GEN542 See [[GEN115]] Genesis 1:27 image DORFFLOV 75-6

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GEN543 Spreading false, negative comments about people—that is, slandering them—clearly attacks their integrity and reputation, and that is, as Maimonides says, akin to murder. But even slurs—that is, true but negative comments about someone (lashon hara) – can be nothing less than lethal. Oliver Sipple is a woeful case of this. Sipple, an ex-Marine who saved the life of President Gerald Ford by deflecting the gun directed at him by Sarah Jane Moore, became an instant national hero. Despite his request to reporters, “Don’t publish anything about me,” many noted in their articles that Sipple was active in the gay community. This led to rejection by his parents, who had not known about that aspect of his life—even to the point of his father telling him that he was not welcome at the funeral of his mother—which, in turn, led Sipple to drink heavily and to die alone at age forty-seven. The reporter who first publicized Sipple’s homosexuality made this postmortem comment: “If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t.” Stephen Bates, If No News, Send Rumors: Anecdotes of American Journalism (New York: Henry Holt, 1989), pp. 143-43). Note that this case illustrates that what constitutes negative information depends largely on how the hearers will respond to it.  After all, being gay is not in and of itself a bad thing; for many people now, it is simply a fact of life, like the fact that some people have blue eyes and some have brown eyes. Sipple knew, though, that his parents would think ill of him if they found out that he was gay, and that was all that mattered. The prohibition of uttering negative speech applies all the more if everyone knows that what a person is saying is negative, for then there is a clear intention to defame a person.  We may not defame a person, for we are required to respect each and every person as being created in the image of God [this verse]. DORFFWITO 81-2

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GEN538 It was Judaism that posited love of fellowman as the guiding principle of ethics; in doing so it incidentally illustrated its concept of the relationship between religion and ethics. The religious attitude finds its ultimate source in awareness of values in life and the world. It is characterized, moreover, by the effort to transcend the self-interests of the individual.  The pragmatic attitude underlying science takes things to be the “objects” of the experience and “environment” of the individual.  It evaluates them from a utilitarian viewpoint.  Religion, on the other hand, assumes that the personality is aware of itself in relationship to that which is beyond itself and its attitude towards the latter is based on the feeling of awe.  This attitude involves an absolute not a utilitarian evaluation.  The basic achievement of Jewish ethics is it application of this absolute evaluation whose original setting is the religious situation—man confronting God—to the area of life where man confronts his neighbor. On the simplest level, our fellow men are objects of our experience and really constitute a part of our environment. To be sure, in social life the relationship between persons takes on a specific character, one that distinguishes it from the individual’s relationship to all other objects. Common interests bind people together; occasionally, so closely together that the other may even become part of one’s own ego. Even on this level, the relationship to the other is still based, strictly speaking, on what may be called a higher selfishness.  The emotional stance toward the other may that of affection, aversion, or indifference.  In each instance, the motivation is subjective and determined by relative considerations. The Biblical commandment of love of one’s fellow man stands on an altogether different level. In its universalistic and normative character it demands that one’s fellow man should be not merely an object of personal affection but should rather be loved for his own sake.  In this paper, we propose to establish the theoretic meaning and religious basis of this universalistic and binding commandment and to define its scope and limits in the practical realm.  Ahad Ha-Am’s efforts in this direction In his essay “Between Two Stools” in Al Parashat Derakhim, vol IV were much too cursory and the apologetic tendency that informed his famous essay led him to formulate the differences between Jewish and Christian ethics somewhat superficially. The Hebrew essayist saw the basis of Jewish ethics in the twin ideas of justice and the moral worth of man. Aside from the fact that he deliberately omits the religious source of these ideas, he contrasts the “objective” value of justice, native to Judaism, with the “subjective” value of love central to Christian ethics. This characterization does not, as we have already indicated, exhaust the full meaning of the Biblical commandment of love of fellowman. Hermann Cohen, in his early writings, Ethik des reinen Willens, vol. II, pp. 116ff. approached the problem from a not too dissimilar viewpoint. On religious grounds, he found the ethic of love inadequate since by its very nature it is subjective and selective and hence far too limited to express the universalism that must be the hallmark of ethics. He proposed instead that ethics orient itself towards jurisprudence where the relationship of the self and other is most characteristically expressed in the legal contract. Whatever validity this criticism of the ethic of love and its alternative may possess, it is hardly applicable to Judaism in which the two—jurisprudence and ethics—are brought into an intimate relationship. Both Ahad Ha-Am’s grounding of Jewish ethics in the value of justice as opposed to love and Hermann Cohen’s critique of the latter are implied in a famous Talmudic controversy between Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai. Sifra Kedoshim and parallel passages. Rabbi Akiba declared the biblical commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself “the great maxim of the Torah.” For Ben Azzai, the essential role of the Torah is contained in [this verse]. As did Hillel before him, Rabbi Akiva followed the lead of the prophets who asserted that love was the highest demand made on man by religion. Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:8; Zachariah 7:9  With penetrating insight, Ben Azzai discerned in the verse in Genesis a broad and firm foundation for ethics— the essential unity of mankind and the dignity of the individual. (By Chaim W. Reines, "The Self and the Other in Rabbinic Ethics") KELLNER 162-4

