GEN701 See also [[GEN186]] Genesis 1:29 food TELVOL 2:331

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GEN714 The Torah gives a specific reason for this [death penalty] punishment: man was created in the image of God.  Thus, in addition to the other rationales for capital punishment [deterrence; retributive justice; public safety], the Torah says that because every person has a piece of God within him or her, if a person takes the life of another human being (who also had a piece of God within), that person forfeits her or her “image of God” and is no longer worthy to be called a human being with God’s image. It is for this reason that the Torah says he does not deserve to live.  AMJV 46

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GEN711 Rabbi Akiva says: Whoever spoils blood [that is, kills someone], it is as if he or she had annihilated the likeness (Heb., demut) as it says: “He who spills the blood of a person, by a person shall his blood be shed, for He made humanity in the image of God [this verse]” Tosefta, Yevamot 8:5. COMMENT: This midrash starts with a moral and legal norm and then cites a verse as a prooftext. [The idea behind “prooftexting” is that the source is, in some way, divine and expresses God's truth and will. Hence, one can appeal to such a text as “proof” that something is true or morally desirable.]  This literary form is also one of the major literary forms for midrash: the “principle-prooftext” form. Here, Rabbi Akiva establishes that killing (purposeful, as well as accidental) is not only a crime punishable by the law but a violation of the moral order of the universe.  He formulates this by saying that whoever kills another human being diminishes the likeness and image of God in the universe, alluding to Gen. 1:26-27, “Let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness.” As a prooftext, however, he cites the biblical text which links the killing of humans to the image [this verse]. [By a slight, but permissible, change in the grammar of Genesis 9:6, another reading is possible: “He who spills the blood of a person in a person, his blood shall be shed.” Catholic tradition uses this reading to forbid abortion. BANAL 150

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GEN705 (Continued from [[LEV1103]] Leviticus 25:55 servants COHON 131-2). The idea of Divine sonship derives from the sense of identity with the higher order. To be a son of God is not the prerogative of one favored individual --as is claimed by Christianity for its founder—but of every God–conscious being. In the words of R. Akiba: “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God; by special love it was made known to him that he was created in the image of God, as it is said, ‘for in the image of God made He man’ [this verse].  Beloved are Israel in that they were called children of God; by a special love it was made known to them that they were called children of God, as it is said, ‘Ye are children of the Lord your God’” Avot 3:18; Deuteronomy 14:1.  As sons and servants of God, the Jewish people are called upon to act as God’s witnesses (Isaiah 43:10 – 12). This privilege is not limited to Israel. All men shall ultimately testify to Him (Isaiah 45:23). This is the substance of the belief of the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. The consciousness of Divine sonship is coupled with the sense of human brotherhood as motive powers of moral conduct. The two… are inseparable in Jewish thought.  COHON 132

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GEN706 See [[GEN125]] Genesis 1:27 image DORFFDRAG 5-6

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GEN712 That humans are “created in God’s image” emphasizes the infinite value of human life… (By Elaine Adler Goodfriend, “Ethical Theory and Practice in the Hebrew Bible) OXFORD 44

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GEN707 Being modeled after the sefirot [per Kabbalah, Divine emanations through which God is revealed and sustains the world-- AJL] , the human body can be a gate-way to the divine.  Contemplation of the human body and its actions not only grants one knowledge of all worlds – of all dimensions of existence, but also indicates how physical actions can influence what happens in these worlds, including the divine world of the sefirot.  In this typically cabalistic view, each human action, each physical gesture, has immense implications and influence.  The physical life of the human being is therefore related not merely to the individual or social realm, but to the disposition of all that exists.  From this perspective, the actions of the human body have transcendent and theurgic implications, effecting the Godhead itself.  In a typical mystical text, the Hasidic master, Elimelekh of Lizensk, observed: The main reason man was created was to rectify his Root in the upper worlds.  It is written, For in the image of God, God made humans” [this verse]. God made humans in the form of the structure that exists on high, making each human being a precise counterpart of it … The main human task is to rectify the divine structure (shiur komah) … Whenever a person sanctifies himself through a certain part of the body, that person rectifies the universes that correspond to that particular limb. Through moral virtue and observance of the commandments, one provides a means for each limb of the body to articulate the spiritual through the physical, to make manifest the divine image embossed upon the human body. SHER20C 17

