Actor Receives ‘7 Noahide Laws’

By COLlive reporter

Hollywood actor and rapper Will Smith was filming a movie in Jordan and decided to visit Israel and pray at the Kotel in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites of Judaism.

“I’m chilling at the Western Wall,” Smith said, according to the Times of Israel, adding that he was “honored to be here” and calling the holy site a “very spiritual, very powerful place.”

Spotting Smith and his entourage was Rabbi Mendy Duchan, Director of ‎Chabad Azory Chen in Tel Aviv’s Ramat Aviv neighborhood, who was visiting the Kotel as well.

As Smith isn’t Jewish, the rabbi said “I couldn’t offer him Tefillin,” but he still wanted to remain true to the Rebbe’s call to “be welcoming to every person.”

Instead, Duchan presented the actor with a booklet describing the ‘Seven Noahide Laws,’ a sacred inheritance given to mankind following the Great Flood during Noach’s times as described in the Torah.

“I gave him the booklet with a short explanation and cordial blessings,” Rabbi Duchan said. “He received it with joy and enthusiasm. If he came to the Kotel and told all his 75 million followers about it, then he is one of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’.”

For most of Jewish history, circumstance did not permit the Jewish people to spread the Noahide Laws, other than by indirect means. When the Lubavitcher Rebbe began speaking about publicizing them as a preparation for a new era, he was reviving an almost lost tradition.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation speaking of “the historical tradition of ethical values and principles, which have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws, transmitted through God to Moses on Mount Sinai.”

In 1991, when the U.S. Congress declared Education Day in honor of the Rebbe’s birthday, it recognized “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.”