 We're going to begin tonight by just mentioning a very well-known story from the Book of Ruth. We just celebrated not long ago the holiday of Shavuot, and we read the Book of Ruth and we all know the story that the beginning of the book begins with a famine in the land of Israel and Eli Melech and his wife, Naomi, leave Israel with their two sons, Machlone and Kilion. They go down to live in Moab. After a while, Eli Melech dies and Naomi's two sons marry Moabite women, Orpa and Ruth. After 10 years, Machlone and Kilion die. And now Naomi is left bereft of her husband and her two sons. And so after hearing that the famine has ended in Israel, she decides to return to the land of Israel. Orpa and Ruth, her two daughters-in-law, wanted to return with her to Israel. But Naomi urged them three times to turn back and to go back to the homes of their mothers. Do not go with her to Israel. And based upon this story, the Midrash in Ruth Raba 2.16 sees this as a source for the custom that we have of discouraging potential converts three times. Now we know of course that in the story, Ruth persisted even after Orpa returned to her mother's home and Ruth says to her mother-in-law Naomi, where you go, I will go. Where you dwell, I will dwell. Your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God. And so Ruth returns with Naomi to the land of Israel. After a while, she converts to Judaism. We know that she ultimately became the ancestor of both King David and the future Messiah. We see from this story that while conversion to Judaism is an option for non-Jews, it's certainly not encouraged and there certainly isn't any great necessity for non-Jews to convert to Judaism. So the question is how then are non-Jews supposed to live? Did God only provide a spiritual path for the Jewish people at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago, but leave the rest of humanity without any direction since the time of creation? In truth, our sages teach that from the very beginning of time, God provided a universal path of spirituality for all of mankind. These were six laws that were given to Adam and one that was revealed to Noah. And these seven laws are referred to as the Seven Noahide Laws. Now there is a mnemonic that I learned in Yeshiva for remembering these seven laws. It may be helpful to you. Sometimes it were better off without the mnemonic and just straight memorization. But the way I learned to remember these seven laws was the Big Three because in Judaism there were three prohibitions, three transgressions for which we are required to give up our lives rather than transgress. One is Shvi Kuddamim, taking a human life murder. One is Avodah Zorah, idolatry. And the third is Gilu Arayot, illicit sexual relationships. Those are the Big Three. And then there's Aleph Bet-Gimel-Dalad. That's the mnemonic device. Aleph stands for Avermin-Hachai, the limb of a living animal. So a non-Jew is not allowed to eat from an animal unless the animal is first dead. They can't eat the limb of a living creature. Bet stands for Be'rach et Hashem, literally blessing God. And that's a euphemistic term for blasphemy. We don't want to even say cursing God. So we say in Hebrew we refer to cursing God as blessing God. But Bet is the prohibition against blasphemy, cursing God. Gimel is Gezel, which is stealing, theft. And Dalad is Dinim, the only actual positive of the seven Noahite commandments. And that's the requirement for non-Jews to set up courts of law to enforce the Noahite system. Now these seven laws are often associated with the seven days of the week. And more often with the seven colors typically associated with the rainbow, which was a sign that God gave to Noah. So the Noahite path is basically in short a way of living. An elevated moral life and having a relationship with God through a life of connection with the Torah and with Mitzvot with commandments. And we know that the word Mitzvah commandment is related etymologically to the word for connector or binder. So these seven commandments are ways in which non-Jews are able to connect themselves with God. Maimonides writes in his classical Mishno Torah, Laws of Kings chapter 8, section 11, that whoever undertakes the seven Noahite laws and scrupulously fulfills them is among the righteous of the Gentile nations and has a portion in the world to come. The Babylonian Talmud, Baba Kama, 38A teaches, how do we know that a non-Jew, if he obeys the laws of God, will attain the same spiritual communion with God as Israel's high priest? Because scripture says in Leviticus 18.5, which a man will do and he will live by them. So the Talmud says it doesn't say a priest, it doesn't say a Levite, it doesn't say an Israelite, but a man. If a man will do these laws he will live by them. Therefore even the non-Jew who obeys the laws of God attains the same spiritual communion with God as Israel's high priest. Maimonides again in his classical Mishno Torah at the end of the Laws of sabbatical years and Jubilee years writes, any human being on earth whose spirit has moved him to know God and to walk upright the way God made him becomes a holy of holies and God shall be his portion and inheritance forever and ever. And finally in the