Development of Civil Rights From Ancient Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

              Civil Rights are privileges and duties attached to the full membership of a state.   

In ancient Israel, such rights were limited to those known to belong by blood to a given tribe;  they consisted of rights to ownership of land and to the protection of the Torah as in the case of enslavement, which did not apply to non-Jews.  Twelve tribes were from the sons of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham.  They were:  Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin.  The date of an ancient Israel goes back at least to 1271 BCE.  That's 3,292 years ago.  Moses (1391 BCE-1271 BCE) gave the Israelites not only 10 commandments but 613 total of laws pertaining to the civil rights of all.  People and their cultures change drastically by a 25 year period, so one can imagine the change and learning for the ancient Israelites to today.       

They also involved participation in the cult and the discharge of religious duties.  In due course, the principle of blood was replaced by that of faith, insofar as proselytes also received such rights. 

 According to the biblical account, the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great was "God's anointed", having freed the Jews from Babylonian rule. After the conquest of Babylonia by the Persian Achaemenid Empire Cyrus granted all the Jews citizenship and by decree allowed the Jews to return to Israel (around 537 BCE).

By the late 2nd century BCE  the author of I Maccabees could claim that Jews had found their way not only to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau, but to the cities and principalities of Asia Minor, to the islands of the Aegean, to Greece itself, to Crete, Cyprus, and Cyrene.                                 

In the Greek and Roman world, civil rights were bound up with membership of a city;  individual Jews became citizens of Greek cities or obtained Roman citizenship, but Jews as such never held bloc rights in these bodies until the Edict of Caracalla, also called the "Constitution of Antoninus, or Antonine Constitution,  by Caracalla declaring that all free men in the Roman Empire were to be given full Roman citizenship  in 212 CE which gave citizenship to all free members of the Empire except those recently conquered.  People who had become subject to Rome through surrender in war were called the dediticii people, who were not citizens.  Wars and a change in the status of the land one was living in meant a possible loss of all civil rights.  

Roman citizens generally could vote and had rights and responsibilities under a "well administered system of criminal and civil law.” Men of both the upper and lower classes could be citizens. Women were citizens but couldn’t vote or hold office and had few rights. Slaves were not allowed to be citizens. During the Roman Republic government officials were elected by Roman citizens. During the Roman Empire many local government officials were elected by Roman citizens but not the Emperor and high level officials. There were different kinds of citizens, each with their own collection of rights and responsibilities.

On the other hand, outside Judea,  Jewish communities enjoyed, from the first, internal religious and juridical AUTONOMY.   With the triumph of Christianity in the 3rd and 4th centuries, Jews began to be excluded from full citizenship;  and had lost any civil rights.

During the Middle Ages, the prevailing status of Jews in Europe was that of royal dependents rather than free citizens, and their exclusion from the feudal pattern made their protection depend on being the direct property of a powerful person, or on their acquiring a charter from a sovereign or a city.  In other words, they had no civil rights.  

 Nevertheless, in some areas, Jews were regarded as citizens without active political rights, and Johannes Reuchlin (1455=1522), reformed Anglican, in 1514 was acquitted of heresy charges,  argued that the Jews were citizens of the Holy Roman Empire.  Evidently the case of the Empire wanting to burn and destroy all Jewish books had come up and he was a defender of the Jews and their rights.  The Middle Ages must have been very dark ones for Jews if their books were in danger.  Reuchlin was a German Hebraist.  At the suggestion of Pico della Mirandola,  he intensively studied Hebrew so  as to penetrate the secrets of the Kabbalah.  The works which he published in consequence are landmarks in the history of Hebrew study in Christian Europe.   

