The Seven Noahide Laws
Source: Noahide.com
To the Jewish people G-d gave the entire Torah [teaching] as their Law. They therefore have a special responsibility—with special commandments—to be the priesthood of the world, a “light unto the nations.”
What about the rest of the world? What is G-d’s will for them?
G-d gave Noah and all his descendants (B’nei Noach or “children of Noah”) seven commandments to obey. These seven universal laws (known as the “Seven Noahide Laws”) were reaffirmed with Moses and the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai in what is now known as the Oral Torah, establishing modern observance of these laws. These seven commandments (mitzvos), actually seven categories of hundreds of specific laws, are G-d’s will for all non-Jews.
Non-Jews who (1) reject all idolatrous ideas and accept the kingship of the One G-d, (2) accept the priesthood of the Jewish people as the guardians and teachers of Torah, and (3) commit to following the Seven Noahide Laws as revealed in the Oral Torah from Mt. Sinai are “Hasidic Gentiles” or “Noahides.” The term “Hasidic Gentile” is derived from a classic commentary by the Rambam, Rav Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides), in The Laws of Kings 8:11:
“Anyone who accepts upon himself the fulfillment of these Seven Mitzvos [commandments] and is precise in their observance is considered one of the hasidei umos ha’olam ["Hasidim of the nations of the world"] and will merit a share in the World to Come.”
The Seven Noahide Laws are the minimal observance for non-Jews. The source of these laws and the basis of their understanding is the Oral Torah, which G-d gave to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai along with His Written Law. By learning from the Jews and performing the mitzvos, non-Jews have a crucial role in G-d’s Creation.
The Seven Noahide Laws actually encompass numerous details and applications within hundreds of laws, each with specific applications. One should also keep in mind that these laws are only the minimal basis for a Hasidic gentile’s service to G-d, since there are many Jewish mitzvos that non-Jews are encouraged to adopt to accomplish more. Through these laws a gentile refines himself and the Creation as a whole, fulfilling his purpose for existence.
Visit Noahide.com’s sister site Hasidic University for a detailed listing of the Noahide Laws.
INTENSIFIED CHINESE PREPARATIONS TO SINK US AIRCRAFT CARRIERS
Source: StevenMCollins.com
Previous blogs at this site have documented Chinese preparations to sink the USA’s aircraft carriers in the opening hours of a future Chinese-American war. These preparations have included equipping new Chinese submarines (and perhaps other launch platforms) with new Russian supersonic cruise missiles, having Chinese subs stalk US carriers, etc. The Washington Times National Weekly Edition of May 12, 2008 has revealed another Chinese preparation to sink US carriers.
The link below details that China is deploying an advanced submarine monitoring system underneath the Pacific Ocean to track US submarines. The Chinese system will mimic a similar system already deployed in the Cold War period by the US Navy called the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS ) which monitored the locations of Russian subs in the world’s oceans. The Chinese realize that US attack submarines are deployed with each US aircraft carrier group to protect the carriers from enemy subs. By deploying their own SOSUS system, China hopes to be able to pinpoint where American subs are at the beginning of any conflict so they can destroy US subs and prevent them from protecting US carriers. China is also deploying a number of “over the horizon” radars along the Chinese coast to further locate all US Navy vessels. The article, By Bill Gertz, states that “The radar-sonar network provides the Chinese military with ‘constant air and sea coverage of the western Pacific for the first time, so they can keep a 24-7 trail on American naval assets for the first time.’”
Clearly, China is making every preparation it can for a future war against the USA. Given the numerous media articles about thefts of US military information by Chinese spies, many Chinese military advances are, no doubt, made possible by stolen US technology. Ezekiel 38’s warning that Russia, China, Iran and many other nations will form an alliance which will attack the nations of the modern western world in the latter days of our age is relentlessly heading for a certain fulfillment in the years ahead of us.
In the link below, Bill Gertz also writes that Taiwan, rightly concerned about the massive Communist Chinese military build-up, is seeking to obtain 66 advanced F-16 aircraft from the USA as well as 8 submarines and quantities of Patriot missiles and Apache attack helicopters. The US Defense Department supports the sale of this military equipment to Taiwan. However, the US State Department “wants the sale postponed in order to avoid upsetting China.” President Bush’s National Security Council staff is also reported to be shifting away from supporting Taiwan to “backing Beijing on most policy issues.” Given the historic US policy of supporting Taiwan in any attack on it by Communist China, the US State Department and the White House seem to be betraying Taiwan’s security interests. Why? I think the answer is obvious. The American government and the US economy are hopelessly addicted to profligate spending financed by foreign money, much of it from China (the nation which is openly preparing to wage war on the USA). Proverbs 22:7 states an eternal truth: “the borrower is servant to the lender.” This truth applies to nations as well as people and corporations. The US government increasingly has “servant” status to China because of its chronically self-destructive borrowing and fiscal policies.
