Gentile Souls
 
Moshe Ben-Chaim
 
 
Reader: I recently wrote you a question and i appreciate that you took the time to reply. in response to my question you referred me to the articles on olam habah, soul and afterlife. the articles were interesting and enlightening, however they make absolutely no reference to the question of a non-jew. i often hear people throwing out quotes from jewish sources that a goy has no neshama, there is no issur to steal from a goy and only jews merit olam habah. rationally it is difficult for me to accept that the torah does not give the majority of the people in the world the status of being human. and if thats our view why should we kvetch when a goy feels the same way about a jew. there is a famous story of a priest who refused to intervene on behalf of a trainload of jewish children on his sabbath, sending them to their death. how would a rabbi handle the situation if it were reversed? the point is, the torah's evaluation of the non-jew is one of the critical underpinnings of this religion. if you could clarify it for me i would be very appreciative.
 
 
Mesora: A Gentile has a soul, just as Adam and Eve had, and as Abraham and Noach. God hasn't changed the way He creates mankind. The view that there are different laws regarding our interaction with Gentiles does not discount their having a soul just like ours.
 
Someone suggested foolishly, "When a Gentile, who has no Jewish soul converts to Judaism, he is given a Jewish soul". My rebuttal is that God had no problem talking with Adam, Eve, Abraham, and Noach who were all non Jews. Yet they were perfected, and reached the levels that God intended. God does not have the distinction of Jewish and non Jewish souls. Rather, man has a soul, regardless of who his parents are. The entire category of "Jewish" is really man's fabrication. In reality, we are simply "Bnei Yisrael", "Children of (the man) Israel", who was Jacob.
 
Our role in existence is actually to bring the ideas of the Torah to the other nations, we are in fact serving the needs of the Gentile. God desires the following response from the Gentile:
 
(Deut. 4:6-8): "And you shall watch them and keep them as they (the commands) are your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations, who will hear all these statutes and declare 'what a wise and understanding people is this great nation. Because what great nation has God close to them like God, whenever (they) call to Him? And what great nation has statutes and laws as righteous as this entire Torah'......."
 
 
 
When Abraham changed his ways from idolatry to monotheism over a 40 year period of intellectual probing, he had no conversion or no new soul blown into him. He simply elevated the level of function of his one soul given to him at birth, and God then related to him directly. It is foolish when the Torah itself bears no support for such theories. It is even more foolish to hypothesize in areas one does not even understand the basics (metaphysics, how the soul is created).
 
We have shown clearly that all men and women have a soul, not that "types" of men have types of souls.


Philosophy | Tnach | New Postings | JewishTimes | Audio Archives | Suggested Reading | Live Classes | Search | Letters | Q&A's | Community Action | Volunteer | Links | Education | Chat | Banners | Classifieds | Advertise | Donate | Donors | About Us | Press | Contacts | Home

 

Mesora website designed by NYDesign.com
© 2003 Mesora of New York, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Articles may be reprinted without permission.