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GENESIS — 9:6 image

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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GENESIS — 9:6 image

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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GENESIS — 9:6 image

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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GENESIS — 47:29 kindness

GEN1580 Acts characterized as gimilut hasadim are considered expressions of loving-kindness because they may be done selflessly, without thoughts of recompense from the recipient.  For example, when Jacob is dying, he asks Joseph to treat him with “kindness (hesed) and with truth (emet)” [this verse]. On this verse, Rashi commented, “The kindness that is sown to the dead is a true kindness (hesed shel emit), for [in such a case] one does not expect the payment of recompense [from the recipient].”  Isaac Aboab wrote that “zedakah given selflessly for the sake of Heaven, graciously and compassionately, is called gemilut Hasidim” Thus, Abaob identified gemilut hasadim as an exalted variety of zedakah. Aboab refused to assign zedakah to one realm and gemilut hasadim to another. Instead, Aboab perceived a certain fluidity between dutiful actions and benevolent actions.  For Aboab, as well as for others, actions that may benefit others embrace a wide spectrum from self-serving or reluctant giving of zedakah to perfectly selfless acts of loving-kindness. SHER20C 136

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