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GEN708 Ethical living, that is, living in the image of God, entails the enhancement of God’s word, God’s world, and the divine image implanted within each human person.  Unethical acts, in contrast, not only diminish God’s world, God’s word and the divine image implanted within each human being, but they also diminish God.  For example, a midrash states: Scripture tells us that whosoever spills blood, Scripture imputes it to him as if he has diminished the image of the King [i.e., God]. The matter is comparable to a king of flesh and blood who entered a city and erected icons and images and stamped coins [with his image upon them]. After a time, they pushed down the icons, smashed the images and destroyed the coins, and thereby diminished the image of the King.  Therefore, whosoever spills blood, Scripture imputes to him as if he had diminished the image of the King, as it is written, “whosoever sheds human blood … for in the image of God, God made humans. [this verse]. Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael, sec. “Yitro,” chap. 8, 233 on Exod. 20:16; see also Genesis Rabbah, chap. 34, sec. 14].   From this text, one can elicit at least four theological assumptions endemic to Jewish ethics: (1) God exists; (2) the human being is created in God’s image; (3) because the human being is created in God’s image, certain actions against another person—in this case, murder, are morally wrong; and (4) because human beings are created in the image of God, an immoral act against another person is an affront to God, an act both against God’s will and against God’s person.  The boundaries of these assumptions were expanded by the Jewish mystics of the sixteenth-and seventeenth-centuries.  These mystics maintained that not only is the human person created in the image of God, but that within each person there is an element of divinity, a part of God (helek elohah mi-ma’al), a spark of the divine.  Hence, one ought to treat other human beings in a certain manner not simply because each person is in the divine image, but because God is a part of each person.  In this view, how we relate to other human persons does not merely reflect how we relate to God.  Rather, how we relate to other human persons and to ourselves is how we relate to God.  SHER20C 10

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GEN713 The divine image relates not only to the will, soul and intellect, but to the body as well. The body is a mirror reflecting the image of God, as well as a receptacle that embodies the divine likeness: “A parable: there were two twin brothers who lived in a certain city. One was elected king while the other became a thief.  At the king’s command, the thief was hanged.  But all who saw the thief handing on the gallows said, “The king is hanged.’” Sanhedrin 46b.  Commenting on the biblical phrase, “in the image of God, God created human beings,” a midrash tells (Leviticus Rabbah, chap. 34, sec. 3): Hillel the Elder once completed his studies with his disciples who accompanied him from the academy.  His disciples asked him, “Master, where are you going?” “To perform a religious duty,” he responded.  “Which religious duty?” “To wash in the bathhouse,” said Hillel.  “Is this a religious duty?” “Yes,” replied Hillel.  “If the statues of kings, which are erected in theatres and circuses, are scoured and washed by the person appointed to look after them, and who thereby obtains his maintenance through them … how much more I, who have been created in the image and likeness of God, for as it is written, ‘for in the image of God, God made human beings’?” [this verse].  As these texts plainly observe, the human body is portrayed as having been created in the divine “image and likeness.”  SHER20C 13

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GEN709 Love of God is rooted in the belief that God loves us. As the Mishnah teaches, “Beloved is humankind, for they are created in the divine image. It is indicative of an even greater love [by God] that it was made known to them that they are in God’s image, as it is said [this verse, Ethics of the Fathers 3:14.  Our creation in God's image, the ultimate source of human self-esteem is an act of love by God which evokes our love in return.  TELVOL 1:492

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