 In 1509, as a result of PFEFFERKORN'S (b: 1469) slanders, (Johannes Pfefferkorn was a German Catholic theologian and writer who converted from Judaism. Pfefferkorn actively preached against the Jews and attempted to destroy copies of the Talmud, and engaged in a long running pamphleteering battle with humanist Johann Reuchlin.)   Hebrew literature, especially the Talmud, was condemned to destruction by the emperor Maximilian.  Reuchlin wrote strenuously in its defense.  A long polemic ensued in the course of which Reuchlin  was bitterly assailed by the Dominicans under Jacob van Hoogstraaten of Cologne, Germany.  Reuchlin's intellectual triumph was unmistakable, although ultimately in 1520,

                                                
Pope Leo X (Pope Leo X was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in 1521. Born into the prominent political and banking Medici family of Florence, Italy,  Giovanni was the second son of Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of the Florentine Republic, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1489.) gave a formal verdict against him.  These polemics, in which the German reactionaries as a group were ranged against Reuchlin and the humanists,, proved to be the first skirmishes preceding the Reformation in Germany.                                                  

     One of the most violent moments in Reformation

The Reformation describes the great religious movement of the 16th century that divided western Christianity into the Catholic and Protestant camps.  Among the preliminary skirmishes which preceded the Reformation in Germany was the great dispute between Reuchlin and the "obscurantists" resulting from the Dominican onslaught on Hebrew literature.  Most of the early Reformers attached great importance to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and many of them studied Hebrew in order to understand it fully.  For this reason, their opponents often accused them of Judaizing, and Catholics suspected the Jews of actively fomenting the Reform movements.  This was wholly unjustified, although some Jews regarded the schism in the Church as fulfilment of prophecy and as a prelude to messianic days.                                          

                     Martin Luther, OSA was a German professor of theology, priest, author, composer, Augustinian monk, and a seminal figure in the Reformation. Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507. He came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church; in particular, he disputed the view on indulgences.  Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X on 3 January 1521

Tovia Singer, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, remarking about Luther's attitude toward Jews, put it thusly: "Among all the Church Fathers and Reformers, there was no mouth more vile, no tongue that uttered more vulgar curses against the Children of Israel than this founder of the Reformation."

"Luther wrote negatively about the Jews throughout his career. Though Luther rarely encountered Jews during his life, his attitudes reflected a theological and cultural tradition which saw Jews as a rejected people guilty of the murder of Christ, and he lived in a locality which had expelled Jews some ninety years earlier. He considered the Jews blasphemers and liars because they rejected the divinity of Jesus. In 1523, Luther advised kindness toward the Jews in That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew and also aimed to convert them to Christianity. When his efforts at conversion failed, he grew increasingly bitter toward them."  That's when he turned against all Jews.  

Martin Luther, though hoping at first that the Jews would be won over to Reformed Christianity, subsequently vented his disappointment by adopting a ferociously anti-Jewish attitude, and none of the Reformers was in any degree pro-Jewish.  Nevertheless, the suspicious of the Catholic Church against the Jews as fomenters of Reform were in part responsible for the stern measures adopted against them by the popes in the Counter-Reformation.  The Reformation otherwise had no immediate effect on the position of the Jews, many Protestant areas of Europe excluding them while Catholic regions continued to tolerate them.  It was only with the subsequent development of a mercantilistic outlook in Puritan England and Holland that a more tolerant attitude began to be manifest in the Protestant world.  

"Luther argues that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people", and refers to them with violent language. Citing Deuteronomy 13, wherein Moses commands the killing of idolaters and the burning of their cities and property as an offering to God, Luther calls for a "scharfe Barmherzigkeit" ("sharp mercy") against the Jews "to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames." Luther advocates setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "envenomed worms" would be forced into labour or expelled "for all time". In Robert Michael's view, Luther's words "We are at fault in not slaying them" amounted to a sanction for murder. "God's anger with them is so intense," Luther concludes, "that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!"  ^{His teachings were pure anti-Semitism.}  

On 18 April 1521, Luther appeared as ordered before the Diet of Worms. This was a general assembly of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a town on the Rhine.  Worms was also the home of many rabbis.  There are Ashkenazi Jews finding their roots coming from Worms or the nearby towns.  

The acquisition of Civil Rights by European and American Jews began in the late 18th century. simultaneously with the rise of responsible government and the conception of equality of all before the law.  The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that everyone in the United States has the right to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all.  Perhaps this proclamation is what attracted so many Jews in the world to the USA.  Our country's founders "created the First Amendment -- to guarantee the separation of church and state.  

