Rabbi Oury Cherki
Rediscovering Noahism: A Universal Moral Path Out of the Civilizational Dead End
Published in Journal of the Sociology and Theory of Religion, Elul 5786 (August 2026)
1. Introduction
From its origins, the Hebrew tradition has considered its relationship with the rest of humanity, that is, with virtually all of humankind. Unlike other traditions, Judaism has resisted the temptation of cultural or political imperialism, recognizing the status of "son of Noah" (Ben Noach) for non-Jews who observe the seven commandments intended for civilized humanity, which represent the minimum foundations of universal morality. The Ben Noach, faithful to the law of Noahism, becomes an interlocutor within Judaism, from which they can draw inspiration for their own spiritual journey.
The current state of humanity is a heterogeneous mix of two trends: on the one hand, a rise in atheism, and on the other, a renewed interest in spiritualities, whether religious or mystical. Paradoxically, Noahism could constitute a common ground for these two paths. Indeed, the Noahide Law contains no positive theology, but only the rejection of idolatry. Similarly, the nature of religious feeling in the Noahide is not defined by dogma. It is within his own inner life, or within that of his civilization, that the Noahide discovers the elements of his religious life.
2. The Relevance of Noahism Today
The question we shall address is the present relevance - and I believe this is what has concerned many of the speakers - of Israel’s universal message, or what is known in the tradition as Noahism or Noahidism (Novak 2011, 1–24). I would like to take as my starting point a reflection by Henri Bergson. Although he was of Jewish origin, Bergson felt that Judaism was inferior to Christianity and asserted that Judaism had been superseded by Christianity (Bergson 1935). His reason was simply that Judaism speaks of a God who is concerned only with His own people, whereas Christianity supposedly expanded the concept of divinity to encompass the universal - to include humanity as a whole.
One cannot help being surprised by such an absurd statement in the discourse of so eminent a figure as Henri Bergson, especially since one does not have to look very far to find universalism in Judaism. One need only consider the Torah’s account of the creation of the world and of humanity as the introduction to the history of Israel. Even the idea of a chosen people (Berlin and Brettler 2014, Deut. 7:6; 14:2) presupposes the existence of a humanity from which that people is chosen; humanity is therefore essential to the very definition of Israel. Furthermore, it is enough to read the Book of Jonah in the Bible, which concerns a prophet who is concerned with the salvation of a distant nation that is an enemy of Israel, or the teaching of Hillel the Elder that one must be a disciple of Aaron, ohev et habriyot - one who loves all creatures (Danby 1933, Avot 1:12), whoever they may be - or the teaching of Rabbi Akiva, the great master who said: “Chaviv adam she-nivra be-tzelem” - human beings are precious because they were created in the image of God (Danby 1933, Avot 3:14).
By contrast, when one speaks of Christian universalism, questions may be raised, given that outside the Church there is no salvation (Catholic Church 1997, para. 846). Who, then, represents the universal and who represents the particular? How could such words have been spoken by a philosopher of Bergson’s stature?
It seems to me that the reason is that, as a matter of fact, he was right. In Bergson’s time, Israel had no tangible universal activity, for several reasons. The first was persecution. Centuries of persecution had accumulated over our heads, with the result that we could not concern ourselves with others. We were preoccupied with our immediate survival.
The second factor was that, following their emancipation, Jews became concerned with disappearing into the surrounding environment through assimilation at various levels. When one is occupied with avoiding attention, one likewise has no time to concern oneself with others.
A third factor has also emerged in contemporary modernity: Israelism, represented by an emblematic figure, the Israeli writer A. B. Yehoshua, who wrote a book very well known in Israel, Bizkhut ha-Normaliyut - In Praise of Normality (Yehoshua 1980). His fundamental thesis was that the Jewish people are an abnormal people because they live in exile, and that leaving exile means returning to normality; to be normal means to be secular and to concern oneself with oneself. I once participated in a panel discussion with A. B. Yehoshua. After presenting his thesis of normality, he pointed at me and said, “He is not normal; he wants to save the world.”
Well, if that is the price one must pay for not being normal, I think it is a very noble one.
We shall pass quickly over an idea that since the Tower of Babel, Israel has indeed had a universal mission, arising from the failure of the Tower of Babel’s attempt to impose uniformity on civilization. This failure introduced the figure of Abraham.
