In part 1 Tali asked: “G-d gave the Jews a unique merit to be G-d's chosen people and receive the 613 commandments which have great reward, whereas non-Jews only have 7 biblical commandments with which they can earn their share in the world to come. But I always understood that G-d loves all people, they’re all his children. So why did he give us a more elevated status with 613 mitzvoth? Isn’t it discrimination?”
Rabbi Balas answered: First of all, G-d doesn’t demand non-Jews to do all 613 commandments and they can still be worthy of the next world for doing their 7. This is quite a stark contrast to the other religions that copied us and claim the whole world will be eternally punished for not believing in their leader or prophet.
Secondly, G-d’s commandments are life changing and require serious dedication which are noticeably absent in the other leading religions which only require you to ‘believe in him’. Judaism doesn’t offer such an easy way out and G-d knows all our hearts and knows to give his Torah to those who were interested in it which was us who said “we will do and we will understand”. This still doesn’t preclude non-Jews seeking the truth from becoming Jews if they choose to.
That was a summary of part one, to read it click here
The second answer is:
G-d doesn’t to burden the nations with commandments they’re not interested in.
We can now ask: Do the nations keep the 7 mitzvoth they were commanded by G-d through Noah? Does the Ishmaelite refrain from spilling innocent blood or does he kill innocents out of hatred, revenge, conquests or ‘family honor’? Do Christians and Europeans keep themselves modest these days or do they publically encourage grave sins like adultery? Do the Asians avoid eating limbs of live animals? Have they desisted from idol worship? Have countries in Asia and Africa establish moral countries to treat their citizens with justice between one another. Do they worry for orphans and widows or do they look out for the interests of the wealthy and influential and trample the rights of the poor?
We all know the answer to this. If the nations don’t even keep the most base level original 7 mitzvoth handed down to Noah why should G-d burden them with more mitzvoth they have no plans of keeping? And if they fail to keep them they would get punished too, so does it make sense to give them these mitzvoth?
The Torah reports to us how 3,300 years ago the ancient nations were of very low moral caliber practicing sacrifice of their children and making temples to serve their idols in the most abominable ways in addition to being exceedingly cruel to the powerless.
The Torah states and commands: “Like the deeds of the land of Egypt where you lived, do not do and like the deeds of the land of Canaan where I am bringing you to, do not do… (Leviticus 18) This chapter describes serious sins of incest between fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, adultery, living with animals and homosexuality. The chapter concludes: “Do not sully yourself with all these, for with all these (deeds) the nations I’m banishing for you sullied themselves. The land became sullied and I will remember its sin upon it and the land will spew out its inhabitants. And you should keep my decrees and laws and don’t do any of these abominations, the citizen and convert that dwell among you. For all these abominations the inhabitants before you have done and they sullied the land.”
The Torah describes the nations at the time of the Jews conquering the land: “Hear o Israel; you are crossing the Jordan River today to go banish nations far larger and mightier than you… No for your righteousness you come to banish and inherit the land rather for the evil of these nations the Lord your G-d banishes them from before you and to keep the oath G-d made to your forefathers.” (Deuteronomy 9)
Since G-d saw that they don’t want Him or His commandments he didn’t give them the Torah but left them with the minimum requirement of the 7 Noahide laws which deal with basic laws between a man and fellow man.
We must remember that only through the Torah’s spreading around the world by the religions that copied it did the nations get any smattering of recognition of the reality that G-d is one and through meeting the Jews they merited having some moral uplifting relative to where they had previously sunk to, but they are far away from G-d’s will and still have a long way to go till they fulfill the minimum G-d asked of them. The nations always conducted themselves with lewdness and corruption proving they don’t love G-d and aren’t interested in His Torah guiding them. They gave up on the Torah by choosing the deeds they did.
