ב”ה
Parshat Bereishit begins before there is a Jewish people.
There is no Avraham, no Sinai and no 613 mitzvot. There is simply G-d, creation and humanity. That itself teaches something fundamental. Torah is the unique covenantal inheritance of the Jewish people, yet the G-d of Israel is the Creator of heaven and earth. Every human being lives in His world and has a purpose within it.
This helps us answer an important question. A Ben Noach once asked: “I was told that Torah is the inheritance of the Jewish people and that gentiles therefore may study only the Seven Noahide Laws. Is that true?”
The answer begins with the first chapter of Bereishit.
Torah Before the World
Pirkei Avot teaches that the world was created with ten utterances. Chazal describe Torah as the blueprint through which G-d created the world.[1] The world was not created independently, with Torah added afterward as religious advice. Torah expresses the Divine wisdom and will that give creation its structure and purpose.
This does not mean that every part of Torah was commanded equally to every person. A blueprint contains different instructions for different parts of the same building. There is one Creator, one creation and one Divine purpose, but distinct responsibilities within that purpose.
At the conclusion of creation, the Torah says that G-d rested from all the work “which G-d created to make”—asher bara Elokim la’asot.
Why “created to make”? Bereishit Rabbah explains that the things created during the Six Days still require human action and refinement.[2]
This seems surprising. The Torah has already said that everything G-d made was “very good.” How can creation be both complete and unfinished?
The Lubavicther Rebbe explains that creation was complete at its own level, but G-d gave it the capacity to rise beyond that level. A field is complete as a field, yet it can produce bread. Raw material is complete as raw material, yet a person can shape it into a dwelling for holiness. Human beings were not placed here merely to inhabit G-d’s world. We were invited to help bring it toward its intended purpose.[3]
That task belongs to Jews and Bnei Noach alike, but it is not fulfilled through identical commandments.
One Humanity Does Not Mean One Covenant
The Torah says:
“Torah tzivah lanu Moshe, morashah kehillat Yaakov”—“Moshe commanded us the Torah, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.”
Sanhedrin 59a derives from morashah, “inheritance,” that Torah in its unique covenantal sense is Israel’s inheritance: “It is an inheritance for us, and not for them.” The Gemara also reads morashah as me’orasah, “betrothed,” expressing the intimate bond between Torah and the Jewish people.[4]
The Rambam therefore rules that a non-Jew should not study Torah as though the entire Sinai covenant and its 613 mitzvot were his own, but should study the Torah pertaining to the Seven Noahide Commandments.[5]
But “the Seven Laws” does not mean seven sentences.
The very same Gemara quotes Rabbi Meir: “Even a non-Jew who engages in Torah is like a Kohen Gadol.” It resolves the apparent contradiction by explaining that this refers to Torah concerning “their Seven Mitzvot.” Rashi adds that Bnei Noach study their laws “in order to become proficient in them.”[4]
The Sefer HaChinuch explains that the number seven refers to broad categories containing many details. The Ramban similarly notes that Noahide commandments are counted as general categories, whereas many individual details are counted separately among the 613 mitzvot.[6]
Rema MiPano therefore distinguishes between “the Torah that was given to them,” which Bnei Noach may study, and the Torah that is the particular inheritance of Israel.[7]
The Lubavitcher Rebbe made this practical in a letter to a non-Jew who wished to study Torah. Both the Written and Oral Torah, the Rebbe explained, contain teachings relevant to Bnei Noach: the Seven Laws “in all their ramifications and details.”[8]
Those words are essential.
To understand idolatry properly, one must learn about G-d, His unity and humanity’s dependence upon Him. Theft opens into property, honesty and business ethics. Dinim requires the study and establishment of justice. The prohibition of murder rests upon the sanctity of a human being created in the Divine image.
Classical sources also speak of rational obligations and a universal service of the Creator that applied to humanity from Adam onward.[9] The righteous non-Jew’s spiritual life is therefore not simply, “Avoid seven crimes.” A Ben Noach has a genuine relationship with G-d, a Divine mission and a substantial body of Torah through which that mission can be understood.
When a Ben Noach studies these matters deeply, he is not trespassing into somebody else’s covenant. He is learning his part of G-d’s blueprint.
The Innkeeper Who Wanted Another Mission
A Chassidic story makes this vivid.
Near Berditchev lived Mendel, a simple, upright Jew who had spent most of his life running a roadside inn. He poured drinks for peasants and noblemen, but he also welcomed exhausted travelers with warm food, a bed and a sympathetic ear.