       Tevia, from Fiddler on the Roof:  Background. Fiddler on the Roof is based on Tevye (or Tevye the Dairyman) and his Daughters, a series of stories by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 1914 about Jewish life in a village in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th century.  (shtetl in Poland, probably)

However, Luther's  teachings are still showing up and anti-Semitism is rampant throughout the world today,  and several large protestant churches hold onto his beliefs, not even recognizing it as being anti-Semitic as in the Jews are no longer the chosen, and that they have taken over that position.  It's the attitude behind this  that's  anti-Semitic.  Jews are put down, less than a citizen of their country.  Their church members  have risen above in their idea of a pecking order.   We had a hard enough time as it was when thought to be the chosen, let alone now falling from that position in their eyes.  Tevia, I know you asked G-d why "He" couldn't have chosen someone else, but remember, it was a position full of responsibilities; not that we were loved the most by G-d.  "He" could depend on us, we, the stiff necked people, in staying the line, in our belief.  

This fundamental freedom is a major reason why the U.S. has managed to avoid a lot of the religious conflicts that have torn so many other nations apart.   England's state religion in the days of Henry VIII was that of  Episcopal Protestantism, actually a branch off of the Catholic religion.    The UK's official religion is Christianity, and churches of all denominations can be found throughout the UK, such as Catholic, Protestant, Baptist and Methodist. The main other religions are Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism.                                               

Germany: 1930's Anti-Jewish legislation in pre-war Nazi Germany comprised several laws that segregated the Jews from German society and restricted Jewish people's political, legal and civil rights. Major legislative initiatives included a series of restrictive laws passed in 1933, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and a final wave of legislation preceding Germany's entry into World War II.

How they got away with it:  "The Enabling Act of 1933 established the power of the Nazi-led government to pass law by decree, bypassing the approval of parliament. It was passed on March 24, 1933, and effectively nullified the Weimar Constitution."  Notice, they messed with their ccnstitution.  

                                                                           

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were created in response to Hitler's demands for broadened citizenship laws that could "underpin the more specifically racial-biological anti-Jewish legislation". They were made to reflect the party principles that had been outlined in the points Hitler had written in the National Socialist Program in 1920.

One was: The Nazi Party had always promised that, if they came to power, only racially pure Germans would be allowed to hold German citizenship. The Reich Citizenship Law made this a reality. This law defined a citizen as a person who is “of German or related blood.” This meant that Jews, defined as a separate race, could not be full citizens of Germany. They had no political rights. 

"The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor was a law against what the Nazis viewed as race-mixing or “race defilement” (“Rassenschande”). It banned future intermarriages and sexual relations between Jews and people “of German or related blood.” The Nazis believed that such relationships were dangerous because they led to “mixed race” children. According to the Nazis, these children and their descendants undermined the purity of the German race. 

Another was: According to the Nuremberg Laws, a person with three or four Jewish grandparents was a Jew. A grandparent was considered Jewish if they belonged to the Jewish religious community. Thus, the Nazis defined Jews by their religion (Judaism), and not by the supposed racial traits that Nazism attributed to Jews. 

According to the Nuremberg Laws, a person with three or four Jewish grandparents was a Jew. A grandparent was considered Jewish if they belonged to the Jewish religious community. Thus, the Nazis defined Jews by their religion (Judaism), and not by the supposed racial traits that Nazism attributed to Jews. 

The laws also categorized some people in Germany as “Mischlinge” (“mixed-race persons”). According to law, Mischlinge were neither German nor Jewish. These were people who had one or two Jewish grandparents.

The Nazi regime required individuals to prove their grandparents’ racial identities. To do so, people used religious records. These included baptism records, Jewish community records, and gravestones. 