Abraham was told: “You shall go to a land; you shall found a nation.” A land and a nation together mean a state. This therefore means that Abraham’s mission was, first and foremost, a political mission, one that was to be realized through politics and through the establishment of a state. Its result was to be venivrekhu bekha kol mishpechot ha-adamah: “Through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Berlin and Brettler 2014, Gen. 12:3). That is the customary translation.
The difficulty is that in Hebrew, “shall be blessed” would normally be vehitbarekhu, as we find much later, in Chapter 22 of Genesis: vehitbarekhu be-zar’akha kol goyei ha-aretz - “Through your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” Here, however, the term used by the Torah is venivrekhu, which may properly be rendered in English as “all the families of the earth shall be propagated through layering in you.”
Winegrowers know that when vines are cultivated, there is an operation called “layering.” It consists of taking a vine shoot - one of the vine’s relatively flexible branches - and burying it. Roots then grow from that branch and produce a new vine. If we apply this biblical image, Abraham would therefore be the soil in which all the vines of the world are joined together to produce a new vineyard.
As Rabbi Leon Ashkenazi (Manitou) used to say, when we recite asher bachar banu mikol ha-amim - “who has chosen us from among all the peoples” - this means that God took something from each people in order to form the identity of Israel (Cherqui 2018, 228–29). Israel’s identity was therefore universal from the very beginning.
Universality, however, is a project rather than an established fact.
There is a well-known verse that we are accustomed not to understanding properly: Shema Yisrael, Hashem Eloheinu, Hashem Echad, which is translated as “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Berlin and Brettler 2014, Deut. 6:4; Rashi 1934, commentary on Deut. 6:4). This translation suggests that the verse is a monotheistic declaration.
One may therefore be surprised by the interpretation of the classical Jewish commentator Rashi (1040-1105): “The Lord, who is our God, but is not the God of the nations.” If God is not the God of the nations, this would seem to mean that they have other gods. But Rashi continues: “One day, however, He will be the God of everyone.”
This means that the Shema Yisrael, recited devoutly by the children of Israel morning and evening, implies a project involving a historical dynamic. The history of Israel begins with a God known only by His own people, but with a universal project.
This project is not realized at the individual level, as proposed by the monotheistic religions. The monotheistic religions propose the sanctification of individual life through faith or actions, each religion according to its own particular choices. What is at issue here, however, is a collective project that preserves the possibility of sanctifying the political realm.
One of the leaders of the Japanese Makuya movement explained to me that he expected the Jewish people to teach him how to sanctify Japan - not the Japanese as individuals, but Japan as a society. He asked me a simple question, one that has been asked several times here: “Very well, you have returned, but why? It must be because you have something to tell us.”
We are often tempted - I am referring, for example, to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Israeli institutions - to believe that we must explain to the nations that we are normal, that we are like them. We invented cherry tomatoes and the DiskOnKey; we have homosexuals like everyone else; we have a very beautiful tourist city that you should see, and when you visit Tel Aviv, you should also go to Jerusalem because it is interesting.
We do not always realize that when we say such things, we profoundly offend the collective subconscious of the nations, which expects an authentic message from us.
This message exists in the tradition of Israel. It is called Noahism.
3. The principles of Noahism
Within the rabbinic and Talmudic tradition, there is an entire dimension of the Torah that exists in literature but has not been applied in practice: the doctrine of Noahism, meaning the laws of the descendants of Noah. These laws are usually reduced to a list of seven fundamental commandments.
In fact, the seven fundamental commandments are merely the entry card into Noahism. Noahism in its full scope is an extremely broad doctrine that is undergoing continual development.
Among the seven Noahide laws, one is particularly important: the seventh, which concerns the establishment of courts among the descendants of Noah. To have a court, however, one must have a state. Only the state has the right to judge and impose sanctions. This means that, from the outset, the model proposed by the tradition of Israel is a model concerning the state.
Several centuries ago, Benedict Spinoza, a Jew from Amsterdam asserted in the Theological-Political Treatise that the Torah’s commandments do not apply in the land of exile (Spinoza 2007, 70–72). Anyone who reads the Torah objectively will realize that it constitutes the political constitution of the Hebrew people in their own land.
