Michael Vick and the Noachide Commandments

Michael Vick and the Noachide Commandments
August 24th, 2007
Rabbi Gary S Creditor

I first wish to give my accolades to all those who delivered devrai Torah during this summer and for next week. I have immensely enjoyed reading them on the listserv and sincerely recommend that you join it. You will receive timely information about our activities, but also true pearls of wisdom. We have an enlightened and highly education congregation. It is a wonderful mitzvah that so many share of their wisdom with us. Through the medium of this sermon which will also be on the listserv, I thank each and every "teacher of Torah."

I religiously read the Forward, the English edition of the old Forvets, published weekly in New York. One of the most interesting columns is Philologos. Whoever he or she is, they deal with issues of language. I read the column faithfully. While sometimes pedantic, most times they are very insightful. Recently the column dealt with the term "Noachide." It discussed why the word is "Noachide" and not "Noahite" or any other take-off on the word Noah. [I will tell you why later.] It refers to the Rabbinic derivation from the Noah story in Genesis that there are seven mitzvot that are incumbent upon all humanity; in Hebrew – Sheva Mitzvot B'nai Noach. It is sort of a baseline definition of being a good human being. The seven are to abstain from 1) idolatry, 2) incest, 3) murder, 4) theft, 5) unethical business practices or dealings with others, and 6) blasphemy. The last one (7) is called "Aver Min HaChay" – not to eat any part of a living animal.

Frankly, when I first learned the Sheva Mitzvot B'nai Noah, the Noachide commandments, this was the only one of which I had no comprehension. I implicitly understood the first six. Yet even though I had never thought about being vegetarian or vegan, the very thought of ripping a limb from a living animal, whether I was going to eat it or not, was repulsive. While somehow I guess I realized that the creatures that inhabited my childhood, the cow jumping over the moon, Lamb chop from Shari Lewis, would became the main course of my dinner, treating a live animal in an animalistic way was not conceivable. If I had a comedic strain, this might be the place for a cavemen joke. I don't have one, (but my daughter's car insurance is with Geico). Maybe in antiquity this was possible. Maybe in the Roman Empire. But surely now, the 21st century, in America, this issue only comes to the surface at holiday seasons when people gave pets to others who really didn't want them and were not dedicated to taking care of them. Otherwise, it was unthinking people who unintentionally left their dogs in the car in the summer time. All this, God forbid…  But to purposefully maim an animal, to treat it inhumanely, that was not a reality that I could get my arms around and comprehend. While there is a specific mitzvah in Deuteronomy about Tsa'ar ba'alay chayyim, considering the pain of living animals, that mitzvah was enunciated as one of the 613 that are specifically part of Judaism, which is more stringent that Aver Min HaChay, and is the foundation for kashrut and shechitah. An important part of keeping kosher is slaughtering in a way that minimizes the animal's pain and suffering. It also includes how we treat pets and animals in general. But I thought that Aver Min HaChay was a "no brainer." Every body gets it.

Let me switch for a moment. I remember when the $100,000 plateau for the salary of a baseball player was broken. It was astronomical. Incredible! Then again, you really had to be a very special player to receive such a reward. In those days logos didn't appear on anything but the baseball bat. The screen was uncluttered black and white. And players' faces didn't appear on everything. I know that careers in sports are relatively short. I know that it is not easy to throw a ball one hundred miles an hour or to hit it going that fast. Or throw or catch a football when more than the gross weight of my mini-van is bearing down upon you. Maybe our society is wrong to hold up sports players as heroes. Maybe sports ability should not be the litmus test for popularity. Surely we don't say to our children "I want you to grow up to be a shortstop; a pitcher; or a quarterback!" What do we say? The usual litany – doctor, lawyer, teacher! How many famous people from those professions can you name, against how many sports figures? I am saving a sermon on Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds. There is something unique in being held up larger than life. There is something different about being elevated on a screen bigger than my house. We expect something more than homeruns and touchdowns. We want to see something more than throwing, hitting and catching. We see ourselves in their reflection. We imagine that by watching them, we can do the same thing. There is something of them in us and something of us in them. That's the bond. That's what it's all about!

So let me intersect the two parts of my remarks – Michael Vick and the Noachide commandments.  Philologos explained in the column that this form of the word is used, ending in "ide" because it is derived from the two letter ending "id" which indicates being a descendant of or from. Namely, that the Biblical and Jewish view of the world, not the scientific, but the moral and ethical vision, is that all humanity is derived from Noah. His ark was a lifeboat for the whole human race. Every person ever alive, regardless of any distinguishing physical, philosophical or geographic difference, are all related.For all humanity, these seven commandments are the baseline of our existence. Michael Vick is a descendant of Noah. He has the same foundational obligations to lead a moral life that we all do. Even more so, because his picture is everywhere, larger than life. He has more than "failed." He violated a cardinal rule in his cruelty to dogs. He killed. Hemurdered. He maimed. The Noachide law is not restricted to killing human beings. It is all inclusive. Michael Vick betrayed his humanity. He also violated the business dealings clause in lying – one of the big ten - to the owners of his team and his fellow players. As I was composing this sermon a thought came to me. If he had been on the ark with Noah, how would he behaved? Would he have fed them or beat them, if they made too much noise, if they didn't fight each other. Personally, if I was Noah, I would have thrown him off the Ark.

I wish Michael Vick hadn't taken the plea and gone to trial so that they could throw the book at him. Any fine he will pay he will make up quickly. He is still young, and owners are fickle. Team mates want to win. So he could be back. So if the courts won't end his career, I hope that the NFL will. They need to have a moral backbone and an ethical spine. They need to represent human decency and human dignity. The relevant statistics are not just height, weight, speed of the pitch or twenty yard dash. They represent us, more than they do their team. We are on the big screen in them. They elevate our virtues and our sins. Michael Vick didn't fail. He violated life. In a sense, he sullied us.  I would say this about any athlete who acts so despicably. The NFL should ban him for life. That would be the moral high ground. I hope they have the courage.

So when you sit with your daughters and son, grandsons and granddaughters and talk about life, it's okay to open the sports pages and read the box scores. I do everyday. I want to see who hit, who pitched and how did they do. I want to root for the Dodgers, the Mets, they Yankees and the Braves in that order. I root for the Jets and the Giants and have a passing fancy about the Redskins. But when you really talk tachlis with them and ask them "What do you want to be when you grow up?" tell them:
"I want you to be a good Jew."
"I want you to be a good human being."
"I want to see the divine image reflected in you."

Shabbat Shalom.