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    Universal laws – Acharei Mot

    On the verse, “You shall keep My statutes and ordinances by which a person who does them shall live” (Lev. 18:4-5), the Sifra comments that the Torah speaks of “a person”, not just a Jew.

    Occasions such as Pesach, Shavu’ot and Sukkot derive from Jewish history and are not binding on non-Jews, but the Biblical moral laws are universal.

    Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, a dynamic Anglo-Jewish leader of an earlier generation, wrote a book called “The Universal Bible” in which he identified and analysed those laws that apply to all human beings.

    The book is worth reading, but even without it the principle remains that an individual or nation desirous of truly living, needs the moral code of love, respect and freedom that is easy to find in the Jewish Scriptures.

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