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בית גרשום

The Hebrew word "Torah" literally means "Instruction", in both of the senses that the English word conveys: "Teaching", and also "Commandment".

It contains, not only the relationship between God and Israel, but also details God's relationships with broader groups of people within the human family. Hence, whether you identify as part of Israel or not, the Torah legacy of Israel has an important portion dedicated to every person. That's right: in every single one of the Relationships detailed in the Torah (these are known as "Covenants"), God provides Instruction, and in return God offers Life. Whether we understand "Life" as peace and prosperity for our nation today, or as peace and prosperity for us as individuals, or even as the access into God's prophecied World to Come, the Torah gives us the Teaching on how to bring to fulfillment our relationship with the Divine.

In other words, when we choose Torah, we choose Life. And there is an aspect for you regardless of whether you identify as part of Israel, or whether you identify as part of a different nation, or just as part of humanity overall. Let's break this down a bit:

The Torah that we all know today is the divinely ordained Constitution of a nation: Israel; consequently, the vast majority of the Laws contained in the Torah pertain to the Covenant with Jacob's tribe, established at Mount Sinai, and apply specifically to the Israelites. It is a Covenant for a specific nation, where God promises a plot of land ("the promised land", the land west of the Jordan) in which to prosper in peace, and in which to live by God's Instructions. It is important to stress that Israel's Law is a Covenant (literally, a Contract) with a specific nation (Jacob's tribe) to
(a) live according to what God Commands it to live by, in exchange for
(b) peace and prosperity in a homeland.

Hence, in the Sinai Contract, God does not Command all of humanity to become Israel (and inhabit the land given to Israel). However, in giving Israel its Torah, YH_H didn't only "document" the Covenant with Israel. He also detailed His earlier Covenants with Israel's ancestor nations: Abraham (father of all semitic people) and Noah (father of all nations). It was essential to do so, because Israel's Sinai Contract does not start "from a blank sheet of paper"; rather, it builds on, and relies on, the two earlier Covenants made with Israel's ancestors.

But by also documenting those two earlier Covenants, the Torah of Israel is also preserving for the entire world the most basic blueprint that ALL nations (since all nations descend from Noah) must abide by, in order to be Right with God: ethical monotheism. Furthermore, it is this Torah material that has served as the content for Israel's Sinai Commandment to be "A Light to the Nations": throughout Israel's history we hear of "God fearers", that is Gentiles persuaded by Israel to abide by high-standard ethical monotheism, as Gentiles, not as Israelites. Witness, by way of example, the saga of Prophet Jonah, and his mission to the Assyrians of Nineveh. And by preserving the details of the Abrahamic Covenant, the Torah is also preserving for all other semites (such as Arabs today, who trace their lineage to Ishmael) the Covenants that apply to them: those made through Noah and through Abraham.

It is also key to stress that ALL of these Covenants (Noah, Abraham, Israel) are stated explicitly in the Torah as being ETERNAL; they can NEVER be superceded, replaced, deprecated, or cancelled. Even, in the messianic age, when God will cause his Torah to be implanted in our hearts, the Commandments therein will be the same. They can not be overturned because God has stated explicitly that they remain for ever. (Hence, if someone comes along saying that God has declared the Commandment of any of these Covenants to be obsolete, either that person is a liar, or God was a liar in calling the Commandments ETERNAL; take your pick!).

With all of this in mind, let us now dive deeper:

The laws of the Covenant with Noah are normally referred to as the Noahide Laws. Noah and his family were the only survivors of the Flood and therefore Noah predates all the nations of the world. Hence, the Covenant established at that time is between Noah and ALL of his descendants, i.e. all of humanity. Presumably, that Contract would have been preserved by Noah's descendants as they multiplied and founded the nations of the world. Why then was that Contract through Noah only preserved for us when Israel received it's Torah at Sinai ? Shouldn't every nation after Noah also have a record of Noah's ethical monotheism Contract with God ? The Torah gives us a hint on answering this question: after the Tower of Babylon incident, God dispersed humanity into nations, and each diverged in language. But diverging in language was not only about how things are pronounced. It was also about how each group understood Creation and its Creator. This gave rise to religions that localized the divine into tribal representations, getting progressively farther away from the concept of a universal Creator who is transcendent (no attribute can describe Him, for He is Creator even of any attribute you can think of) and ethical (who once destroyed life because of its evil actions). It took Abraham and his grandson Jacob to bring that knowledge back, as part of Israel's saga. The Laws given to all nations through Noah are contained mainly in Genesis 6:5 thru 9:28, and you can find them here: The Noahide Laws for all nations.

After Noah (and after the Tower of Babel incident), God established the Contract with Abraham and all his descendants. This Contract was given to Abraham and his offspring and it is in addition to the earlier Noahide Contract that Abraham must abide by. The Abrahamic Covenant essentially commands Circumcision and (Noahide) Righteousness of Abraham and all his offspring (namely, all semitic tribes: Ishmael, Isaac, and Abraham's children with his third wife, Keturah: Midian, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Ishbak, Shuah), and, in return, provides the Promise for a specific land for all Abrahamites to inhabit in Peace and Prosperity (the land from the Nile to the Euphrates): The Bnai Abraham laws.