classical rabbinic work, the Tanah Dubei Eliahut, section 9, it is written by our sages whether a Jew or a non-Jew, a man or a woman, a slave or a mate servant, attaining the Holy Spirit depends entirely on one's actions. Now the truth is that we hear about these seven laws and we think it's such a small enterprise, just seven laws. The truth is that this universal path of Torah includes many more than just seven laws. Maimonides for example and others insist that even though one of the seven laws is not to believe in God, it's interesting that many commentators say that among the Jewish people's 613 commandments, belief in God isn't one of those either. And therefore Maimonides and others insist that belief in God is at the center of the Noachai Laws and the truth is that the idea of commandments themselves wouldn't make sense unless there was a commander. So obviously beyond these seven laws is the idea of doing them all because they were commanded by God. The Talmud says in Babylonian Talmud tractate Hulun 92b, it refers to the 30 mitzvot, the 30 mitzvot of B'day Noach, but doesn't enumerate them and many of the commentaries explain that these 30 are really bylaws and offshoots and subdivisions of the original seven basics. Rabbi Aaron Alevi of Barcelona in his Sefer Achinuch says, make no mistake about the enumeration of the seven laws of the sons of Noah. They are but categories, these seven, and they contain many particulars in each of the categories. Professor Aaron Lichtenstein's seminal study on the seven Noachai Laws revealed that they really encompass at least 66 of the Biblical commandments from the traditional list of the Jewish 613. For example, one of the seven is Gezel, is theft. Rabbi Lichtenstein says that this category includes many other commandments, not just stealing by stealth, which is theft, but also robbery by force, also shifting a landmark, also cheating a person by nonpayment of salary, also overcharging, also having false weights and measures in one's home, also kidnapping and also coveting what someone else has. So within a particular one of the seven can be many, many subcategories included. Idolatry could include conceivably occult practices such as the prohibitions against sorcery, witchcraft, divination, necromancy, etc. Now an important issue is how to define each of the seven Noachai Laws. For example, murder isn't just the normal act of shooting someone or killing them with a sword. Murder would include, according to the Jewish teachings, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. So you have to understand what's included in each of the categories. There's a huge literature on the question of whether or not the prohibition against idolatry in the seven Noachai Laws prohibits the Christian belief in the Trinity. The minority of opinions would say that it's conceivable that for Gentiles the Trinity may not be a violation of this prohibition against idolatry. But the majority opinion seems to be that yes, the belief in the Trinity God as a Trinity would be a violation of the Noachai Law against idolatry. But it needs to be discussed and examined. Beyond these 66 commandments that I already mentioned, there are many other sources in the Talmud and elsewhere that include other commandments. And some of these sources include prohibitions against drinking blood, against castrating animals, the requirement of sanctifying God's name. Obviously the prohibition against desecrating the name of God, fulfilling our oaths and vows, honoring our parents, giving charity, and prayer during times of need. These would all be, again, additional requirements for someone living under the Noachai Laws. And some sources like Ravnisan Gaon teaches that any mitzvah or action based upon reason and intellectual understanding would also be incumbent upon Bnei Noach. For example, in the Bible, Deuteronomy chapter 23 verses 4 and 5, the Scripture criticizes the people of Moab for not coming out to meet the Jewish people with bread and with water. Now there is no Noachai commandment that seems to obligate them to engage in such a behavior. And yet scholars like Ravnisan Gaon would say that natural morality, anything that would be included in natural morality would require a behavior like helping other people when they're in trouble. It just makes sense. You don't need to have a particular commandment. Rabbi Joel Schwartz, who's a great scholar living in Israel, an authority on the seven Noachai Laws, he writes that Noachai should work on perfecting their Mido, their character traits, such as working on issues of anger or arrogance, becoming more generous. So we see that the Noachai world is not just seven small commandments. It's a very large, totally integrated system of human behavior. Now what I'd like to do in the next few minutes is share with you a very brief overview, a history of the Noachai movement. First of all, we have many Midrashim, many rabbinic hamiles, which speak about a Yeshiva, an academy that was founded by Sheim, who was the son of Noah, and Sheim's grandson Aver, and they had this academy to teach and to study the seven Laws of Noah. The Bible tells us that when Abraham and Sarah were on their way to Knaan, when God told