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According to Mishneh Torah, Kings and Wars chapter 10 paragraph 9:

A non-Jew who busied himself with Torah is liable with his life112 From Heaven, because others will see him perform Mitzvohs and being engaged in Torah and will be deceived. They will think him a practicing Jew and err after him.. He must involve himself in their Seven Commandments only.

It is clear that a non-Jew must only be involved with the Seven Noahide Laws.

What if this non-Jew is seeking conversion but has reasons holding them back from starting the process and knows that many mitzvah are only for the Children of Israel, wishes to study Torah (Chumash with commentary) because of their love for it and the love of HaShem's Wisdom knowing that it was divinely revealed at Har Sinai. Is this person subject to any sort of punishment? If so, what are they?

msh210
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Majobri
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  • Doesn't the rest of the paragraph already answer your question ? –  May 25 '20 at 02:46
  • @Lucian No I am focused on knowing if this also applies to a potential convert, if sincere intentions are valid or not and if there are punishments to studying Torah, and the answer/clarification to the third question – Majobri May 25 '20 at 02:57
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    These are excellent questions, @Majobri, and they show your mind and spirit are on the right track. If you address these questions to a rabbi, you will not only get better answers than we can give you here, you will also be taking the first step in your conversion process if that's what you decide to do. – יהושע ק May 25 '20 at 04:07
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    Does this answer your question? Non-Jews learning or being taught Torah – יהושע ק May 25 '20 at 04:10
  • @JoshK Thank you! I will do that indeed, however I still am curious to what the community has to say about the view of the non-Jew in this world and their role – Majobri May 25 '20 at 04:11
  • @JoshK To an extent it does, I am still curious to what Rambam meant by "he is liable with his life" and if that is a punishment and what it is. And again why the apparent difference in amount of love (on a deeper meaning than just because they are His children) – Majobri May 25 '20 at 04:15
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    This is two completely separate questions. I'm going to edit one out so that potential answerers can focus on the other. Please feel free to ask, in a separate question post, the question that I'm editing out of this one. You can see it at https://judaism.stackexchange.com/posts/114404/revisions – msh210 May 25 '20 at 06:31

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