THE GENERATION OF THE FLOOD
When God created man He granted him a neshama, a soul. That is: intelligence, the ability to think, analyze, evaluate and choose. Man is not part of the natural world. Men are not “intelligent animals”. Human beings were created not as natural but as supernatural creatures, endowed with “the image and likeness of God”. This is, the possibility to choose between good and evil, and between following the dictates of the Creator or the desires of his earthly body. Ten generations after being created, humans collectively chose the path of evil. Humanity began to decline. Corruption, rape and abuse became the new normal. Humans degraded themselves, “sacrificed” the Divine image and became like animals. Adopting the law of the jungle: the survival of the fittest. This corrupt generation had to be wiped off the face of the earth through the Flood. But while it was a universal catastrophe, the flood did not mean the end of humanity. A man named Noaj (Noé) in relation to the rest of the world (or despite widespread corruption, according to another opinion) behaved with integrity, and lived conscious of the existence of God, something that the rest of the world forgot. HaShem saves Noaj to give humanity a second chance. Noaj builds the ark and he, his wife, his three sons, and their wives – a total of eight people – survived the devastating flood.
THE FIRST LAW
Upon descending from the ark, Noach builds an altar and offers sacrifices to God in a clear gesture of gratitude for saving his life. God blesses Noach and urges him to repopulate the earth. The Creator now presents Noach with a code that contains two laws: The first law has to do with animals. God authorizes Noach and his children to eat animal flesh (Genesis 9: 3). Which until then was not allowed, since the diet that God indicated to the first couple, Adam and Eve, consisted only of plants: seeds, vegetables and fruits. Now God allows Noach and his descendants to dispose of the life of animals, but the Creator also establishes a rule, a law, that must be met before consuming animal flesh. A living creature cannot be mutilated in order to consume its meat, as carnivorous predators do with their prey. Before consuming the meat, the animal must be slaughter. Having “a” law, any law, is what enables men to identify right from wrong, and allows him or her to make the most “human” action: to choose between following the law or violating the law.
THE SECOND LAW
The second law that God commands Noach is the prohibition of murder; killing a human being. This law is formulated in a very basic and elementary way. Instead of “You shall not kill”, as it says in The Ten Commandments, this law determines that murder will be punished with capital punishment: “If a man sheds the blood of another man, his blood will be shed, because the human being has been created with the image of God ”(Genesis 9: 6). This law is meant to stop the state of widespread corruption that the Tora denounced in Genesis 6, when it explained that the powerful men (bene elokim) abused the weakest (bene adam). Here God reminds humanity that, regardless of positions or possessions, every human being deserves to be treated with respect for having been created in the image and likeness of God.
THE COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND NOACH
In the next verses (Genesis 9: 8 to 9:17) God establishes a covenant with Noach and his children. On the one hand, human beings will respect the life of other human beings, and the right of an animal to a dignified death, with minimal suffering. The Creator, on the other hand, promises not to bring a flood, a universal cataclysm that would destroy humanity. The rainbow will be the reminder that the rain will stop, and God will not wipe humanity off the face of the earth. To summarize: the Divine formula to avoid another state of human corruption and the animalization of men, is the establishment of law and order. These two basic laws that we just mentioned are the beginning of what is known as the Seven Laws of Noach: the prohibition of practicing: idolatry, animal mutilation, blasphemy, murder, theft and incest, and the obligation to establish courts of justice. These seven laws constitute the first Code of Law code that God conceived for mankind.
