My covenant will I not break, nor alter
the thing that is gone from My lips. - Psalm 89:35
God so loves mankind that He shows us His Way
and gives us His Law. The idea that His laws are bad or unworthy
in any sense doesn't hold water: why would God inflict unworthy
laws on those who follow Him?
You shall keep My statutes. -
Leviticus 19:9
If He meant to "free" us from "the
burden of the Law," why would He tells us that His laws
are eternal?
Every one of Your righteous ordinances
is everlasting. - Psalm 119:160
The First Covenant - the Adamic, Noahide (or
Noahite), Universal or Rainbow Covenant - requires us to act
like truly human beings. This involves keeping God's laws for
us. If you want to do what is right, if you want to please your
Maker, if you want to benefit yourself and those near to you,
and bring good into the world, and refine yourself - then keep
God's Law and follow His Way.
What does the Lord [HaShem]
require of you, but to fear* the Lord your God, to walk in
all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your
God with all your heart and all your soul? - Deuteronomy
10:12
The end of the matter, all having been
heard: fear* God, and keep His commandments, because this
is the purpose of man. - Ecclesiastes 12:13
Fearing God is the feeling that humanizes man's
dealings with his fellow creatures; the "fear" of
God is the voice of kindliness and conscious. [See Exodus 1:17
(Egypt's midwives refuse to obey the king's order to murder
the newborn babies in their care, because "they feared
God"); Deuteronomy 25:18 (Israel's eternal enemy, Amalek,
viciously attacks the weak and helpless among Israel by preference,
because Amalek does not "fear God").] Blessed
is everyone who fears HaShem, who walks in His Ways (Psalm
128:1). The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
(Psalm 111:10).
Do His will as if it were your will,
that He may do your will as though it were His will.
- R' Gamaliel, Mishnah, Pirke Avot 2:4
A covenant is a contract of a permanent, unconditional
character, unless the words of promise involved explicitly state
a condition or limitation of some kind. Look at the words of
the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, chapter Nine: the covenant
between God and man is unconditional, without limitation of
any kind. This is a permanent covenant, an eternal "contract,"
if you will, between God and us, His creatures.
Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve
the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.*
- Isaiah 1:17
*1) Knowing how to do well doesn't come by
instinct or inheritance, it must be learned; 2) Justice secures
each person's individual rights; 3) relieve the oppressed,
or "set right the oppressor" [by opposing his wrong
actions]; 4) judge (win justice); 5) plead (take the part
of - literally, "strive for") the weak and friendless.
(See Isaiah, above, with Rashi.)
My soul thirsts for God, for the living
God. - Psalm 42:3
Human beings have free will, imagination and
intellect. We have the capacity to behave much better - and
also, much worse - than mere animals. As God has put us at the
top of the planetary foodchain, giving us dominion over the
Earth and every plant and creature on or in it, He requires
us to live up to certain standards. Those standards
are part of His covenant with us; He has set them out for us
for everyone to read and learn in His covenantal Law, His Way.
Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes;
and I will keep it at every step. Give me understanding, and
I shall keep your Law, and observe it with my whole heart.
Make me to tread in the path of Your commandments; for therein
do I delight. - Psalm 119:33-5
He requires us to behave ourselves, to conduct
ourselves better than mere animals, in accordance with our exalted,
uniquely elevated place in His creation. He requires us to keep
His Law.
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who delights greatly in His commandments. - Psalm 112:1