After Abraham, the Torah tells us that "Ishmael will be a great nation", although it doesn't give us the details of what specific national rituals the Ishmaelites would be bound by. Again, the Torah of Israel focuses only on the Covenants with Israel and Israel's ancestors (Noah, Abraham). But we can safely assume that all Abrahamites inherit Abraham's circumcision Covenant and Noah's ethical monotheism Covenant. The same can be said of the tribes of Abraham's other children (those with his third wife, Keturah).

Then of course we have Jacob and the already mentioned Covenant at Sinai. The Sinai Covenant itself is quite clear in terms of what the nation of Israel must do to be right with God. However, it is also extremely valuable for the nations that are bound by Noah. Why? Because in the Sinai Covenant we learn more about what YH_H expects of the nations. This comes in at least three categories: (a) What nations are expected to do in their respective homelands, (b) What non-Israelites are expected to do if they become Ger Toshav (Non-Israelites Residing Among Israel), and (c) Whether a non-Israelite can naturalize as an Israelite:

(a) Sinai Covenant expectations on the nations. This comes primarily via the Prophets of Israel. What becomes clear is that the ethical standards for the nations are no different than how God judges Israel's ethical behavior. Secondly, in the messianic age, there are even Israelite ritual requirements that the nations will partake in, such as pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Sukkot, and ability to make offerings at the Temple. These different aspects have been included in the latter half of the Noahide list (click here).

(b) The Ger-Toshav Laws. Within the Sinai Covenant we have a category of Laws that apply specifically to people who are not part of the Israelite nation, but are residents in the midst of Israel. These people are normally referred to as Ger Toshav, which means "resident alien". Where-ever there is a community of Israel, a Ger Toshav is compelled to follow these laws and is also entitled to certain rights that he/she can expect from fellow Israelites. These laws apply in the land of Israel, where the people of Israel are intended by God to live, as well as in Jewish communities outside the land of Israel (i.e. diaspora communities). Here we detail all the cases that we have found where Torah states laws (obligations and benefits) applicable specifically to the Ger Toshav (a.k.a. resident alien, resident foreigner): Ger Toshav Laws.

(c) A Gentile becoming Israel. Although there is no Commandment that Gentiles must abide by Israel's Sinai Contract in order to be right with God, there is also no prohibition against Gentiles joining the people of Israel (except for Ammonites, Moabites and of course Amalekites). The best example we have of this is Ruth's pledge: "Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.
May YH_H do thus to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” In short, the Torah provides a mechanism from ancient times, whereby a non-Israelite can become an Israelite. Not only was this mechanism sufficient, but it was sufficient enough to counter an explicit Torah law against absorbing Moabites into the people of Israel. If this is sufficient for a Moabite like Ruth, how much more so should it suffice for Gentiles in general.
Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that biblical Israel ever considered it a Commandment to "evangelize" the Sinai Covenant and absorb all Gentiles into Israel (the only expectation of Israel regarding the Gentiles was to be A Light to the Nations, meaning a light of highest-standard ethics and of strict monotheism). In fact, the Torah tells us that God does make unique Covenants with other nations too (even if those are not discussed in detail in the Torah); those relationships are in parallel to Israel's and can entail unique responsibilities: Unique Covenants with other nations. The bottom line is that Israel does not evangelize Sinai for a good reason: all nations have a highest-standard Noahide Contract with God, and some nations can even have their own unique national Covenants, just like Israel received one at Sinai, and just like Amos and Isaiah tell us that Ethiopia, Philistia, Aram, Egypt, Assyria, have or will have their own sagas and Contracts with God.

So, what does all of this mean for descendants of intermarriage who want to abide by God's Torah? One can summarize all of the above as follows:

- If you identify as a Gentile, your Noahide task is threefold: (i) to strive for highest ethical standards, and strict monotheism (ii) to observe the Commandments for Noahides as rendered in the Torah (including Commandments for Gentiles implied in the Prophets), and (iii) to nudge your local tribal traditions in a direction that eradicates polytheism (i.e., to join Israel in being a Light to the nations).
- If you identify as a Gentile and you "reside among Israel", the Covenant with Noah AND the Ger-Toshav laws apply to you.
- If you identify as an Israelite, the Torah-path is well established: you have the Noahide, Abrahamic, and the Sinai Covenant as your inheritance. Remember: for a person who is a descendant of Jewish intermarriage, that person is already a offspring of Jacob (Zera Yisrael). The Written Torah does not exclude the children intermarriage from the assembly of Israel, and hence there is NO biblical requirement in the Written Torah for you to approach Israel as a stranger requesting admittance into the assembly of Israel. The choice to belong to the Sinai Covenant is a personal choice open to you, and no organized denomination (Rabbinic or Karaite or other) should stand between you and your birthright to be with the people of Jacob. As far as Beta-Gershom is concerned, a sincere declaration of your factual self-identification as "Israel" is sufficient; for example a present-tense rendering of Ruth's proclamation: "Where Israel goes, I will go; Where Israel stays, I will stay;
Israel is my people, and its God is my God.
Where its people die, I will die, and there will I be buried.
May YH_H do thus to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from Israel!” The bottom line is that conversion into the Sinai Covenant is not a biblical requirement for an Offspring of Jacob. The promise of that Covenant is open to you, without you having to "come in from the outside".