חדש באתר: עוזר בינה מלאכותית המבוסס על כתביו ושיעוריו של הרב מיכאל אברהם

Q&A: Are Jews Bound by Islam?

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Are Jews Bound by Islam?

Question

Honorable Rabbi Michael Abraham, greetings,
A question regarding the Noahide laws and whether they obligate Jews:
In the Talmud it says:
“For Rabbi Yose son of Rabbi Hanina said: Any commandment that was stated to the children of Noah and repeated at Sinai was stated for both these and those. If it was stated to the children of Noah but not repeated at Sinai, it was stated for Israel and not for the children of Noah… On the contrary, from the fact that it was not repeated at Sinai, it should be said that it was stated for the children of Noah and not for Israel?! There is nothing that is permitted to Israel and forbidden to an idolater.” (Sanhedrin 59a)
Apparently, the logic of the Talmud is that Jews must always sanctify themselves beyond the children of Noah. And Rashi writes there:
“For when they left the category of the children of Noah, they left it in order to be sanctified, not to be treated more leniently.”
Seemingly, if the nations make a covenant with God, then Jews are bound by it according to this logic.
The question of what counts as a “covenant” is a serious one here. In my opinion, it does not matter whether we go by the “proofs that the Torah is from Heaven” offered by outreach activists, who point to scientific miracles that supposedly validate the Torah. Clearly, God did not change and never changes, and He does not make covenants with communities because He suddenly feels like changing His mind and choosing one community or another and holding a sudden revelation. Rather, everything is “from below upward”: if the community of Israel made a covenant with God and agreed to it together, then the community of Israel is bound by that covenant. God does not need to give His hand to the agreement through some miraculous action against nature; rather, so long as the agreement reflects the moral norms that God implanted in man and in the world, it counts before God as though He accepted what human beings made among themselves.
Seemingly, if the whole community of nations made a covenant with God, that too binds them. Noah’s covenant was also not a change of mind on God’s part, as though He regretted creating man and then reconsidered because He smelled the pleasing aroma of Noah’s offering and so on. Rather, since Noah and his family constituted all of humanity, and they intended to make a covenant with God, the covenant exists “from below upward.”
As for our matter, it seems that the only monotheistic religion today, besides Judaism, that truly believes in the unity of God is Islam.
According to the logic of the Talmud, that whatever the nations sanctified themselves with, Jews too must automatically sanctify themselves with, then Jews should also be bound by the covenant of the prophet Muhammad. The very fact that so much of humanity accepted this covenant, formulated as a covenant with God, as a prophetic discourse between God and the prophet who mediates between the Muslim nation and God—a covenant that is valid and existing, and which we certainly do not want abolished, since it is truly the worship of God and is positive in itself (leaving politics aside)—would seem to mean that Jews should also commit themselves to it, at least insofar as this covenant does not contradict the covenant at Sinai.
What is the Rabbi’s opinion on this, and how does the Rabbi see fit to deal with such an argument?
Thank you in advance,
Ofir

Answer

Your formulation is not precise, and in my opinion this is not Rashi’s intention either. The claim is that every Jew is a kind of minor child of Noah. That is, he is first of all a human being (the universal layer), and only afterward also a Jew (a second, particular layer).
A practical implication, for example, is that even after the nations abandoned their obligation to the seven commandments (Bava Kamma 38), Jews still remain obligated on the basic universal level as well, and not only on their own additional level.
If all the nations were to make a new covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He, that would be their business. The question whether Jews would be included in it should be determined by whether a new universal obligation has been created here or not. When I see such a covenant, I can think about it. The covenants of Muhammad or Jesus are not universal in any sense, and I see no basis for your casuistry that would obligate Jews through them.

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