Friday, 20 May 2016

The Noahic Covenant

“The rainbow is a true sign of magic, it exists in both worlds at once!”

Douglas Monroe

It's in his will,

I read it,

he shot to kill,

he said it

For those who know the number and don't call

Fuck all y'all

"Anyone who accepts upon himself and carefully observes the Seven Commandments is of the Righteous of the Nations of the World and has a portion in the World to Come.

This is as long as he accepts and performs them because (he truly believes that) it was the Holy One, Blessed Be He, Who commanded them in the Torah, and that it was through Moses our Teacher we were informed that the Sons of Noah had already been commanded to observe them.

But if he observes them because he convinced himself, then he is not considered a Resident Convert and is not of the Righteous of the Nations of the World, but merely one of their wise."

Maimonides

9 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

Noahic Covenant

The Noahic (No-a'-ic) covenant is the covenant that God made with Noah after he left the ark, sealed with a rainbow, that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood (Genesis 8:1 - 9:17).

8 God said to Noah and his sons, 9 "Look! I now confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that is with you, including the birds, the domestic animals, and every living creature of the earth with you, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature of the earth. 11 I confirm my covenant with you: Never again will all living things be wiped out by the waters of a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth." (Gen. 9:8-11, NET) This covenant will remain until the earth has passed away (Gen 8:22). This is a perpetual covenant between God and Humankind given through Noah (Gen 9:17).

Provisions of the Noahic covenant

Man's responsibility to populate the earth is reaffirmed (Gen 9:1, 7).
The subjection of the animal kingdom to man is reaffirmed, but now it will be administered under a new relationship. Whereas previously man and animal coexisted in peace and animals most likely fully cooperated with man’s care and maintenance, now the animal kingdom would fear man and be dominated by him (Gen 9:2).
Man is permitted to eat the flesh of every "moving creature" outside the realm of man. It is suggested that initially man was a vegetarian but after the curse of the Flood, man's allowable diet was expanded to include the animal kingdom (meat) -- which involved killing an animal. The only exception, which is in fact carried over into the New Covenant, is that man is to refrain from eating blood, the "life of the flesh" (Gen 9:3, 4).
The sacredness of human life is established. Since man is made in the image of God, one who commits murder shows not only contempt for man but also contempt for God (Gen 9:5).
Whatever sheds man's blood, whether man or beast, must be put to death. This is seen as the institution of human self-government (Gen 9:6).
The covenant is confirmed with Noah, his sons, their descendants, all the animals on the ark and their descendants (Gen 9:8-10).
The earth will never again be destroyed by a universal flood (Gen 9:11). The next time God destroys the earth, the means will be fire (2 Peter 3:10).
The rainbow is established as a sign of the Noahic Covenant to both God and man signifying that God will never again destroy the earth by a universal flood (Gen 9:12-17).

Covenants

The Perfect Number by Rabbi Yonason Goldson

Jewish World Review

The Perfect Number

By Rabbi Yonason Goldson

There are no coincidences in Creation

“And on the seventh day G-d completed all His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.”

— Genesis 2:2

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

At first glance, the Torah's narrative of creation appears self-contradictory. If the Almighty completed His work of creation on the seventh day, as the verse implies, why does Scripture not reveal what He created on that day? And if the Almighty set aside the seventh day, as the verse also implies, why does Scripture not record that He completed His work with Day Six, rather than Day Seven?

The answer, explain the sages, is that on the seventh day G-d created rest, without which the world would have remained forever incomplete.

But what does this mean? Why did the Almighty have to create rest, which is merely the abstention from creative activity? And why did the process of creation require a day of rest in order to attain completion?

In his philosophical masterpiece The Path of the Just, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto explains that the purpose of creation was to give man pleasure. To that end, the Creator fashioned a physical universe wherein man would have the opportunity to earn his eternal reward by choosing good and refraining from evil in accordance with divine law. Consequently, had the Almighty simply ended the process of creation at the close of the first six days, He would have left the world without any template for discerning the pattern and purpose underlying its very existence.

In short, the seventh day represents the goal toward which mankind should direct all worldly efforts. For this reason the Sabbath day is called mei'ein olam habah — a taste of the World to Come.

In the grand scheme of things, work for its own sake is as pointless as no work at all. As King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, "What profit has man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?" The obsession with the accumulation of wealth and the illusion of material productivity in a temporal world blinds us to the true purpose of human existence. The seventh day provides a counterpoint, allowing us to recover our spiritual perspective. Without it, every day would stand alone. Because of it, every day acquires true meaning and significance as part of a greater, spiritual whole.

Based upon the design of Creation, we understand that the number seven itself represents perfection in nature. It is not coincidental that visible light comprises seven distinct bands that show themselves individually as the colors of the rainbow but combine to form the white light of illumination. Neither is it coincidence the musical scale comprises seven distinct notes, whereby white noise becomes blended into the most sublime music.

Similarly, the pattern of seven weaves itself into almost every aspect of Jewish life. The festival of Passover lasts seven days, echoing the creation of the world as it celebrates the birth of the Jewish nation and the earth's reemergence of from the dormancy of winter. The festival of Shavuos follows seven weeks later, commemorating the metamorphosis of the Jews into a spiritual nation through their reception of the Torah at Sinai. And the festival of Sukkos again lasts seven days, symbolizing the opportunity provided us by the Creator to begin the new year in a state of purity comparable to the perfection of Eden.

The Hebrew word for seven — sheva — shares its grammatical root with the word soveya, which means "satiety." The true rest of the Sabbath day derives from the satisfaction we take in a life well-lived, a life of toil not in pursuit of wealth, power, or temporal pleasure, but a life directed toward the fulfillment of spiritual ideals. For those unfortunate souls who labor only for the sake of material goals, there is no rest in this world and no rest in the World to Come.

Ironically, the greatest corruption of the symbolism of perfection and satisfaction presents itself in the form of the swastika, whose name derives from the same etymology as sheva and soveya. Originally a far-eastern symbol for abundance, the swastika takes its form from four sevens positioned around a common point, suggesting the abundance and satiety represented by the number seven cast forth to the four corners of the earth.

With their Aryan ideology of a master race, the Nazis twisted the ideal of striving toward spiritual perfection into a superficial caricature. Convinced of their own perfection, they committed themselves to the obliteration of all higher purpose and moral values.

Such thinking remains among human society to this day. However, the way we defend ourselves against this kind of distortion is by sanctifying the seventh day and experiencing it as the anniversary of creation, learning its lessons of humility and harmony, and appreciating it as the defining symbol of man's potential to become the Almighty's partner in the creation of a perfect world.

JWR contributor Rabbi Yonason Goldson teaches at Block Yeshiva High School in St. Louis, MO, where he also writes and lectures. Visit him at http://torahideals.wordpress.com .

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