Why Are Noachide Laws So "Negative?"

Real questions, submitted by actual OU Torah followers, with their real answers. NOTE: For questions of practical halacha, please consult your own rabbi for guidance.

What you need to know: The seven universal ("Noachide") laws, required of all mankind, are not to steal, not to kill, not to worship idols, not to blaspheme, not to commit acts of sexual immorality, not to eat the limb of a live animal and to establish courts of justice, i.e., six “Thou Shalt Nots” and only one “Thou Shalt.”

Q. There are six negative Noachide mitzvos and only one positive. Why are they mostly prohibitions?

A. Someone once asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karcha why God spoke to Moshe from a thornbush. Before answering, he replied that one could ask the same question if God had spoken from a sycamore tree. However something is, one can always ask why it isn't otherwise!

That being said, one could ask why there are 365 negative mitzvos and only 248 positive mitzvos, the negatives outnumbering the positives by nearly 50%!

Here's my best guess: Positive mitzvos are almost exclusively matters of ritual law: to keep Shabbos, to observe the holidays, to post a mezuzah, etc. Negative mitzvos, however, include some ritual law (not to eat milk-and-meat combinations, for example) but also much natural law (not to kill, not to cheat in business, not to commit adultery, etc.). It seems to me that non-Jews are obligated in matters of natural law, which is intended to create a harmonious society but they're not obligated in our ritual law, which is designed to foster a uniquely Jewish relationship with God. If non-Jews are only obligated in matters of natural law then, based on the law of averages, it logically follows that most of their mitzvos will be prohibitions rather than obligations.

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