It is entirely possible that China is blackmailing the USA re: Taiwan. It can quietly tell President Bush: “Either you stop helping Taiwan or we (A) sell your T-Bonds and T-bills on the open market, (B) refuse to loan you any more money, and (C) stop accepting US dollars in our oil transactions. That’s pretty powerful blackmail! Communist China has the “economic whip hand” over the USA now and it is not afraid to use it.
Bill Gertz also observes in the third item in the link below that in any US-Chinese war over Taiwan, “China’s key strategic goal [is] knocking out the five or more aircraft carrier strike groups that would be rushed to the region near Taiwan in any future conflict.” If the US loses five or more aircraft carrier battle groups in a war over Taiwan, the USA will cease to be a superpower and the US President at the time would likely be impeached for gross negligence in providing for US national defenses.
Let’s hope that the US Navy has advanced defensive weapons systems to defend its carriers against the new Russian/Chinese supersonic cruise missiles which will surely be fired in salvos at US carriers in any future war with China. Ezekiel 38 guarantees that such a war will occur. China is obviously making rapid preparations for it. The USA seems to be asleep to the growing danger. Ezekiel 38:11 also prophesies the nations of the western world will have neglected their defenses at the time this attack occurs. Biblical prophecy for the latter days is proving to be accurate in every detail, which means only a very real and living Creator God can be implementing those prophecies in world geopolitics.
Those desiring abundant evidence that the USA and many western nations are the “house of Israel” (identified as the targeted nations in Ezekiel 38-39) are referred to the author’s books at the book links at this website. Much free information is also available on this subject in the report entitled “What Ezekiel 38-39 Reveal about a Future World War III” (see Articles link at this website)
A Triumph of Life and Hope
Source: Boston Globe
THE BIRTH of the state of Israel 60 years ago this week was an astonishment. It is not unheard of for a nation to vanish from the map and later reappear. Poland, for example, was partitioned out of existence in 1795 and regained its independence in 1918. But the restoration of Israel was unlike anything the world had ever seen.
“And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.”
—Amos 9:14-15
Jews had been deprived of their homeland for nearly 2,000 years, ever since the Roman devastation of Judea in the first and second centuries A.D. That upheaval had been cataclysmic. By the time the fighting ended in 135, half of Judea’s population was dead. Of those who survived, hundreds of thousands were sold into slavery or expelled. Not until the Holocaust 18 centuries later would the Jewish people experience a more shattering catastrophe.
Yet through all the generations of dispersion that followed, the Jews never lost their self-awareness as a nation or their connection to the land of Israel. They expressed their longing for it in daily prayer and turned toward it when they worshiped. They collected charity to support the minority of Jews who had never left the land; and over the years others made their way back as well, often in response to Christian or Muslim persecution. By the 1860s, a majority of Jerusalem’s population was Jewish once more. Zionism – an organized movement to renew Jewish independence in the Jewish homeland – was formally launched in 1897. Five decades later, against steep odds and every historical precedent, Israel was reborn.
It was an incredible achievement, made even more incredible by the fact that it occurred in the wake of a genocide that had wiped out one-third of the Jewish people.
Within hours of declaring its independence, the newborn state of Israel, with a population of just 600,000, was invaded by five Arab armies. They were intent, in the words of Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League, on waging a “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.” The ovens of Treblinka and Auschwitz had barely cooled, and Jews were again being threatened with annihilation. Yet the fledgling state survived and thrived, a triumph of life and hope over the forces of hatred and death.
It was more than an astonishment; it was a miracle. For many, the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty after the blackness of the Holocaust thrillingly evoked Ezekiel’s vision in the valley of dry bones. “These bones are the whole house of Israel,” God had told the prophet. “They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off.’ ” But before Ezekiel’s eyes, the bones reassembled and the skeletons came back to life – and so, God said, will the vanquished and exiled Jews: “Behold, I will . . . raise you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.” To millions of Christians and Jews, the creation of modern Israel was nothing less than the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. That is part of the reason that a country so tiny – Israel is smaller than Lake Michigan – seems to loom so large.
Under siege since the day it was born, Israel has never known a day of true peace. It is the only nation in the world whose legitimacy is routinely called into question. It still has enemies who want it wiped off the map. Uniquely, the Jewish state came into being with the imprimatur of both the League of Nations and the United Nations. Yet time and again it is told it has no right to exist. Of course that is fatuous; few nations can present a birth certificate as storied as Israel’s. Nonetheless, Israel’s fundamental right to exist doesn’t derive from UN votes, or promises in the Bible, or its own Declaration of Independence.
For the right of statehood ultimately accrues only to those who can fashion and sustain a nation. “The land of Israel belongs to Israelis,” Yale’s David Gelernter wrote in 2002, “for the same reason America belongs to Americans: Because Israelis conceived and built it – and what you create is yours. If you want a homeland, you must create one. You drain swamps, lay out farms, build houses, schools, roads, hospitals . . .
“That’s how America got its homeland. And that is why Israel belongs to the Israelis.”
