Q&A: Is teaching a non-Jew the seven Noahide commandments considered Torah study?
Is teaching a non-Jew the seven Noahide commandments considered Torah study?
Question
Hello and blessings,
When I was explaining to a non-Jew the seven Noahide commandments (in detail, not just very briefly), is that considered Torah study for me?
Assuming it did not interfere with my regular learning, or do I need to make up that time and study Torah, since while I was explaining it to him I could have continued learning and making progress?
May we hear good news, and thank you in advance,
Answer
A strange question. Suppose it is not Torah study—would that mean you need to make up that learning time? Why? If you shook the lulav, do you need to make up the learning time that took? And if you went to work or read a book? In general, what does it mean to make up the time? Is there a fixed amount of time that you are obligated to study each day? If you have additional free time, then study in it regardless of the question of making up the time. And if you do not—then what does it mean to make up the learning?
Discussion on Answer
Dear Moshe, thank you for the reference to the famous Talmudic passage. There is nothing there relevant to my question except regarding the gentile himself (Maimonides did not rule it that way in Jewish law, and people already wondered about that; rather, he ruled that he is liable to death at the hands of Heaven), but not regarding the one who teaches him. And from where would we say that everything stated about a Jew's Torah study applies to a gentile just as it does to a Jew? But that would take us too far afield.
Rabbi Michi, can your answer be taken to imply that this does count as Torah study?
Obviously it is Torah study. But that cannot be inferred from my answer. My answer was that the question is not relevant to the practical conclusion.
"An objection was raised: Rabbi Meir would say, from where do we know that even a gentile who engages in Torah is like a High Priest? As it is said: 'which a person shall do and live by them' (Leviticus 18:5). It does not say priests, Levites, and Israelites, but rather 'a person.' From here you learn that even a gentile who engages in Torah is like a High Priest. There, however, it refers to their seven commandments."
(Sanhedrin 59a.)