                                                                       

Riots : Kristallnacht, "THE NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS" on November 9th and 10th, 1938 showed that Jews had no civil rights whatsoever.  Not only Jewish shops, but almost all the synagogues in Germany were destroyed.  There were wholesale arrests of Jews, and the imposition of a confiscatory levy, ended the life of Jews in Germany.  Emigration was limited.  My uncle, Werner Oster, may have been one of the last to get out in May of 1939.  WWII started in September 1939.  The population of Jews in Germany in 1938 was 540, 000.  By September 1939, it was cut in half to 270,000.  By 1942, no Jews remained.  They were all shipped out to centers where they were killed.  

In September 1952, a REPARATIONS AGREEMENT was signed with West Germany.  They paid $822 million to the Jewish people for what the Nazis had done.  East Germany refused.  In 1965, diplomatic relations were established between Israel and West Germany.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Pfefferkorn

Price, David H. "‘Whether to Confiscate, Burn and Destroy All Jewish Books’: Johannes Reuchlin and the Jewish Book Controversy." Censorship Moments: Reading Texts in the History of Censorship and Freedom of Expression. Ed. Geoff Kemp. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 47–54. Textual Moments in the History of Political Thought. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne

https://www.aclu.org/other/your-right-religious-freedom#:~:text=The%20First%20Amendment%20to%20the,or%20no%20religion%20at%20all.

https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/moving-uk/student-life/religion#:~:text=The%20UK's%20official%20religion%20is,%2C%20Sikhism%2C%20Judaism%20and%20Buddhism.

https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub408/entry-6348.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-race-laws

 

Our Purpose For Being Jewish: This Light For Nations

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

I've been asked to explain in depth our purpose for being Jewish.  We are not G-d's favorite people;  we were chosen by G-d, the chosen ones, to perform a task throughout our life, and what was that?  

1. The major purpose was to bring monotheism to the world-to believe in one G-d.  

We evidently did bring it to many.  We were the first monotheistic religion in the world.  Christianity and Islam actually grew out of Judaism.  Jesus (Joshua) was told to be a Jew teaching Judaism but updating it. It's said that he lived with the Essenes in caves for a period.   He lived at the turn of the century, dying in about 29 CE.  It was a time of Roman occupation in Jerusalem since 4 BCE which was 10 years past King Herod's death, as the city and Temple would be destroyed by them in 70 CE.  Jews were being hung up on crosses by the thousands.  

Later, Mohammad lived from 570 to 632 CE.  He came from Mecca but lived in Medina,  a place where Jews (people of the book) also lived who used to sit outside their tents reading the Torah out loud.  There were three main Jewish tribes in Medina before the rise of Islam in Arabia: the Banu Nadir, the Banu Qainuqa, and the Banu Qurayza.   He would pass by and listen.  He did not read or write, but decided that his people should also be a people of a book, and set about to dictate his thoughts to a scribe.  He told the biblical stories, often changing them according to his memory or to suit his cause.  He was considered a prophet by his people as he claimed that the angel, Gabriel, gave him information for his book, the Koran.  Banu Nadir was hostile to Muhammad's new religion. Other Jewish tribes lived relatively peacefully under Muslim rule. 

The first thing a Jew might hear and learn is from Deut.6:4, "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our G0d, the Lord is One." This is the main theme of Judaism-one indivisible G-d by whose will the universe and all that is in it was created.  It was a radical departure from polytheism and idolatry that permeated throughout the world at the time of Abraham and his grandson, Moses.  It was Moses who seemed to act as a radio receiver, being told what to do and say by G-d.  Though Moses was born a Jew, he had been raised as an Egyptian,, possibly an Egyptian with doubts.  He reacted differently than any true Egyptian of that day when he saw an overseer beating a Jewish slave and in trying to stop him, wound up killing him.  At that he had to flee, as even a prince of Egypt could not do that, so fled to the outskirts, the countryside, so to speak, and lived there until age 80, when he returned to release the slaves from bondage. 

Believing the bull was a god led to human sacrifice...hard to believe today. 

