In God's image

[Sue U]

I saw the discussion of "original sin" over in this recently bumped up thread, where it seemed rather misplaced. I thought it was interesting to see the Christian takes on the Genesis story and the meanings derived from it; we (Jews) don't have that concept of original sin requiring redemption through faith as you folks were describing/arguing it. But coincidentally, creation of humankind in the image of God was the starting point this week for an on-line exploration of the Torah begun by Rav Danya, one of my favorite Twitter follows. I thought she made an excellent point for gaining understanding of the text: What it means to be created in the divine image depends a lot on what you think God is. Here is an excerpt that I think is a nice encapsulation of our tradition's approach(es) to the issue and its relevance to living in this world:

a moral north star, if you will
Or: God has a six-word memoir, too.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

***

And then this other thing happened: “And God said, let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness…. And God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God God created it.” (Genesis 1:26-27)

“God created humankind in God’s image.” That’s… like, quite the six-word memoir. Or something.*

Before we unpack that specific phrase, I want to I want to say a thing about the word “God”, since many people hear that word and immediately picture some angry bearded dude sitting in the clouds with a pair of dice, casually dictating people’s fate.

But many, many Jewish (and non-Jewish, but I’m sticking with the ones I know best) commentators take pains to note that the anthropomorphic language in the Bible—the mighty hand and a strong arm, the nostrils that flare in anger, and the anger itself, even—is really just metaphor. "The Torah speaks in the language of human beings,” (Sifrei Bamidbar Shelach 6 and elsewhere) the ancient Rabbis said, meaning that we use familiar language to help us access something that's beyond our comprehension. It’s a metaphor.

The more interesting question is: What’s it a metaphor for?

In a lot of ways, what it means to be created in the divine image depends a lot on what you think God is.**

The 11th century French commentator Rashi says that it’s that we’re given the ability to understand and reason.

The 15th-16th century Italian commentator Sforno says it’s that we have access to spiritual connection.

The 18th century Moroccan Kabbalist Or HaChaim says that it means that we’re endowed with capacity both for justice and for mercy.

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, the late 19th-early 20th century chief rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, said that it’s that we were given free will.

Whatever it is, it applies to every last one of us. All of us, holy, created in the divine image.

All of us. Including migrant families desperately seeking asylum and safety. Including vulnerable people victimized by predatory loans. Including trans teens trapped in states legislating away their healthcare access. Including lonely, desperate people being radicalized by Internet chat rooms. Including politicians who let their vote be driven by money from corporate interests. Including workers in agricultural fields forced to labor in exploitative conditions.

Including the people who have hurt us.

Including the people we have hurt.

Every last one of us.

Full of potential to bring shining, holy light into the world.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we embrace all behavior as acceptable. Actions have consequences, and justice demands that we hold people accountable for their choices and that impact.

Rather, it means that we must work to ensure that every cultural norm, every public policy, every law, even every joke we tell honors the humanity and dignity of every human being.

It means that we need to focus our attention on what people say and do, and resist the temptation to fall into the same trap as those who oppress, marginalize and demean. Honoring the inherent holiness of every human being means not using the tools of dehumanization even against those perpetrating harm. Justice does not require it. Rather the opposite, in fact.

And most of all, we need to know that we have an obligation to fight for every single human being, every last one of us—each of us sacred, each of us valuable, each deserving of life, of freedom, of joy. This is our work. It will always be our work.

What do each of us—bringing our own, divinely-created capacities and passions to the work—need to do to begin to undertake the task at hand? And how can we all join together to create powerful, lasting transformation?

As Rav Kook wrote, “Everyone must know that within them burns a candle—and that no one’s candle is identical with the candle of another, and that there is no human being without a candle. One is obligated to work hard to reveal the light of one’s candle in the public realm for the benefit of the many. One needs to ignite one’s candle and make of it a great torch to enlighten the whole world.”
__________________________________________________________

*OK, in Hebrew it’s a 5 word memoir. Still.

**Atheists and agnostics, people who are *shrug emoji* about it all, I see you, hi. Listen, as always: nobody’s going to make you think or believe anything here, but these texts talk about God, so I’m gonna talk about God sometimes, not all of the time, less than maybe even you’d think because I do see you over there—AND, you know, we’re in the Torah, God’s going to come up sometimes. Stick around, eh? I promise, these texts are more about you than you’d think. Thursday we’ll start getting into some great weird and wild stuff about human nature.

I don't know about you, but I'm curious as to the "great weird and wild stuff about human nature" she plans to discuss Thursday.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Looks very interesting indeed. Nice observations about anthropomorphism and explanations of the metaphor. I'd say "all of the above and more"

Thanks for posting. Will you follow it up?

[Burning Petard]

I try to be a serious student of the itinerant preacher and former carpenter from Galilee. I have no conflict with any of the above, except to say 'all of the above.' Amen.

snailgate

PS. I never thought the teaching/concept/principle of 'original sin' was very useful to understanding and applying the greatest commandment.

[Big RR]

Agreed. excellent post Sue, and I will chime in with "all of the above".

