Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society and upon which our great Nation was founded;

Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws;

Whereas without these ethical values and principles the edifice of civilization stands in serious peril of returning to chaos;

Whereas society is profoundly concerned with the recent weakening of these principles that has resulted in crises that beleaguer and threaten the fabric of civilized society;

Whereas the justified preoccupation with these crises must not let the citizens of this Nation lose sight of their responsibility to transmit these historical ethical values from our distinguished past to the generations of the future;

Whereas the Lubavitch movement has fostered and promoted these ethical values and principles throughout the world;

Whereas Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the Lubavitch movement, is universally respected and revered and his eighty-ninth birthday falls on March 26, 1991;

Whereas in tribute to this great spiritual leader, `the rebbe', this, his ninetieth year will be seen as one of `education and giving', the year in which we turn to education and charity to return the world to the moral and ethical values contained in the Seven Noahide Laws;

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That March 26, 1991, the start of the ninetieth year of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, leader of the worldwide Lubavitch movement, is designated as `Education Day, U.S.A.'.

....John Selden (1584-1654) was, among the men of Renaissance England, the most educated expositor of rabbinic literature. At a time and in a country in which the average man believed Jews to be misanthropic, usurious and dishonorable, John Selden set out to research the sacred texts of rabbinic Judaism with sympathy and interest. He wrote no less than six full-length treatises on rabbinic law. The third of these works, De Jure Naturali et Gentium Juxta Disciplinam Ebreorum (1640), was an examination of the concepts of natural law and the ius gentium as they were taught in the rabbinic tradition.

At the heart of Selden’s presentation is an analysis of the rabbinic concept of the Noahide laws, a code of seven laws which God purportedly gave to mankind at creation. Legend has it that these laws were transmitted to posterity by Noah and his sons after the flood and that they have served ever since as the fundamental moral code that governs all humanity. The laws include six prohibitions and a duty. They are a ban on idolatry, blasphemy, murder, theft, sexual immorality, and a specific form of animal cruelty – the eating of a limb of an animal that is still alive. The one duty included in the list is the injunction that every community should establish a court of law. Selden extrapolates much from these laws and in the course of a digressive work of research into rabbinic lore generates a template for ethics, family law, government, international law and religion (for a rabbinic source on this material see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkot melakim u-milhamot 8:9-10:12)

This last point – that the Noahide law provided for the religious life of non-Jews – leads to one of the most interesting discussions in the work. Selden believed that the Temple of Jerusalem was designed to permit the children of Noah, that is, the mass of mankind who observe the Noahide commandments, to participate in Temple worship alongside the children of Israel. The engravings that adorn this blog post were created for a 1665 Strasburg edition of De Jure Naturali et Gentium to illustrate this point; they are part of a passage (book III, chapter 6) in which Selden presents a detailed analysis of the Temple plans and a glimpse into the way the Temple served as an inclusive and welcoming place of worship for all nations.

In the background of Selden’s project lurked a question that was posed by Hugo Grotius’ theory of natural law in the groundbreaking De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625) – a work that preoccupied Selden and that only a few years earlier had opened up a new era of natural law theorizing in Western Europe: can law be obligatory when it is not commanded by a superior? Grotius answered the question in the affirmative, arguing that the natural law must be constructed in a way that appeals to reason, but that it remains valid etiamsi daremus non esse deum (even if we grant that God does not exist).

Selden, on the other hand, believed that law can only be binding if it is commanded by a superior – by God, for instance. Even the law of reason, even the universal laws of nature, need in the final analysis to be commanded in order to be binding; otherwise the law has no authority. This explains why it is so important for Selden’s theory that the source of the law should be located in a purported revelation from God. It also explains the necessity for Selden to stipulate a universally valid form of worship. A center of worship focuses and promotes a reverend attitude toward the divine and therefore a reverend attitude toward the law. A universal center of worship transcends national boundaries and the divisions of the churches, thereby opening up a possibility for a divinely sanctioned international law that ostensibly escapes Grotius’ secular turn.

The result is an interesting inversion for a Hanukkah blog post: Selden takes the great goal of Hellenistic civilization – universalism and the suppression of anything parochial – and reinvents universal natural law in the idiom of history’s stubbornest parochial identity. So there, Antiochus.

Is the primary purpose of the 1991 proclamation of the Seven Noahide Laws to "educate" the world concerning a "charitable" moral code that excludes the Seventh Day Sabbath?
All the while crediting the Jews as the source?

The False Prophet speaks his twisted "truths" with diabolical inspiration.

“The U.S. Congress officially recognized the Noahide Laws in legislation that was passed by both houses. Congress and the President of the U. S., George Bush, indicated in Public Law 102-14, 102nd Congress, that the United States of America was founded upon the Seven Universal Laws of Noah, and that these Laws have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization. They also acknowledged that the Seven Laws of Noah are the foundation upon which civilization stands and that recent weakening of these principles threaten the fabric of civilized society, and that justified preoccupation in educating the Citizens of the U.S. of America and future generations is needed. For this purpose, this Public Law designated March 26, 1991 as Education Day.”

Is the primary purpose of the 1991 proclamation of the Seven Noahide Laws to "educate" the world concerning a "charitable" moral code that excludes the Seventh Day Sabbath?
All the while crediting the Jews as the source?

The False Prophet speaks his twisted "truths" with diabolical inspiration.