Spinoza was correct in principle. This was already an idea of the Tannaim, as expressed in Sifre Ekev (Hammer 1986, Sifre Deuteronomy 43), with the qualification that the mitzvot (commandments) remain obligatory even in exile for reasons that lie outside the scope of our subject.
The fact remains that the mitzvot are the political constitution of the people of Israel. They are the fruit of God’s covenant with a nation organized around a political project.
This is indeed what the nations expect from us. The prophet Zechariah says: “Many nations shall attach themselves to the Lord on that day and shall become a people for Me” (Zechariah 2:15) - an expression somewhat unusual to Jewish consciousness.
We are accustomed to being the only people of God, and suddenly we discover that we are not alone. There will be other peoples who will one day become peoples of God. For the time being, Israel is the only people that has succeeded in becoming such a people, but we must serve as a model for export.
This model must, of course, be modified and adapted to each civilization according to its particular sensitivities. This means that a day will come when we shall have to establish joint commissions composed of the masters of Israel and representatives of the various civilizations. These commissions would examine the appropriate methods for applying Israel’s message to each civilization in accordance with its own character.
I would like to give a very ordinary example that nevertheless has some significance. Noahides - that is, non-Jews who accept the truth of the Torah but do not wish to convert - asked me: “At what age does a gentile become bar mitzvah?” In other words, from what age is a person responsible before the law?
Obviously, the answer is not the same for Noahides in the Philippines as it is for those in Canada. I told the Noahides in the Philippines that the age was twelve, for the simple reason that at the age of twelve in the Philippines - particularly in the region concerned - a person is already helping to feed his family and is responsible for his place in society. I told the Canadians that they became bar mitzvah at seventeen because they are the spoiled children of Western civilization.
In the Rosh Hashanah prayer, we say: “May they all form a single band, agudah achat, in order to fulfil Your will with a perfect heart” (Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch 2020).
Rabbi David HaCohen of Jerusalem - the Nazir - said that an agudah achat already exists. There is already an organization that brings the nations together: the United Nations. La’asot retzonekha - “in order to fulfil Your will.” It exists in order to fulfil Your will.
What the divine will expects humanity to do is to establish peace, and that is indeed the purpose of this organization. But this is not done “with a perfect heart,” and consequently violence continues on earth.
The solution would be to establish a kind of international committee of nations in Jerusalem. This is why the prayer continues: “May You alone reign on Mount Zion… so that the entire world may recognize Your sovereignty.”
There is therefore a project that concerns human communities. This project is also redemptive. In what sense?
To explain this, I would like to cite a passage from the Talmudic Tractate Bava Kamma concerning the Noahide laws. The Talmud states, rather surprisingly, that the Noahide laws were abolished. Why? Because humanity failed to observe the Noahide laws and was therefore exempted from them.
The Talmud immediately objects, because this would mean that the sinner had gained an advantage. It therefore answers that the nations must nevertheless observe these laws, but that they are not rewarded for their actions: they do not receive the reward associated with observing these laws.
Once again, the Talmud objects. How can someone who behaves properly receive no reward? It answers that such a person does receive a reward, but only the reward of someone who performs an action that he is not obligated to perform - a voluntary action. A voluntary act is regarded as inferior to the fulfilment of a mitzvah, a commandment.
One of Manitou’s teachings was that, throughout history, the nations sought to abolish the mitzvot. This occurred with the foundation of Christianity, particularly in Pauline Christianity, which asserted that the mitzvot had been abolished because they were harmful.
If I am required to observe 613 commandments, that means I am also capable of committing 613 transgressions. If I commit sins, I shall be condemned and damned by the Creator. The idea that one can make amends through repentance is not fully integrated into Christianity, and it is therefore preferable to abolish the mitzvot.
This does not mean that one should not behave morally. Paul, the founder of Christianity, said: “Everything is permitted, but not everything is beneficial” (Coogan et al. 2010, 1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23). This means that the law remains in force, not as law but as voluntary conduct.
If I behave morally, I thereby acquire human, ethical, and moral fulfilment, but I do not establish contact with transcendence.