As Mendel grew older, he began to worry. The demands of the inn had left him little time for prolonged prayer or Torah study. His hair was turning grey, and he wondered what spiritual accomplishments he would carry with him when his life ended.
He handed the keys to his energetic son, Shia, and moved to Berditchev. There he divided his days between his modest home and the synagogue. Mendel did not become a great scholar, but he could pray slowly and learn Chumash and Mishnah. At last, he felt, he was accumulating something worthy to bring before the Heavenly Court.
Meanwhile, Shia transformed the inn. Local nobles began using it for meetings, parties and celebrations. Financially, it became more successful than before. But the weary travelers who had depended upon Mendel no longer felt welcome. The warm meal, quiet bed and listening ear had disappeared. The establishment prospered, while the people it had once served were displaced.
When Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev heard what had happened, he summoned Mendel. Mendel explained that he feared reaching the end of his life without sufficient Torah and prayer.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak answered that a wise person knows the place Divine Providence has assigned him. A person should not abandon that place merely to occupy one assigned to somebody else. A kingdom cannot survive if it has many generals but too few loyal soldiers.
“G-d has enough generals,” he told Mendel. Some people are placed in the study hall; others are stationed at a distant crossroads. Mendel’s post was the inn, where he could offer warm soup on a freezing night, cold water on a burning day, a kosher meal, a clean bed and a kind word.
Those meals, beds, smiles and words of encouragement would accompany him to the Heavenly Court. They were not interruptions to his Divine service. They were the service specifically entrusted to him. Mendel returned to the village. The travelers returned as well, and the inn again became a place of nourishment and rest. Mendel resumed his work with a new awareness: he was a loyal servant standing exactly where the King needed him.[10]
Sustaining One World
Mendel’s mistake was not that he desired Torah and prayer. Those desires were holy. His mistake was assuming that another person’s form of holiness must therefore be his own.
The same principle helps us understand the distinct missions of Jews and Bnei Noach. Difference does not mean that one life matters while another does not. It means that G-d’s world needs different forms of service.
The Jew refines creation through the covenant of Sinai, the 613 mitzvot and the Torah entrusted to Israel. The Ben Noach refines creation through the universal commandments given to humanity and through studying the Torah needed to fulfill them in all their ramifications and details.
Pirkei Avot says that the righteous sustain the world created with ten utterances.[1] A righteous person does not sustain the world by wishing for another person’s assignment. He sustains it by faithfully carrying out the task G-d actually gave him.
For a Jew, asher bara Elokim la’asot means continually refining oneself and the world through Torah and mitzvot. For a Ben Noach, it means that the Seven Laws must never be reduced to a checklist. They open into a lifelong calling: to know the Creator, protect life, uphold justice, respect property, build faithful families, reject cruelty and help civilization become worthy of its Maker.
The details differ, but the direction is shared. The prophets describe a future in which “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea.”[11] That future will not erase the distinction between Israel and the nations. It will reveal what those distinctions were meant to accomplish.
Perhaps this is why Torah begins not with Sinai, but with Bereishit. Before telling us what makes Israel distinct, it tells us what all humanity shares: one Creator, one human family, one world entrusted to our care, and one fundamental calling—not merely to live in G-d’s creation, but to help complete what He “created to make.”
When Jews and Bnei Noach each fulfill the mission G-d actually gave them, they do not stand in one another’s place. They stand together before the same Creator, sustaining and refining His one world.
Shabat Shalom.
Por el rabino Avriel Rabenou, Máster en Administración de Empresas (MBA)
Fuentes
1. Pirkei Avot 5:1; Bereishit Rabbah 1:1.
2. Bereishit 1:31 and 2:3; Bereishit Rabbah 11:6 and 12:6.
3. Likkutei Sichos, vol. 25, Bereishis, Sichah 3; vol. 30, Bereishis, Sichah 1.
4. Devarim 33:4; Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 59a; Rashi, Sanhedrin 59a, s.v.
5. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim uMilchamoteihem 10:9. והדיד תוצמ עבשב
6. Sefer HaChinuch, mitzvah 416; Ramban, Hasagot to Sefer HaMitzvot, Shoresh 14.
7. Rema MiPano, Asarah Maamarot, Maamar Chikur Din, part III, chapter 21. .
8. Letter of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, 19 Elul 5745/September 5, 1985, concerning Torah study by non-Jews.
9. Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon, introduction to the Talmud, printed at the beginning of Berachot in the Vilna Shas; Chovot HaLevavot, Shaar Avodat HaElokim, chapter 6.
10. Elchonon Isaacs, “The Faithful Innkeeper,” Chabad.org. 11. Yeshayahu 11:9.
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