[Sue U]

And this is what I mean when I say that in my personal practice of Judaism, it is wholly irrelevant whether or not there is or was an actual "God." Not only are the descriptions of God metaphoric, but "God" is itself a metaphor. The qualities that we assign to the divine are all human qualities, and it is left to us to do the divine work of understanding and reasoning, accessing spiritual connection with others, and exercising our free will to do both justice and mercy. To me, this is what it means to be created in God's image, and this is the work we are called to do as individual representations of godliness.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And this is what I mean when I say that in my personal practice of Judaism, it is wholly irrelevant whether or not there is or was an actual "God." Not only are the descriptions of God metaphoric, but "God" is itself a metaphor.

OK but I'm not sure of the logic? Surely, in order to declare both descriptions and "God" as metaphor, you must first decide that there is no God. So that hardly seems irrelevant to practice?? I'm not sure.

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God

And what attributes exist that are not human attributes - although not to perfection in humans of course. If they are metaphoric in terms of "God", then are they not metaphoric in terms of "me"? In which case, how is it possible to regard any attribute as better than or worse than another (or its complete opposite), since unreasoning violence may be an attribute, no?

[Sue U]

OK but I'm not sure of the logic? Surely, in order to declare both descriptions and "God" as metaphor, you must first decide that there is no God. So that hardly seems irrelevant to practice?? I'm not sure.

For me (as yet), there is no God, nor do I feel any necessity for a God. But there is godliness that can be manifested in the acts of humans.

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God

Absolutely. Also, to loose the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, to break every yoke of oppression, to share your food with the hungry and to provide shelter for the homeless; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and to not turn away from your own flesh and blood.

And what attributes exist that are not human attributes - although not to perfection in humans of course. If they are metaphoric in terms of "God", then are they not metaphoric in terms of "me"? In which case, how is it possible to regard any attribute as better than or worse than another (or its complete opposite), since unreasoning violence may be an attribute, no?

Sort of the point of having the biblical texts, innit?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Hmmmmm. OK.

I think you fudged rather enormously on the third one!

[Sue U]

What A Prophet Is(n't)
Or: Mediocre Won't Cut It

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Jul 5

The second thing God differentiated in the Creation story—after separating the light from the darkness—was the waters. The waters above (shamayim) from the waters below (mayim), with just that thin firmament holding everything at bay.

And then, a few generations after all of this, when “God saw how great was humanity’s wickedness on Earth, and how every plan devised by their mind was nothing but evil all the time,” (Genesis 6:5) God decides to do an almost total hard restart on humanity by way of water—rain for 40 days and 40 nights, covering up everything. Water from the heavens (mayim from shamayim, dig?) filling up the waters (yep, mayim again) down below. Un-differentiating in order to undo.

And who is tapped to be saved? This one guy, Noah (and his family, sure. Though his wife isn’t named in the Torah text, the Rabbis tell us that her name was Naamah). “Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his generation,” (Genesis 6:9) Genesis tells us. And, a chapter later, God says to him, “you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation.” (Genesis 7:1)

Picture of a storm hitting the shore
The Deluge towards Its Close, Joshua Shaw, 1813.
The Rabbis are split on what to make of this. “He was the best of his generation” means… what exactly? Was he actually righteous? Or just, like, righteous compared to all the immorality all around him? Was he good, or just less-bad? (See, eg, Talmud Sanhedrin 108a). Is it good enough to just be… mediocre?

The Zohar, a Kabbalistic text that emerged in 13th c. Spain, compares Noah to Moses. That is to say, after the Israelites build and start worshipping a Golden Calf in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt, God suggests to Moses that the two of them start the Israelites over—let’s zap these jerks and try again. But Moses argues back, makes the case for saving the people, God relents, agrees to go back more or less to the original plan.

On the other hand, here, when God tells Noah to go build a boat because most of humanity is about to get offed? Noah is silent. As the Zohar notes, “Noah did not plea for mercy on behalf of the world, and they all perished, because the Holy One, blessed be God, had told him that he and his children would be saved by the ark.” (Zohar 1:67b)

In other words, Noah didn’t lobby on behalf of everyone else because he and his were going to be OK.

Oof. It cuts.
It cuts like white liberals thinking that once a president they like is in office, they can go back to brunch and stop fighting for social justice. It cuts like everybody who keeps quiet in a meeting when their ideas are heard, even if someone else’s are talked over. It cuts like blaming the victim rather than addressing the problem. It cuts like not thinking too hard about privilege and how it functions. It cuts like every version of corporate feminism-lite that doesn’t look too hard at systemic policies, at the people at the people with the least power in the corporation, or at the people whose labor is outsourced.

Or maybe it cuts like: Silence every time a person is punished unjustly, is ground inside the teeth of mass incarceration, is condemned to death by government maleficence during a deadly pandemic for the sin of being found behind those bars in the first place. Even if the people in the flood did commit harm, it tells us something about Noah that he didn’t even question whether there was justice in their annihilation.