Why is this so important?  If you believe in 2 gods it's destroying the belief of one source , you can then start believing in 3 gods, and you're right back to square one.  That brought about appeasing all your gods and doing things that were abominable.  This is what Moses experienced when he left Aaron to climb Mt. Sinai.  The people got tired of waiting for him to return and made a golden calf and danced around it like crazy people. According to the Bible, the golden calf (עֵגֶּל הַזָהָב 'ēggel hazāhāv) was an idol (a cult image) made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as ḥēṭ' ha'ēggel (חֵטְא הַעֵגֶּל) or the Sin of the Calf. It is first mentioned in Exodus 32:4. 

2. Another purpose was to be the light of nations, to teach what we have learned.   What kind of light are we to spread out?  Knowledge; education, a way of life that was different than what they were living.  We're used as the example to spread G-d's message to men and to give guidance for the future;.  This has been done through the prophets.  

People were living as polytheists, believing in many G-ds and doing abominable things because of this.  How is it best to wean them away from such a life?   how to act, how to react as a good person.  We are to be kind.  Kindness (hessed) must be developed.  Jewish daily way of life must speak of kindness because we believe that Jewish religious faith and observance aims, above all, to achieve a perfection of the human relationship and to create a better society.  It has to work against the odds of a person's emotions of anger, getting even, envy, etc.  

A religious Jew tries to bring holiness into everything they do, by doing it as an act that praises God, and honours everything God has done. For such a person the whole of their life becomes an act of worship.  We are to be a holy people.  What does that mean?  it means :dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred.  "the Holy Bible.  "Because Jews have made a bargain with God to keep his laws, keeping that bargain and doing things in the way that pleases God is an act of worship.

3. Another purpose of Jews is to learn to live a better way of life, and that is found in the Torah, which is the 5 Books of Moses, the writings he did during the 40 years Exodus.   

The goal of Jewish life is to embody Torah, the living word of the living God addressed to all creation through the life and experience of Am Yisrael, the Jewish people. This Jewish insight teaches us that as Jews we have the opportunity to take the wisdom of our tradition and make it real in the world in which we live. What we say and what we do is consequential. By making the spiritual and ethical insights of our Torah the foundation of our lives, we transcend our human limits. We connect ourselves to God, and can join our people’s prophets, priests, kings, heroes and sages as one of those who live and teach Torah. 

Our lives are our teaching. How we live and what we do reveal who we are and who we want to become. When we, as Jews, strive to make the Torah real in our lives, we partake of a living tradition. We become part of a human community dispersed over time and space whose struggles with life’s issues give us the wisdom and insights we need in our lives. We join our own life experience with theirs as we take their teachings and transform them into our own. This becomes our own personal commentary on the Torah and is the heart of our legacy to those who follow us.

We are to have 3 characteristics:   to be merciful, modest and kind.  So, we are to do mitzvot;   perform deeds of kindness.  All who possess these 3 characteristics are  worthy people.                                                 

                                           Helping an injured bird
  The concept of kindness (hesed) includes all forms of kindness shown by a person whenever he exerts himself on behalf of another.  To refuse "all such services as one may render a neighbor without himself suffering detriment" is worthy of Sodom, as in Sodom and Gomorrah.  But even when to serve other people may result to our inconvenience or to the injury of our interests, we are commanded in every page of the Scriptures and in Talmudical works to exercise humanity and show love for our fellow mortals.                            

The Torah teaches us, "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  (Lev 19:18).   It is a religious duty (mitzvah) to extend the hospitality of one's home for food and lodging as the need arises.  it is a religious duty (mitzvah) to visit a person who is taken ill.  Friends or family who regularly see the sick person should visit him as soon as possible upon hearing of the illness.  Others should wait a period of at least 3 days.,  etc.  

                                                   

The Cantor leading the prayers, sings them.  He is the lead singer in the synagogue.  He leads the congregation.

The 10 Commandments are laws to follow in order to live the better life, which betters all of us.  Follow this and you are covering all the goals of Judaism.                                                           

I would start by saying that the first event brought to our attention would be to expand on the Ten Commandments that G-d presented to us.  By the end of our famous Exodus from Egypt to Canaan, we were given 613 precepts (mitzvot de-orayta) besides commandments decreed.   We are to do a mitzvah, or many are  mitzvot.  This is any good or charitable deed.  