them to leave Ur-Kazdim and go to Knaan, to Genesis chapter 12 verse 5 says, They took with them the souls they had made in Choron, and the Bible commentaries say to us that they had been spreading monotheism, that Abraham and Sarah were teaching people to embrace God. And we have an example of this later on in Genesis 21-33, where it says that Abraham planted an ashel in Be'er Sheva, and there he began to call upon the name of God, the king of the universe, the God of the universe. And the rabbis discussed in the Talmud, what is this ashel that he planted? So one opinion is that ashel was an inn, and ashel are the three Hebrew letters that stand for Achila, Shtiyah, and Lina, eating, drinking, and lodging. And the Talmud tells us that what would happen is that Abraham would take care of wayfarers, and he would feed them, and when at the end of the meal they would thank him, Abraham would say, Don't thank me, this is not my food, you should thank the source of the food, which is the God king of the universe. And he would instruct people to say, Blessed is the God of the universe from whose bounty we have eaten. So Abraham was someone who was involved with his wife Sarah in spreading this idea of a universal relationship with God. Now we have in 1948, a famous study that was done by Philip Beberfeld, who claimed that the ancient Hammurabi Code, the Hittite Code, and the Assyrian Code of Laws may actually have been rooted in the Seven Noahide Laws, based upon what he found to be similarities in the wording and styles between these codes and the Seven Noahide Laws. In the times when the Jewish people lived on their own land, when we had a political dominion over the land of Israel, there was a biblical concept of Ger Toshav, a resident alien. And a resident alien was not a Ger Tzedek, they were not someone who entirely converted to Judaism. These were people that were willing to accept the Seven Noahide Laws. And if they did, they became like, I'll give you an analogy, maybe a landed immigrant here in Canada. You're not a full citizen, but you have rights. And so a Ger Toshav was someone who had rights to live in the land of Israel and the Jewish community had to support them. So we see this institution of the Noahide in the biblical times. We are told in the Talmud that Antoninus, who was the Roman governor of Israel around the year 170 BCE, was a close student of Rabbi Yudah and Nasi, Rabbi Yudah the Prince, the editor, the redactor of the Mishnah, and he himself, Antoninus, may have been someone who was easily considered a follower of the Noahide Laws. What we find in the literature about the first and second centuries of the Common Era is a group of people called the Yire Elohim, the Fears of God. We read about them in the Christian Bible Book of Acts. They were spoken about in Josephus in Philo of Alexandria. They write about this large group, many, many thousands and thousands. Some people estimate maybe even a million of Fears of God. And they were non-Jews. They were Gentiles who were very enamored with Judaism. They were drawn to Judaism, but they stopped short of conversion. They would study with Jews. They would hang out in the backs of synagogues. And they very, very easily may have been considered Noahides of their time. Coming more up to modern times, Hugo Grotius was a Dutch legal philosopher who lived from 1583 to 1645. He's referred to as the father of international law, and he referred to the Noahide Laws as a source of the laws of all nations. Now, a little bit later on, there was an English Hebraicist and jurist named John Selden, who lived from 1584 to 1654. And he published a major work in Latin that dealt with the Noahide Laws, arguing that the Noahide Laws were a sophisticated system of natural law that are binding upon all human beings. In the late 1890s, we have a very poignant story. There was a young man who was raised as a Roman Catholic. His name was Amy Palierre. And he was raised and pursued the priesthood, but ultimately began to discover serious problems with the New Testament such as its misuse of Isaiah chapter 7 as a source for the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth. He also began to have great difficulties with doctrines such as the Trinity, and so he considered conversion to Judaism. However, he had tremendous conflicts because he felt very attached to his mother. He didn't know quite what to do. He did not want to associate as a Christian. He very much was drawn to Judaism. And he ended up having a meeting with Rabbi Elijah Ben Amozeg. Rabbi Ben Amozeg was an Italian rabbi and capitalist who lived from the years 1823 to 1900. And he believed that Noahide faith, the Noahide path, was the religion of all humanity. And he believed that Jews should spread the knowledge of these laws. He wrote a book called Israel and Humanity, which was published posthumously in the year 1914. He passed away in the year 1900, but he advised Palierre not to convert to Judaism and that he should follow the Noahide path, which is exactly what Palierre did. He embraced the Noahide path. He published a book which was translated into English as the Unknown Sanctuary, a pilgrimage from Rome to Jerusalem published in 1928. In the 