Moses, on the other hand, goes to the mat for the people--the ones who definitely committed some hardcore idolatry the minute his back was turned, even after they got rescued from Egypt and everything--and makes it clear to God that he’s willing to put his own life and legacy on the line for them. He tells God that if God doesn’t forgive the Israelites, "blot me, I pray You, out of Your book which You have written" (Exodus 32:32).

That’s what a prophet is. That’s what a prophet does.
He ties his fate to everyones’ fate, everyone’s safety, everyone’s wholeness.

Noah’s complicity is so bad, the Zohar notes, that he is to be named for it the whole rest of history: “Because Noah did not plead for them, the Flood waters are named after him, as it is written (and here the Zohar quotes Isaiah 54:9 as its prooftext): ‘for this is as the waters of Noah to Me; as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth.’”

In other words, the Zohar is telling us, “I was just following orders,” isn’t a moral defense—even when the orders come from God.

We must use our voices, our positions, our opportunities, our capacities, when we have them, every time.

[Burning Petard]

"It is only metaphor." Ok. I agree. But 'a metaphor' is an approximate description of something else. To say it is only a metaphor is to say the 'other' which the metaphor approximates DOES exist.

To discuss the prime cause with completeness and accuracy requires something which transcends all humanness.

So how 'bout them Tampa Bay Lightnings?

snailgate

[Big RR]

Interesting post Sue, raising some views which were not immediately apparent (at least to me). I would imagine few are really "good", but we must strive to be better.

And BP, as for a metaphor being a description of something which does exist, is it your contention that all metaphors reflect reality, or are the metaphors more like a parable which can teach us something (even if there weren't a "good Samaritan" or "foolish and wise virgins" or a "prodigal son" or even Abrabham bargaining with god for the sake of Sodom? I think the story of the flood is more the latter.

[Sue U]

Interesting post Sue, raising some views which were not immediately apparent (at least to me). I would imagine few are really "good", but we must strive to be better.

And I think that is the point of the text and this commentary in particular: What does moral righteousness demand of us? Can we consider ourselves "good" if we acquiesce to some implementation of "justice" that we know is still unjust -- even if it is "God's command"? What do we need to do so we don't end up like Noah, forever symbolizing the destruction of the world for failing to press for a more just and merciful course?

[Burning Petard]

I guess it is a matter of rhetoric for me. A metaphor is a symbolic partial representation of A by describing B. If one begins with the position that A does not exist, then the reference to B is meaningless. That is why I have fun with Pastafarianism. The discussion begins with the agreement that it is all nonsense.

snailgate

[Sue U]

The question of whether God is "real" or a metaphor or a fictional character or total nonsense misses the point entirely. The Biblical text is not there to tell us about God (who could even know such things?), it's to tell us about ourselves, to illustrate the complexities of being human and to inform our choices about how to live in this world. Here, for example, we see that Noah is not a heroic saga but a cautionary case study and a reminder to do better, be better.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The question of whether God is "real" or a metaphor or a fictional character or total nonsense misses the point entirely. The Biblical text is not there to tell us about God (who could even know such things?), it's to tell us about ourselves, to illustrate the complexities of being human and to inform our choices about how to live in this world. Here, for example, we see that Noah is not a heroic saga but a cautionary case study and a reminder to do better, be better.

Well, there you go. If it "misses the point" why in the next sentence do you categorically state that the Biblical text is not there to tell us about God because we could never even know such things? That seems to me to be answering the question in the negative - God is not real, although the Bible claims He is, but may be metaphor/fictional/nonsense. Who knows? You perhaps?

The rest is interesting though. Noah's silence contrasted with the protests of Moses (and indeed of Abraham) is worth an examination and discussion. Why is he silent? In what does his righteousness exist if he says nothing?

Then again, we who believe that God is real and the Bible includes special revelation (stuff we couldn't know but can be told) surely will argue that God "changing his mind" is a human perception of a divine action. God never changes his mind. What he does do is bring people alongside his will. Thus Moses and Abraham were fulfilling a role in pleading for a change - Noah was fulfilling a role in simply obeying (as Abraham did with Isaac; didn't argue then, did he?) - and as Jonah did in running away to avoid what he knew God would do; mercy to those who repented. We humans react variously to the requirements of God, don't we? In that sense, the Bible is a mirror. IMO

[Econoline]

(as Abraham did with Isaac; didn't argue then, did he?)

I've heard it said—by a rabbi, no less—that when YHWH demanded that sacrifice from Abraham, he was actually posing a test. A test which Abraham failed.




ETA:

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No," Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61"

[Joe Guy]

ETA:

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No," Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61"

That's the only verse I know from the Hebrew Bible.

[Gob]

Religion, two blind men arguing over the colour of the sound of a foghorn.

[Big RR]

Isn't that description pretty much any subject when you get into its depths, from philosophy to psychology to mathematics, to subatomic physics? It's pretty much a way to adapt something that is, as yet, incomprehensible into our way of understanding.

[Gob]

Not really. In "psychology to mathematics, to subatomic physics" you can have a reasoned debate on the probability and possibility of effects, outcomes, and measures, and test them. In religion there are no tests, not statistics, and no proof. (Apart from "I believe this so it must be true.")