This is the central issue of the seven mitzvot of the descendants of Noah. When a non-Jew appears before a court of three rabbis to declare officially that he accepts Noahide law, he re-enters the status of metzuveh ve-oseh - one who is commanded and acts - and thereby enters into a relationship with transcendence when fulfilling the commandments.
This is indeed what we have been doing for several years through the organization Brit Olam (Brit Olam-Noahide World Center n.d.). We have a kind of rabbinical court in which we officially receive members of the nations who come to make their declaration of acceptance of the Noahide laws.
As we have already observed, however, all this is currently taking place only at the individual level. In truth, the organization that I direct is of no use. It should be replaced by a discourse addressed by the leaders of Israel to the leaders of the nations.
For the time being, however, we have not yet reached that point, and so I currently perform this work at the individual level.
This does not mean that there is no significant expectation among the nations. This work is not missionary work, because the initiative does not come from us; it comes from the gentiles. Approximately every two or three weeks, we receive requests from members of the nations asking us to explain what we expect of them.
As part of this phenomenon, I’ve traveled, e.g., to Taiwan at the invitation of a Taiwanese spiritual teacher who has heard about the work we are doing and is determined to learn what we have to tell him.
When gentiles ask what we Jews have to give them, we can answer very simply by means of an image. Although the Torah says, “You shall have no image” (Berlin and Brettler 2014, Exod. 20:4), images may occasionally be offered to those who are wise.
We may imagine the world as a house. It is very important to have a house. But a house needs a roof to protect it. We need to be protected from a direct encounter with the Infinite. A direct encounter with the Infinite may produce a mystical escape that dissolves the human being.
A roof is therefore necessary. This roof is the screen of nature; it is also consciousness.
Nevertheless, one cannot live in a completely sealed house. A chimney is required. The chimney that connects transcendence with immanence is maintained by the people of Israel.
As Pascal said, if God has ever spoken to humanity, it is to them - meaning the Jews - that one must turn in order to receive the tradition (Pascal 1958, nos. 603, 806).
We are indeed here to maintain this relationship with transcendence. We are therefore the chimney sweeps of the Eternal.
What can we currently offer in response to humanity’s universal questions? There would be much to say, but I would like simply to refer to the thesis of the American Samuel Huntington, according to which we are currently living through an extremely significant clash of civilizations affecting the entire planet (Huntington 1996).
This clash is not only political and economic; it is also a clash of values.
The essential confrontation is taking place between the Western world and the Islamic world. At the risk of being extremely schematic, the Western world inherited from Greek philosophy the idea that the human being stands at the center of the world and that God, if He exists, is located at the periphery.
For the Islamic world, precisely the opposite is true: God stands at the center, while the human being, if he is permitted to speak at all, must remain in submission at the periphery.
This confrontation cannot be resolved unless a point of encounter can be found.
The solution for such an encounter is found in the tradition of Israel, in which neither God nor the human being stands at the center. What stands at the center is the dialogue between them. Their encounter is the point at which the two concepts are united.
This encounter is realized existentially and concretely in contemporary Israeli society. We need only invite the nations to come and listen to our message, and we must not be afraid to acknowledge that we have something to tell them.
We have already opened a center in Jerusalem devoted to this work, Brit Olam. There is also a plan to establish a House of the Nations in Jerusalem, Beit Ha-Umot, where the nations would come to receive the teachings of Israel.
At present, if you are a Christian, you come to Jerusalem to visit the Christian holy places. If you are a Muslim, you go to the Temple Mount. If you are Jewish, you go to the Western Wall.
But is there any place, any institution, in which gentiles can learn what the Jews have to say specifically to them?
The Noahide World Center, also known as “Brit Olam” and established in 2011, is such an institution.
At present, numerous communities throughout the world pray from a siddur (prayer book) Brit Olam (2020) and use a guide to practical Noahide daily life Brit Shalom (Cherki 2020) that we have written for them.
There would be much more to say, but I believe I have nevertheless provided a small foretaste of a phenomenon that will only continue to grow and will probably become highly significant in the decades to come.
4. Conclusions
The rediscovery of Noahism has the potential to transcend the contradictions in which humanity struggles. Perhaps it is there that the answer to the tension between civilizations that threatens world peace lies.
I hope this paper contributes to our generation's efforts to build a better world, where the Torah from Zion and the Word of God from Jerusalem can be heard.
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