20th century, there was a fascinating person named David Horowitz. He was born in 1903. He passed away 99 years later in the year 2002. And he was a very ardent Zionist. And in the year 1943, he formed an organization in New York called the United Israel World Union. And he was very focused on trying to return the 10 lost tribes to their brothers and also spreading universal faith based upon the Hebrew Scriptures. His motto was Torah faith for all nations. And he was sort of an early proponent of the Noahide movement long before there was a modern Noahide movement. The movement in modern times really begins if you wanted to find the real pioneer with someone named Vendell Jones. Vendell Jones was born in 1930. He passed away in the year 2010. And he was probably one of the most important, if not the most important pioneers of the modern Noahide movement. The truth is that until his time, there was never really a movement. Paliere, if he was a Noahide, was one person. It's not until the 20th century where we have the beginnings of an actual movement. Vendell Jones was originally a Baptist minister and he pastored a church on the Virginia border from the years 1955 to 1956. He began having tremendous problems with what he saw as anti-Semitic statements in the Christian Bible. He ultimately ended up giving up his pastorate in the year 1956 and he began trying to find rabbis with whom he could study. In 1967, he moved to Israel. He began studying Judaica at Hebrew University and he began getting involved with numerous archaeological projects. As an amateur archaeologist, some people say that the movie character Indiana Jones is based loosely or directly upon him. It's not so clear whether that's true. At any event, he became a full-fledged Noahide in the year 1984 and had a huge impact upon other people. Now in the 1980s, there was a tremendous amount that was percolating in the world. And one of the things that was percolating for a while but began really hitting hard in the 1980s was that there had been a growing interest among Christians in understanding the roots of their own faith. And so one of the major movers of the development of the modern Noahide movement was someone named J. David Davis. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1972. He became the pastor of a manual congregation in Athens, Tennessee. And in the early 1980s, he began with his congregation to explore the question of who was the historical Jesus, who was Jesus. And it led them to a study of Judaism. Now why would this Baptist church be studying Judaism? Because they discovered that Judaism was the religion of Jesus and Jesus' followers. They ultimately came to reject all Christian doctrines and beliefs that ran counter to Jewish biblical teachings. Ultimately, Reverend Davis went to the top of his church, broke off the crosses and the steeple. He lost about half of his members, but half of them stayed with him. And they began in the late 1980s to discover the idea of the Noahide path as God's original spiritual path to humanity. They developed an interest in following this path. They needed to have people teach them. They finally discovered there was a local Rabbi, Rabbi Michael Katz, who was originally from South Africa. And they were able to arrange for Michael Katz to teach them. And this former Baptist church became a Noahide center in Athens, Tennessee. As you can imagine, they describe Athens, Tennessee as the Bible belts buckle. And they received a tremendous amount of hostility and opposition from other Christians in the area. Jack Saunders was another Christian Baptist minister who led a church in Georgia at the same time. And he went through a very similar journey to J. David Davis. One day after studying the origins of Christianity and the historical Jesus for many, many years, he announced to his entire church that Isaiah chapter 7 had nothing to do with the virgin birth of a Messiah. Many of his congregants left, but those that stayed stayed with him to start a Bnei-Noach study group at this former Baptist church. One other important personality is James Tabor, who today is the chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. Professor Tabor was a deeply religious evangelical Christian in his high school and university years. His focus of study became early Christianity. And in the 1960s, he began a long quest to discover the historical Jesus and came to believe that ultimately Christianity was really a development more of Paul than of Jesus. And he believed that Paul veered away from the Jewishness of the original Jesus movement. Professor Tabor published two important books on this subject. He published The Jesus Dynasty in 2006, and he published Paul and Jesus in 2012. But in 1991, Professor Tabor published the first edition of his personal spiritual manifesto that is called Restoring Abrahamic Faith. And in this book, he explores what he believes was the ancient spiritual path of righteous people like Noah, like Chanukh, Shem, Aether, Malchitzedek. And the book centers on three major themes. The first theme is knowing God, the one true God who is the creator of the entire universe. The second theme is following the way of God, which again, Professor Tabor sees in the five books of Moses is a life of righteousness and justice. And finally, the third element is participating in God's plan for the redemption of world through the teachings of the Jewish people. Now, it's important for me to point out that it wasn't only these three gentlemen who were involved with this incredible journey, personal journeys. There were many, many Christians at the same time that were going through similar journeys. It's important for us to understand that at the very same time, Jewish people were getting involved with this movement. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rachmanachem Mendel-Schnersen gave a talk in 1987, encouraging his chassidim to influence non-Jews to begin observing the Noahide laws as a way to help make our world a dwelling place for God and to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. In 1981, Professor Aaron Lichtenstein, I mentioned before, published his seminal work, The Seven Laws of Noah, which is a crucial source book for people that want to understand what these seven laws are all about. That was back in 1981. The second edition came out in 1986. I mentioned before Rabbi Joel Schwartz from Jerusalem. He's an expert on the Noahide laws, and he wrote a book in Hebrew called Or La'Amin, which was written basically to encourage people to follow the Noahide path. And this book was translated into English and published as a light unto the nations in 1988. Here in Toronto, we have with us Professor David Novak living here, he published a 480 page work in 1983 called The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism, which focuses on the Noahide laws. In 1987, a very important book called The Path of the Righteous Gentile was published by Chaim Klorphine and Yaakov Rogalski, which presented really almost a practical hands-on guide to what Bnei Noach should be doing in their lives. In 1991, R. E. Gallin, I think back then he was going by the English name Lowell, but R. E. Gallin founded an organization called Root and Branch Association in 1991 to promote cooperation between the State of Israel and other nations, and between Bnei Israel and Bnei Noach, Children of Israel and Children of Noah. In 1991, he published the first edition of his Noahide guide, which was a massive guide to Noahide resources and leaders throughout the world. Now this synergy between these activists, these early Christian activists or former Christian activists and these Jewish teachers led to the launching of the modern Noahide movement and its spreading in modern times. In 1990, Vendell Jones organized a major conference in Fort Worth, Texas. It was attended by Noahides and by rabbis from both the United States and Israel, and there they formed the Agudat Kerim Bnei Noach, the Union of the Vineyard of the Children of Noah, and the chief rabbi of Israel at the time, Mordechai Eliyahu, sent both his approval and his blessings for this enterprise. On March 20, 1990, President George Bush signed into law a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress recognizing the seven Noahide laws as the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, and he urged the United States to return to the moral and ethical values contained in the seven Noahide laws. At that time, J. David Davis began publishing a newsletter called The Gap to teach people about the seven Noahide laws and related topics, and he began organizing annual Noahide conferences. At that time, the movement began attracting media coverage and press coverage, and small Noahide groups began emerging all over the globe. Now, when things really change is with the development of the Internet. That's when things begin to explode. It's interesting and ironic that it was on the Internet when many, many Christians for the first time began to read a Jewish perspective on both the Bible and on Christianity. And ironically, they were reading these Jewish perspectives on Christianity because Jews were responding to missionary propaganda. So because Jews felt compelled to put out on the Internet the Jewish response to Christianity, it wasn't only Jews reading that material. You had thousands and thousands of Christians that for the first time were exposed to what Judaism teaches, and many Christians began to become influenced by what they were learning on the Internet. Around that time, Michael Dahlin, who was an attorney from Detroit, formed the Rainbow Covenant Foundation. It was later changed to the first Covenant Foundation. He organized this with both Jack Saunders and Rabbi Michael Katz. Again, it's an organization that serves as a think tank and an organization as a resource to people that are Bnei-Noach or potential Bnei-Noach. In 2005, Israel's controversial nascent Sanhedrin. There was an effort to re-establish the Jewish High Court in Israel. It has not been accepted by all of Jewry, but there was at least this attempt. It's led by the very esteemed Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz. In 2005, they formed a high council of Bnei-Noach. What would a movement be without politics and controversy? Shortly after the formation of this high council of Bnei-Noach, a member, Billy Jack Diles, split off from this group and