The very essence of Judaism rests upon the acceptance of a spiritual-historical event in which our ancestors participated as a group, as well as upon acceptance of subsequent spiritual revelations to the Prophets of Israel.  Receiving these 10 Commandments at Mount Sinai 7 weeks following the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt was a most traumatic event. As the light of nations, we are to share these with others.  Of course the first step is to be putting them into our practice.  

 The 1st ten were most important.  We expect of all people other than Jews to follow 7 of them which are called the Noahide Laws. (scan down for them) The ten are given to us in 2 places;  Exod 20:2-14, and repeated with slight variations in Deut. 5:6-18.  The main difference between the 2 versions concerns the law of the Sabbath which in Exod is motivated by G-d's resting on the 7th day of creation, while in Deut. the reason given is the deliverance from Egypt.                                                      

 The division into 10 Commandments is not apparent in the Hebrew original and the Christian tradition regarding this differs slightly at the outset from the Jewish (maintaining that the 1st verse is not a commandment and dividing into two either the 2nd or 10th commandment.  According to Jewish tradition, the 1st 5 commandments describe man's duties to G-d, the latter 5 his responsibilities to his fellow-man.  

1.  BELIEF IN G-D-- I am HaShem, your G-d, Who as taken you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. This is the positive commandment to believe in the existence of HaShem as the only G-d.  (Remember, people at this time believed in many gods, one for every aspect of life) (They made gods-idols) (They had no reason not to believe this way).  The Israelites were given a reason passed down to them from Abraham, but their lives were all touched by polytheism.) 

2. PROHIBITION OF IDOLATRY--You shall not recognize the gods of others in My presence. You shall not make yourself a carved image nor any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the water beneath the earth. You shall not prostrate yourself to them nor worship them, for I am HaShem, your G-d-Who visits the sin of fathers upon children to the 3rd and 4th generations, for My enemies; but Who shows kindness for thousands of generations to those who love Me and observe My commandments.  

3. PROHIBITION OF VAIN OATHS--You shall not take the Name of Hashem , your G-d, in vain, for HaShem will not absolve anyone who takes His name in vain. Just as it is forbidden to show contempt for G-d by making an idol, so it is forbidden to disgrace His Name by using it for no valid purpose.

4. THE SABBATH-- This day serves as a constant reminder that G-d is the Creator, Who created for 6 days and rested on the 7th, Sabbath observance bears testimony to this concept.  This includes not only deed but attitude, for when the Sabbath arrives, one should feel that all his work is finished, even though his desk or workbench is still piled high.  Six days shall you work and accomplish all your work means that no matter what is still left to be done, one should feel as much at ease as if everything was finished.(Rashi comment).

5. HONORING PARENTS-- When people honor their parents, G-d regards it as if they honor Him.  Last commandment in honoring G-d, which shows a revealing light on the significance G-d attached to the honor He wants to show parents.  

6. PROHIBITION AGAINST MURDER--Showing faith in G-d.   someone with true belief in G-d as the Creator and Sustainer of human life will not commit murder.  This corresponds to the 1st commandment.  

7. PROHIBITION AGAINST ADULTERY--The term refers only to cohabitation with a married woman, which is a capital offense.  It is parallel to the 2nd commandment, which forbids idolatry, for  someone who betrays the marital relationship can be expected to betray G0d.   

8. PROHIBITION AGAINST KIDNAPPING--"Stealing" refers to kidnaping.  A kidnaper who forces his victim to work for him and then sells him into slavery is liable to the death penalty.  The commandment against ordinary theft is found in Leviticus 9:11.  Stealing is compared to the 3rd commandment because one who steals my well seek to cover his tracks by swearing falsely.

9. PROHIBITION AGAINST BEARING FALSE WITNESS-- In addition to its literal meaning, this passage prohibits gossip and slander.  

