Introducing the First Covenant
Calling the First or Rainbow Covenant - biblically, the Universal Covenant - "Judaism Lite," or "Judaism for Non-Jews," misses the target.
One, Judaism isn't just an oddball cult for a people called Jews but the heart of a timeless world-historical revolutionary movement to help lift the whole human race - including devotees of every religion! - to ever-increasing levels of competency, morality and knowledge.
Two, even though the literally Divine systems of the Universal Covenant with its terse Seven Commandments - the bedrock laws of civilization, the basic rules of decent humanity - and the Torah of Moses from Sinai, the Ten Commandments laws including all the Jews' religious laws, together make up one system of Law, they are fundamentally different.
The Torah is a unified plan for all humanity; all Divine legislation, including the Seven Commandments, is related to all other Divine legislation.
The First Covenant goes back to earliest antiquity - literally, back to Noah's Flood and to Adam and Eve! - and the initial, universal Revelation that the God or "High Powers" of the Universe created man (that is, every person) in "His" "own image." What that means exactly can be debated but all the Seven Commandments are rooted in that Reveal, that the individual human being is no mere tool, thing or object but a personality of unique significance and character.
You don't have to be Jewish or religious in any way to subscribe to that principle. It's the same with the Seven Commandments. Just 17-syllables, as the Seven are recorded in the Talmud, they form a comprehensive body of legal instruction and morality, of social rules existing alongside the more-famous Ten Commandments from Sinai. The difference is that the Seven Commandments, unlike the Ten, are for everybody. But, as the Ten Commandments are often said to "bear Divinity on their face," so do the Rainbow Covenant's Seven Commandments.
The First Covenant is the natural portal for anyone inquiring into the Covenant with Moses and Israel at Sinai - and the remarkable phenomena known as Jews and Judaism.
Even though the Seven Commandments are "irreligious" in that they apply and logically appeal to atheists, agnostics and followers of most religions, and don't depend at all on hocus-pocus, the ultimate aim of both legal systems, and of Judaism and the "Hebrew Revolution" generally, is to bring all human beings into conscious, voluntary service of El, or God (borrowing the word for Deity from ancient German paganism), the eternal heavenly Creator and Master of all things, the living "King" of Israel, Who is also called "the Lord."
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The First or Rainbow Covenant is the original Biblical covenant with mankind's legendary common ancestors, the Universal Covenant, associated with the rainbow. "I have set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and Earth." (Genesis 9)
A covenant is a formal, solemn, binding agreement - a contract, but on steroids. El, the Creator, entered into the First Covenant with Adam and Eve in the Garden, as the Bible teaches, in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, and then amplified and extended it ten generations later, with Noah (in Hebrew, No'ach) and his wife (Na'ama) and ALL their children and descendants (Genesis 9). Every human being is directly descended from Noah and Na'ama: we are ALL "children of Noah" (in Hebrew, b'nei No'ach) and subject to that covenant.
Our focus here, obviously, isn't just theology - knowledge of "theos," or Deity - but the remarkable Divine rules and instructions established in this system for living a moral, fully human, joyous life.
El, or Yah, God, HaShem, or El-Shaddai, the Lord, holds us all responsible, as the Torah teaches, for upholding and advancing certain fundamental principles.
These principles, "the Commandments of the Descendants of Noach," are said to number seven. Hebrew Tradition (the Torah, the Teaching, or Guidance, which is the Bible, from Genesis to Psalms and Proverbs to the end of Chronicles, NOT including the so-called Christian "New Testament") teaches that all seven flow logically and directly from His great Revelation to all humanity that He created us - all of us, every human being - as uniquely exalted, spiritually promising creatures under Heaven: that we are all fundamentally brothers, of every culture, race and nation, and that each of us is sacred, on a level with every human being, and that He, amazingly, loves us all, individually and together, like a Father.
The main point is that He, the infinite, unknowable, but altogether awesome "Father," an unimaginable eternal super-intelligent living Being Who is the Creator, Judge, and Lord of the whole cosmos, and every point and particle within them - created us all. And that He Who lovingly grants us life and free will also blesses us with the gift of His awesome, just, compassionate, and altogether holy guiding instructions, principles, and commandments.
First Covenant was founded by an American Jewish writer and lawyer, a Noachide former Baptist pastor and writer, and an Orthodox rabbi, Michael Katz. Rabbi Katz provides rabbinic supervision, trying to ensure the kashrut - the kosher quality - of all our work products, including every Covenant Connection.
