The Rule of Law

Rabbi Melanie Aron

October 12, 2002

Our gray prayer book has a poetic interpretation of the second paragraph of the Aleinu, the prayer that leads up to the well known final verse: "Bayom hahu yihiyeh adonai echad ushmo echad, on that day Adonai shall be one and God's name shall be one". The poetic interpretation picks up its theme from the words in the second line of the Hebrew original, "letaken olam bemalchut shaddai, to perfect the world under the reign of God," and speaks about our hopes for a better world and our responsibilities for bringing into being.

A more literal translation of this prayer which begins "Al ken nikaveh lechah we therefore hope " would read as follows:

"Let all who dwell on earth acknowledge that unto You every knee must bend and every tongue swear loyalty. Before you O Lord our God let them humble themselves. To your glorious name let them give honor. Let all accept the yoke of Your kingdom, that you may rule over them soon and forever."

One of our members encountered these words on a recent visit to another congregation and came back surprised.

"What is all this about? she asked me. "I thought Jews were not evangelical? Yet here it sounds as if our vision of the future is a world where everyone has converted to Judaism."

I'd like to explain a little bit about Jewish teachings concerning other faiths as it is in this week's Torah portion, Parashat Noah, that the concept of a covenant between God and all humanity is expressed.

The famous "Bayom Hahu, on that day", is a quotation from the prophet Zechariah 14:9. It is part of the vision of the prophets who imagined a day when God would reign over the whole world. But what does that mean? I believe that for the prophets of Israel and for Judaism in general, the idea of the Reign of God over the whole world did not mean that everyone in the world would convert to Judaism. After all Judaism teaches that "the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come." Jewish tradition believes one can be a righteous Christian or a righteous Muslim, for example. For a variety of reasons, we Jews do not have a history of aggressively seeking converts.

When we talk about God's reign over the whole world, we are talking about the recognition of ethical monotheism and not of Judaism as a particular religion. The 613 commandments of the Torah are considered the special mission of the Jewish people and related to the particular Jewish role in history. To be righteous, a non-Jew does not need to take on these obligations. But Judaism understands there also are mitzvoth, commandments, from God that are binding on every human being. These are traditionally called the seven laws of Noah and are understood to include the prohibition of murder, theft, and certain sexual sins including incest and adultery, and the prohibition of the eating of the flesh of an animal while it was still alive. Traditionally, these laws included also the prohibition of blasphemy and some idolatrous practices. Finally, the laws of Noah include the obligation to set up courts of law.

Our Torah portion begins with God despairing because the world is filled with chamas literally violence or lawlessness. In starting over with Noah and his descendents, God wishes to prevent a replay of what came before.

This covenant of Noah, the imposition of simple moral laws, what are sometimes called natural laws, laws that a community might arrive at also by the use of reason, is aimed at preventing a return to the chaos that preceded the flood.

Today we are more sensitive than past generations to the diversity of human expressions of values and beliefs. We see value in different cultures and religious faiths with their differing expressions of spirituality.

But I believe that there is wisdom in the concept of a covenant of Noah, of basic laws of fairness and decency for all societies.

Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not steal. These are the underpinnings that allow people to live together in communities.

Thou shalt not eat from a living creature- a minimal respect for nonhuman animal life.

And perhaps most importantly, the rule of law for it is where we have the rule of law and not of persons, that individual freedom is safeguarded and there is hope of fairness and justice.