10. PROHIBITION AGAISNT COVETING--Only a Divine Lawgiver could have decreed.  A mortal ruler can legislate against murder and theft, but only G-d can demand that people sanctify their thoughts and attitudes to the point where they purge themselves of such natural tendencies as jealousy  and covetousness. 

Evidently not all people accept the 10 Commandments which seem so obvious to many of us today to be good rules of behaviors.  One wonders if 7 of them would be acceptable and not offensive to some.  There was a time in the USA where some of our 10 Commandments were observed as a law in this country but not anymore.  An example:  

1. "Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain: As with the first two Commandments, this is a purely religious requirement that is not expressed in American law anymore. There was a time when blasphemy was punished. If it were still possible to prosecute people for blasphemy (a common, but not necessarily accurate, interpretation of this Commandment), it would be an infringement on religious liberty." 

Chabad, our teachers in Judaism, present 7 Noahide laws.  What Are the Seven Noahide Laws?  The 7 Noahide Laws are rules that all of us must keep, regardless of who we are or from where we come. Without these seven things, it would be impossible for humanity to live together in harmony.

1. Do not profane G‑d’s Oneness in any way.
   Acknowledge that there is a single G‑d who cares about what we are doing and desires that we take care of His world.
2. Do not curse your Creator.
   No matter how angry you may be, do not take it out verbally against your Creator.
3. Do not murder.
   The value of human life cannot be measured. To destroy a single human life is to destroy the entire world—because, for that person, the world has ceased to exist. It follows that by sustaining a single human life, you are sustaining an entire universe.
4. Do not eat a limb of a living animal.
   Respect the life of all G‑d’s creatures. As intelligent beings, we have a duty not to cause undue pain to other creatures.
5. Do not steal.
   Whatever benefits you receive in this world, make sure that none of them are at the unfair expense of someone else.
6. Harness and channel the human libido.
   Incest, adultery, rape and homosexual relations are forbidden.
   The family unit is the foundation of human society. Sexuality is the fountain of life and so nothing is more holy than the sexual act. So, too, when abused, nothing can be more debasing and destructive to the human being.
7. Establish courts of law and ensure justice in our world.
   With every small act of justice, we are restoring harmony to our world, synchronizing it with a supernal order. That is why we must keep the laws established by our government for the country’s stability and harmony.

These laws were communicated by G‑d to Adam and Noah, ancestors of all human beings. That is what makes these rules universal, for all times, places and people:                                                     

    The entire people saw the thunder and the flames, the sound of the shofar and the smoking mountain;  the people saw and trembled and stood from afar.  They said to Moses, "You speak to us and we shall hear;  let G-d not speak to us lest we die."  Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for in order to elevate you has g-d come;  so that awe of Him shall be upon your faces, so that you shall not sin."...  It's possible that such an event has been indelible in our genes.  So many things are found in our genes these days.  A lengthy period of fasting of our grandparents shows up in our genes with our behavior such as weight gain, etc.                                               

The Torah shows us how to live a better life.  It also has directives for all men.  It is concerned with every aspect of human life.

We were given the Torah (1st 5 books of Moses) (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) through Moses.  Whether Written or Oral, it is the teaching that directs man how to live.  Although it speaks primarily to Israel,   ritual law, generally thought of as "religious observances," are only part of the total complex of commandments.   This Torah covers the entire range of human and social behavior.  It asserts its jurisdiction in areas of behavior which in other religions are generally thought of as belonging to the ethical or moral domains or to the jurisdiction of secular civil and criminal codes of law.  Even its no-legal and non-statutory sections stress spiritual truths and convey insight into the still finer extra-legal ethical and moral norms of behavior.  Torah is the embodiment of the Jewish faith.  It contains the terms of his Covenant with G-d.  It is what makes a Jew a Jew.                                          

The Talmud also is full of excellent examples on how to live and be a better person.  