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GEN545 It was taught: “R. Akiva said Leviticus 18:18: ‘And you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ – this is a great principle in the Torah.”  Ben Azai said: ‘This is the book of the generations of man’ – this is an even greater principle” Yerushalmi, Nedarim 9:4 TEMIMAH-GEN 30

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GEN546 To state our theory of desert in its sheer simplicity: The good or worth or value of any thing is its being, where being is construed dynamically and conatively.  Beings make claims, and these constitute their essence, their identity or nature, their prima facie interests and entitlements.  It is because desert is the very reality of things that it is universal and positive in all beings – although, of course, beings may overstep, and the equilibration of deserts in a multifarious universe will never simply serve the unqualified or unreflective claims of a single crude conatus. Universal deserts are bespoken in the biblical protection of the trees of a besieged city Deuteronomy 20:19-20, the land that needs it sabbaths Leviticus 25:8, 26:34, 43; 2 Chronicles 36:21, with Jeremiah 25:11, the ass in the story of Balaam Numbers 22:28, the human person, and even the human form which must not be desecrated or exposed, even after the execution of a criminal Deuteronomy 21:23, nor mutilated, even in the service of God Leviticus 21:5.  The values sketched here are systematized in the Mishnah’s broad rule against wanton destructiveness (bal Tahhit) and in the phased measures taken against a rodef or aggressor in hot pursuit; and, accordingly, in the phased measures taken against a fetus in those rare cases where it becomes a rodef but still merits recognition as a being on the threshold of human life. Biblical humanism is not the rival but the culmination of this general recognition of deserts.  Thus cattle must be milked on the Sabbath, to prevent the suffering of living beings.  A fortiori does Sabbath rest give way in the face of threats to human life or health. The principle of pikuah nefesh [saving a life] rests on the reasoning that the Sabbath is created for us, not we for the Sabbath – and so with all the commandments: “You shall live by them” – not die for them B. Yoma 82a-85b.  Life is the aim, but a certain kind of life, not any sort at all costs.  Life is good, being is good, worthy of sustenance, capable and deserving of nurture.  The humanism articulated in the Mosaic norms, mounted in the larger fabric of love of life and being, provides the grand thematic of the Gemara.  Marking that humanism, Ben Azzai locates the great principle of the Torah in the words of [this verse]. JHRHV 43-4

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GEN547 See [[GEN80]] Genesis 1:27 female FREUND 188-9

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GEN548 [This passage] is a ringing affirmation of … the innate dignity of each human being, male and female.  GORLAW 153

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GEN549 R. Elazar said: “Anyone who does not have a wife is not a man, as it is written: “Male and female He created them, and He called their name “Man”’” Yevamot 63a TEMIMAH-GEN 31

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GEN550 It was taught: “Bet Hillel said: ‘One has not fulfilled the mitzvah of begetting children unless he has a son and a daughter, as it is written: ‘Male and female He created them’” Yevamoth 61b  TEMIMAH-GEN 31

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GEN552 It has been suggested that the Platonic imitatio Dei was derived from the teachings of Pythagoras, one of whose precepts was: “Follow God.” J. Burnet in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics X, 526 and others.  While this phrase is identical with the Biblical “walking after God,” it is noteworthy that the Scriptures do not use this expression prior to the Sinaitic Revelation. The accounts of the lives of the antediluvians and the patriarchs of Israel use the expression “to walk with God” and “to walk before God.” [This verse], Genesis 6:9; 17:1; 48:15.  Enoch and Noah walk with God. The patriarchs walk before Him. Neither of these phrases explicitly refers to the imitation of God or His ways. “To walk with God” implies a close companionship with Him (and the reflexive form mithalech perhaps indicate the intense efforts exerted to achieve this goal), with an earthly existence in the manner described by Plato. See commentary of S.R. Hirsch to [this verse]. Perhaps for this reason the locution “walking with God” is not applied to Israel’s patriarchs.  “To walk before God” maybe note either walking before Him to be scrutinized or to herald HIs coming. Genesis Rabbah 30:10 Those who walk before the Lord serve by their lives as an exemplar of the Divine attributes before the attributes are revealed. When God made His attributes known, the commandment to “walk after the Lord” became an exhortation to imitatio Dei. The phrase “to walk after God” is also found in later writings, e.g. 2 Kings 20:3; Ps. 116:9. “To walk with God” is not found again.  The Divine promise that God will walk in the midst of Israel so that He will be a God unto them and they a people unto Him Leviticus 26:12 may mean just this, that God will once again reveal His attributes to Israel in all their resplendent glory, so that Israel will truly be His people who embody in their collective and individual lives the exalted ideals of imitatio Dei. (By David S. Shapiro, "The Doctrine of the Image of God and Imitatio Dei") KELLNER 141-2

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