Q&A: The Torah Was Given to Human Beings and Not to Angels, Cockroaches, or Doctors—So Maybe Not to Upgraded Humans Either?
The Torah Was Given to Human Beings and Not to Angels, Cockroaches, or Doctors—So Maybe Not to Upgraded Humans Either?
Question
It is agreed that the Torah was given to human beings, not to the ministering angels, and not to any creature that is not Homo sapiens.
Suppose they were able to bring the Neanderthal back to life; hypothetically, it would not be obligated in any commandment beyond the seven Noahide commandments, but only in moral and rational obligations.
What if human beings upgrade themselves in consciousness, memory, body, and a range of characteristics, to the point that they are no longer Homo sapiens but another creature, as my teacher Yuval Noah predicts—would they then be exempt from the commandments?
After all, the Torah was not given to them.
Answer
I don’t answer questions like that. They can be answered only when one experiences that reality directly.
Discussion on Answer
Rabbi Soloveitchik of Boston—
that the Torah obligates / is relevant only within the four cubits of Jewish law, and outside that sphere it is not.
Maybe the same would apply to the new species that will someday be the crown of creation.
The question is whether it would be permitted to wipe out Homo sapiens for various needs,
just as man was permitted to wipe out animals for his pleasure and his needs…?
Would that count as murder?
Or legitimate hunting?
Your teacher and rabbi is a reed-cutter by the lake. Just without the humility appropriate to his stature.
But since you raised this question, let us say something about it. Religion, after all, is a psychological need; it has no other need in modern society (to the point that some expected it not to survive this era at all, as is well known), and certainly not an actual need in the sense of having objective reality, as most believers imagine. So if the upgraded human being no longer has this need, religion will disappear on its own, and we won’t have to deal with questions that the Giver of the Torah never even imagined. And if, for some reason, the upgraded human still retains this need, then let him discuss it himself.
So either way, there is no point in our dealing with this topic.