The Talmud tells the story of a proselyte who came to the great sage, Hillel, in the 1st century BCE and asked to be taught the whole Torah quickly, in the time that he could remain standing on one foot.  Instead of losing his temper at this impossibly presumptuous request, Hillel showed great patience and understanding.  He answered by saying:  "What is hateful to you, do not do to others.  This is the whole Torah, the rest is its commentary.  go and study it."  Hillel had a way of explalning commandments.   "and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. 19:18.  This had been his way of doing it.  This stands as the capsule summary of Judaism along with the go and study part.  

By searching for reasons of obeying such laws, we have felt that the thinking about it and searching is raising us spiritually.  We are drawing closer to the Mind of the Divine in trying to understand a deep meaning. We are to be a holy people.  Why?  This purpose of holiness permeates all of Jewish religious law, and encompasses every aspect of human concern and experience.                                                 

    A prophet took on the job of keeping his fellow Jews on task with their purpose  in life.  

Moses was a prophet, somebody who was designated by G-d to convey His message to men and to give guidance for the future.  There were other prophets as well.  The Hebrew implicitly believe that they had been chosen by G-d who had sent them prophets to point out the right path.  A prophet was primarily the protagonist of monotheism and morality, and fulfilled a decisive role in their life and development alongside the Priest and the sage.                                                    

1.  Jeremiah 1:10.  Jeremiah lived in the 7th-6th cents BCE.  He was a Cohen from a priestly family of Anathoth near Jerusalem.  These were the days of  King Josiah of Judah .  It's a period of people following others in  burning incense to the gods of others and prostrating themselves to their own handiwork.  רְאֵה הִפְקַדְתִּיךָ הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה עַל־הַגּוֹיִם וְעַל־הַמַּמְלָכוֹת לִנְתוֹשׁ וְלִנְתוֹץ וּלְהַאֲבִיד וְלַהֲרוֹס לִבְנוֹת וְלִנְטוֹעַ׃ (פ)  See, I appoint you this day Over nations and kingdoms: To uproot and to pull down, To destroy and to overthrow, To build and to plant.  Jeremiah recognized that the continuation of Judaism required an active effort to abandon certain elements of tradition that were standing in the way of the continued health of the community and to create new approaches in their place.  In essence, this might have started the Reform Movement.                                                                          

2. 

Jews have always regarded themselves as the members of a unique group with each individual member sharing the common destiny.  They remained a nation even during the centuries of exile.  In biblical times, the Jews regarded themselves as a group possessed of a national individuality differing from that of its neighbors.  Indeed they were, as they were to be the light of the nations, to be this service for others.  They carried a heavy responsibility.  For doing so, they have suffered greatly from the very  aspects of life that others wouldn't work on, such as COVETING.  Coveting has led to innumerable wars between nations, wanting other people's property.  JEALOUSY is another.                                               

Our place in the world, wrote Herman Wouk, author of THIS IS MY GOD, depends on what we contribute to mankind.  We have contributed our Torah, the Mosaic vision of G-d, of right conduct, and of first and last things.  It is our life, and the length of our days.  As we keep that flame burning, it seems to me, we earn our right to survive as a people before G-d and men.   

Watch this on youtube.  The Mystery of the Jews: Who are the Jews? What impact have they had on the world? A powerful short film that reveals the real story behind "The Mystery of the Jews". With remarkable insights by renowned historians, world leaders and perceptive authors. "The Mystery of the Jews" challenges the normative conception of human history.   https://www.simpletoremember.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiAm-2BBhANEiwAe7eyFHUYtdhni8L_MTkXSqaBvHoJznhWZ97IGzduDajiXy0ftOk_1QO9fBoCnzcQAvD_BwE#.YDvyHmhKiUk 

Revised with editing suggestions from son Steve Henwood 7:00pm.  2/28/21

Resource:

To Be a Jew,  by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin

Tanakh (Bible) The Stone Edition

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.learnreligions.com/ten-commandments-basis-for-american-law-250894

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/beliefs/beliefs_1.shtml#:~:text=Judaism%20means%20living%20the%20faith&text=A%20religious%20Jew%20tries%20to,becomes%20an%20act%20of%20worship.

https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/goal-life

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