formed his own United-Noach High Council in 2006. The United-Noach High Council launched Wiki-Noah in 2010, which is a massive online resource about the Noach High Laws and Noach High Movement. Some other recent developments. One of the more popular Jewish groups today in the world, which is gaining popularity, is Breslov, which is a Hasidic movement that in recent years has been getting a tremendous amount of exposure and spread to a great extent through the publication of a book by Rabbi Sholam Arush called The Garden of Emuna, which was translated into English by Rabbi Laser Brody, and it's become a huge international bestseller. I think easily over a million copies were sold, which tells you that it wasn't only Jews reading this book. It attracted a huge non-Jewish readership, and at the time now, various Breslov websites are offering resources and teachings to non-Jews. One of these teachers is Rabbi Abraham Greenbaum, and Rabbi Greenbaum has his own website or several websites that offer teaching not just to Jews, and he is closely affiliated with the Nativ community in Houston, Texas. I was there not long ago lecturing. It was an amazing Noachai community. They just recently got their own space. They used to meet in their hotel. Now they have their own meeting space. It's led by someone named Rod Bryant, who was a former pastor at a large Protestant church. Aside from leading Nativ, Rod has a weekly radio program on Arut Sheva now called A Light to the Nations, which focuses on the Noachai movement. Now one of the most exciting recent developments, and this has just had off the press. This is only in the last few months, but I think one of the most exciting recent developments was the launching of an online program called the Noachai Laws course, which is taught by Yeshivat Pircheh Shoshanim. Pircheh Shoshanim is a massive online study program. They have programs where people can actually learn and get ordained as rabbis. They have many other courses, and they recently undertook to develop a program to teach the Noachai Laws because what is unique about this particular program is that there are rabbis and there are rabbis. There are rabbis that are rabbis, but there are rabbis that what you'd call scholars in Jewish law. And the people that are involved with the Noachai Laws course are outstanding internationally acclaimed Torah scholars of the first rank. And it's a course that's being organized by a number of people in tandem and cooperation. It's going to be covering almost every relevant area of practical law for Bnei Noach, and they are right now online. I think they're only in their 10th or 12th session, but it's going to be a very long course. They're hoping after they teach this course for a few times to put together a resource guide that may be published. But this is really the first time that we've had outstanding Torah scholars that are weighing in on the practical issues of the application of Noachai Law. It's one thing to deal with Noachai Law in theory, but you really need specialists in Jewish law to develop the practice. I think many people believe that the Noachai movement is a prophetic end-time phenomenon. The Prophet Zachariah in chapter 8 verse 23 and many other scriptures in the Jewish Bible speak of a time when non-Jews will turn to the Jewish people seeking spiritual guidance. For most of Jewish history, this might have sounded like science fiction. For most of our history, the world has been trying to kill us, and we couldn't imagine it's going to be a time when people are saying, please teach us about God. But that has been exactly what's been happening with the emergence of the modern Noachai movement. I've personally been both inspired and humbled by the people that I've met since my initial meetings with J. David Davis and Jack Saunders and James Tabor back in 1990 and 1991 when this movement was first getting off the ground. Together with the Jewish educational institution Nishma here in Toronto run by Rabbi Benjamin Hecht, we brought J. David Davis to Toronto in 1996 for a series of lectures and meetings with local rabbis. Over 400 people came to a program we organized for the Jewish community at Shari Shemayim Synagogue, and then we had a special program for the general non-Jewish community at the North York Public Library where over 100 people enthusiastically received J. David's presentation. We've actually had an ongoing monthly study group of Toronto area Bene Noach right here for the past five years and I've also been in touch with a small Noachai group that is meeting in Montreal. I want to let you know that after we developed our own YouTube channel at Jews for Judaism, I've been receiving hundreds of emails and Facebook messages from all over the world by non-Jews that have been impacted by our YouTube videos many of them are now exploring the Noachai path. Yesterday I actually posted on my Facebook page a short video of a Noachai study group in the Philippines that is a group that I've been in touch with. I just want to end by sharing with you a number of challenges that are facing the Noachai community today. Number one, many Noachai today come from Christian backgrounds and they bring with them sometimes