noahide law, theft is considered a capital crime.”
Rabbi Dr. Rothstein observes in a footnote to that passage:
“I suspect most of us find it difficult to justify the death penalty, even in theory, for stealing a few dollars. That may reveal how inured we have become to theft’s ubiquity; were we more sensitive to the damage theft does to a social sense of unity and common purpose, we might understand better how it could arouse the kind of moral revulsion usually reserved for murder or rape–which, incidentally, is seen as a kind of theft by at least one rabbinic author.”
Similarly inured to certain sexual deviancies, some Jews—among them those who identify as Orthodox—might have difficulty with Noahide prohibitions in this realm. Rabbi Dr. Rothstein notes that “Judaism has a view of wrongful sexuality for non-Jews as well” and how “part of being Jewish is to adhere to and believe in a universal ethic about sexuality, one at great odds with common assumptions of contemporary Western thought.”
As specific examples, Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote in The Emergence of Ethical Man, “It is worth mentioning that both prohibitions (bestiality and homosexuality) apply to non-Jews too and form part of a universal religion that is based upon the concept of man and personality.” Rabbi David Bar-Hayim of Machon Shilo has more recently discussed these matters.
There are Jews who act like the Noahide laws are some historical curiosity with no binding relevance today. For instance, a self-described Orthodox rabbi recently wrote of “how foggy our understanding is of Noahide law.” Contrast this glib claim with the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s advocacy of Noahide outreach and Rabbi Soloveitchik’s reflections:
“Our task was and still is to teach the Torah to mankind, to influence the non-Jewish world, to redeem it from an orgiastic way of living, from cruelty and insensitivity, to arouse in mankind a sense of justice and fairness. In a word, we are to teach the world the seven mitzvot that are binding on every human being.”
Judaism does not care only about Jewish conduct. Judaism is not indifferent to whether gentiles commit idolatry, rape, etc. The Seven Laws of Noah still exist, as do both our national and global duties.
SOURCE: Like It or Not, the Seven Noachide Laws Are Still Pending, by Menachem Ben-Mordechai. 10 Heshvan 5774 – October 13, 2013. http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/a-banner-raised-high/like-it-or-not-the-seven-noachide-laws-are-still-pending/2013/10/13/
No comments:
Post a Comment