IF I DON’T BECOME JEWISH… · Sukkat Shalom B'nei Noach

בס "ד

Is There a Place for Me Here?

Before anything else, I want to name something that is rarely said out loud.

Many people who feel drawn to Torah are not confused. They feel unwanted. Not attacked, not publicly rejected, but quietly and internally. And the question I hear again and again, sometimes spoken and sometimes barely whispered, is this: if I don’t become Jewish, is there really a place for me here?

Not as an idea or a theological category, but as a human being standing before G-d.

When there is no missionary call, no pressure to convert, and when what is offered instead is the Noahide path, it can feel less like dignity and more like distance. For some, it feels like polite exclusion. If I am told to keep the Noahide laws instead of the 613 mitzvot, does that mean I am being limited, held back, or quietly kept at arm’s length?

I want to address that feeling directly, not defensively and not sentimentally, but honestly, through the language of covenant, responsibility, and purpose.

The Assumption Beneath the Pain

Much of this pain comes from a single assumption formed long before most people ever encounter Torah.

Many people grow up with a particular expectation of what religion looks like. They expect recruitment. They expect expansion. They expect a system in which love is expressed through persuasion and truth is measured by numbers. In such systems, believers are charged with establishing G-d’s dominion over the world by spreading their faith. G-d becomes King through conversion, and success is measured by growth.

Torah begins from a completely different premise. Judaism does not seek to make G-d King of the world. It recognizes, proclaims, and accepts His kingship because He already is King. The earth is Hashem’s and all that fills it. Hashem reigns; He is clothed in majesty. G-d’s kingship was not established by conversion. It was established at creation itself.

At the same time, Judaism teaches that there is no king without a people who acknowledge him. Creation establishes G-d’s sovereignty, but covenant makes it known. Human beings do not create G-d’s rule, yet we are invited to consciously enter it and live within it. The whole earth is already filled with His glory.

Judaism does not expand in order to win. It stands in order to serve.

Kingship Lived, Not Marketed

This does not mean Judaism is indifferent to G-d’s kingship. On the contrary, it is saturated with it.

Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish year, is about crowning G-d as King of the universe. The Mishnah teaches that all who enter the world pass before Him on that day. Every day, when a Jew recites the Shema, he accepts the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, not to establish G-d’s rule, but to align himself with it again.

Judaism does not universalize G-d’s kingship by spreading a religious identity. It universalizes G-d’s kingship by living under it, by showing through a nation, a calendar, a law, and a way of life what it looks like when human beings consciously live in a world that already belongs to G-d. This is not missionary triumph. It is covenantal witness.

Difference of Covenant, Not Difference of Worth

When someone approaches Judaism expecting recruitment and finds none, something can feel wrong or unfamiliar. There are no altar calls, no pressure, no counting of souls. And when what is offered instead is the Noahide framework, it can feel like a downgrade.

That emotional dissonance often leads to a painful assumption that closeness to G-d requires sameness. If Israel is close to G-d, then everyone else must either become Israel or accept distance.

The Torah teaches something very different. It does not demand one identical covenant, one identical law, or one identical role for all humanity. Difference in covenant does not mean difference in worth. It means difference in mission.

There is a place for every human being in Torah, but it must be discovered, accepted, and lived.

Before Asking How, We Must Know That It Is Real

A natural question follows. What does a lived Noahide life actually look like in prayer, in community, in rhythm and observance?

That is a real and important question, but it is not the first one. Before asking how to live this covenant, we must know that the covenant itself is real, dignified, and wanted.

Torah never envisions a future in which Israel stands alone while the rest of humanity merely watches. From the beginning, the vision is one humanity serving one G-d, with Israel at the center carrying a unique covenant and the nations standing with Israel, not behind it.

Israel’s covenant carries a heavy burden: 613 commandments, national responsibility, and historical exposure. That burden was never meant to be universal. Humanity was never meant to disappear into Israel, and Israel was never meant to be replaced.

Two Covenants, One Direction

The Torah presents two covenantal paths.

The Noahide covenant is not new. It is the oldest covenant in human history. Before Sinai, before Israel, before priesthood or temple, humanity already stood before G-d. In Genesis, G-d blesses Noah and his sons and declares that whoever sheds the blood of man will be held accountable, for humanity is made in the image of G-d. This is not only a prohibition against murder. It is a declaration that human dignity and moral responsibility flow directly from the divine image shared by all people.

This covenant was not invented later by the rabbis. It is spoken directly by G-d to all humanity. As Rambam writes, Moses was commanded by the Almighty to compel all inhabitants of the world to accept the commandments given to the sons of Noah. The Noahide covenant is not Judaism without depth. It is the moral constitution of humanity itself.

Israel’s covenant comes later, at Sinai, for a different purpose. Israel is called to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Priests exist for others. Israel’s chosenness is not superiority but service.

Both covenants face the same direction: alignment with Hashem, moral responsibility, and a world ordered by divine truth. The difference is not closeness to G-d, but mission.

Not Wanted or Not Pushed?

Many people still carry the feeling that Jews do not actually want them.

Often this feeling comes from backgrounds where love is expressed through recruitment and care is shown through persuasion. When Judaism does not missionize and even discourages conversion at first, it can feel like silent rejection.

But that misunderstands what covenant is. A covenant is not a reward or a promotion. It is an obligation and a burden. To push that burden onto someone casually would be irresponsible.

If Jews truly did not want non Jews to matter, we would insist that everyone convert in order to stand before G-d. The fact that Torah allows a person to stand fully before G-d without conversion is not rejection. It is dignity.

Jerusalem and the Shape of the Future

Hashem is not the G-d of Israel instead of being the G-d of humanity. He is the G-d of all. The Torah is not tribal law. It is the moral architecture of reality.

This is why Jerusalem matters. Not as a nationalist trophy and not as something ownerless. The land belongs to Hashem, and He designated it as the covenantal home of the Jewish people. Israel’s return to the land is not a claim of ownership over G-d, but obedience to G-d’s will.

At the same time, the prophets insist that G-d’s house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Jerusalem is Israel’s home by divine assignment and humanity’s spiritual orientation point by divine design. From Zion goes forth Torah and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem. Zion does not erase nations. It orients them.

Turning Together Toward the One G-d

True brotherhood does not require sameness. It requires clarity. Israel remaining Israel is not rejection. A Ben Noah remaining a Ben Noah is not exclusion. It is the structure that makes partnership possible. This is not distance from G-d. It is divine design.

When people from every background walk the streets of Jerusalem as seekers rather than tourists, when they approach the stones of the Western Wall and place a hand upon them, whispering prayers with no script and no audience, something becomes clear. They are not imitating Jews. They are responding to something older than identity.

At the level of the soul, they know that this is the place where heaven and earth are closest. In those moments, one can glimpse the future the prophets described: a world that does not erase difference, but turns together toward the one G-d, Israel at the center, the nations gathered around, each faithful to their covenant, all calling upon the name of Hashem.

Von Rabbiner Tani Burton

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