baggage. The baggage includes an aversion to what they don't see explicitly taught in the Bible and therefore they have somewhat of an ambivalent attitude toward the oral law and rabbinic authority. This is something ultimately which will have to be worked out. I think over time they will lose their allergy. I've speak to many of these former Christians who really have an aversion to the Talmud but know nothing about it. And often and usually when they expose themselves to these rabbinic teachings they become very impressed and they lose their allergies. Number two, it's critical that the Noachai movement develop leadership and receive more support from rabbis and more acceptance by the Jewish community. I must tell you that in the late 90s when I first met them the Jewish community was a little bit nervous about who these people were. Were they Christians trying to infiltrate the Jewish community? Who are they? They seemed weird. We had no idea who they were. And now since those early days there's more of a comfort level that's been developing more I think a growing acceptance in the general Jewish community for the Noachai movement and as we just saw a few minutes ago an increasing effort by rabbis to support this movement. Number three, today the Noachai community is basically a virtual community. It basically lives online. And for the community to really survive it's going to have to develop real communities brick and mortar, flesh to flesh communities, not just virtual communities. One of the greatest problems facing the Noachai movement today is that it's a very lonely kind of life. Often people that are Bnei Noach might be the only one in their city or maybe one of a handful in their city. And it's hard to imagine having a real spiritual life when you're thinking about who am I going to date? Who are my children going to marry? Who are we going to associate with? Who's my community? Who are my peers? And so for this movement to really survive they're going to have to develop communities that have a critical mass. When I was in Houston the Nantif community has approximately 100 people. That's something that we can speak about. And it's growing. Number four, it's important for Bnei Noach to develop a sense of Noachai identity. This is especially challenging when Noachais are trying to raise children. People want to understand clearly who are we? How do we self-identify? How do we identify to other people? Do we tell people we're part of the Jewish community? What is our relationship to the Jewish community? Are we semi-members, members, associates? And how are we supposed to tell our children who we are? So it's important for Bnei Noach to understand what is the identity of Bnei Noach. Number five, a very delicate question. But how much Jewish practice should and can Noachai take on? You should know that many Bnei Noach are drawn to Jewish practice to following practices of Judaism. And the question is how much of this practice should they take on and can they take on? For example, things like prayer rituals, Shabbat, holidays, mezuzah, etc. These are complex issues that are only now being addressed by competent rabbinic authorities for the first time in history. A thousand years ago, 500 years ago, great rabbis were not being asked these questions. But now these are questions that are being asked. It's funny, in some Jewish circles, they speak about what's going to happen when we send religious Jewish astronauts to the moon and what happens on the spacecraft, how do they pray, and what are the... So those are questions that are now are theoretical and people sometimes like to think about it. But the questions facing Noachites are actually practical questions that are being dealt with right now as we speak. Finally, one of the greatest challenges to the Noachite movement is the tendency within the Noachite community to convert to Judaism. I remember being at a meeting of Bnei Noach and interested rabbis in New York in the early 1990s, and I met their Vendel Jones. And Vendel Jones said to me, you know, Rabbi, we lose our best kids to Yiddishkeit. We lose our best kids to Judaism. And it's true, his two children converted to Judaism. So part of this is, I believe, a result of frustration in the Bnei Noach movement because when you're living an isolated, lonely life where there isn't a lot of resources and leadership and it doesn't seem to be a large community, so people get lonely and I think they feel alright, being a Noachite is not working, I'm going to convert to Judaism. But this is a question which is a tremendous challenge to the Bnei Noach. They face this drain of people within the movement who ultimately convert to Judaism and it's not clear how that is going to ultimately work out. I believe that this movement has a tremendous amount of potential and can be a huge benefit to our community as fellow travelers on the road towards world redemption. We don't have many friends in the world. We've always been a very isolated people. Think about the potential of having hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Gentiles who associate as Bnei Noach saying, we stand with you as fellow travelers on your journey. I personally pray for their success.