The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Babylon (11)

Then God said, “Let Us make man in in Our image, according to Our likeness;”   Genesis 1:26a  NASB

Make – The striking difference between Christian and Jewish thought begins right here, with the creation of human beings.  You might think that the two great religions share a common view of what it means to be human, but you would be wrong.  The verb appears to be the same.  עָשָׂה (ʿāśâ) do, fashion, accomplish,^[1] but even this has some interesting twists.  For example, we would be remiss if we don’t remember that, “Aside from the numerous occurrences of the meaning ‘do’ or ‘make’ in a general sense, ʿāsâ is often used with the sense of ethical obligation.”^[2]  In Hebrew thought, human beings were created with an ethical obligation.  It didn’t come about by choice or circumstance.  It came about by design.  That, of course, is Luzzatto’s point about the infinite debt we owe for our very consciousness.  Christian theology often treats the creation of human beings as if it were about rationality.  Men are created with cognition, with the ability to plan, anticipate, choose.  They are created with “free will” as intended agents of the divine here on earth.  They are reasoning creatures rather than instinctual animals.  But the bottom line of the Christian concept of creation is that we are thinking individuals.

Not so in Hebrew thought.  In one of the most powerful comments on Mesillat Yesharim, Ira Stone writes:

 “. . . ‘human being’ is a plural phenomenon and cannot be reduced to a unitary one.  The narrative expresses this in several ways.  First, the act of creation comes from outside of our being, and is ascribed to God.  The created human being is described as being ‘made up’ of two natures simultaneously: earth and breath.  Second, creation is followed immediately by command; that is, choice follows immediately upon being and is essential to it.  Because there is no being without choice, choice itself is not an act of the being, but an act of being.  Third, choice is described as being in confrontation with desire.  It is our understanding of being as the ‘beginning of desire’ that precludes our reducing choice to reason.  Reason is a tool with which we confront desire, but desire itself—the pursuit of pleasure—is at stake as we make our choices.  We are defined by the way in which we orient ourselves to desire, that is, by how the yetzer ha-ra and the yetzer ha-tov express a person’s being in confrontation with his or her fundamental nature, which desires pleasure.  Thus, neither the yetzer ha-ra nor the yetzer ha-tov can be primary because they both are subject to desire.  And rationalization to the contrary is pernicious to the development of a saintly consciousness.”[3]

Stone’s words are critical!  Read them again if you need to (and you probably need to).  They are deep.  In Hebrew ontology, human beings are created with the necessity to choose.  Choice is not optional.  We exist as we choose.  That means the yetzer ha’ra and the yetzer ha’tov are both essential to my being human.  We’ve said this before, but we need to say it again.  God created us with an ethical responsibility that demands choosing.  Luzzatto makes us realize that this ethical responsibility is expressed by the yetzer ha’tov as the obligation to bear another’s burden.  Conversely, it is expressed by the yetzer ha’ra by taking care of me first.  Stone points out that reason comes second.  Man is created ethically dependent.  His rationality is designed to manage this ethical dependency, not the other way around as Christian ontology might suggest.

Thus, the Hebrew ontology implies plurality.  I cannot have an essential ethical obligation if I am created as an individual.  In Hebrew thought, I exist because you exist.  This is the startling discovery Adam implies when he changes the noun of his identity in the presence of the woman (ʾîš instead of ʾādām).  He realizes for the first time that he is an essentially dependent being; that is, that his true identity is entirely wrapped up in his relationship to another.  Without her, he isn’t human!

Finally, the reason the Fall is so important in Christianity, and so unimportant in Judaism, is because in Christian theology responsibility (and guilt) falls on the individual.  The Fall suggests that sin is the quintessential personal mistake.  In the Fall, man loses his grip on human spirituality.  He becomes less than human.  Forgiveness is required to recover it.  The Fall is used as an explanation for the world’s ungodly situation caused by personal guilt.  Jesus is presented as the answer to the Fall because he can forgive you, the sinner, and restore your personal relationship with God.

But Judaism doesn’t view the Fall as the collapse of what it means to be human.  The fall is simply the dominance of the yetzer ha’ra, the choice to serve my desire, over the yetzer ha’tov, the desire to serve God.  The constitution of being human doesn’t change with this event.  Adam and the woman are still ethically dependent human beings after the fall. Relationships are damaged but not destroyed.  What must be recovered is the primacy of the desire to serve another, whether that other is a neighbor or the Creator.  The subsequent narrative demonstrates the consequences of allowing the yetzer ha’ra to direct the outcome.  Man does not become depraved in the Fall.  The Fall demonstrates the fragility of what it means to be created human.  In Hebrew thought, Man is essentially a volitional being, not a rational being.  Sin isn’t insanity.  It’s choice.

Mesillat Yesharim is built on the Hebrew ontology of humanity, that is, the infinite obligation to serve.  Our consciousness is a function of that obligation, and reason is the tool we use to make the choices necessary to experience the glory of being in His image.

Step 11: Thank God for creating you ethically responsible.

Find an opportunity to express that praise by serving someone else today.

Topical Index: image, human, Fall, yetzer ha’ra, yetzer ha’tov, desire, Genesis 1:26

^[1] Mccomiskey, T. E. (1999). 1708 עָשָׂה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 701). Chicago: Moody Press.

^[2] Ibid.

[3] Ira F. Stone, in Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, p. 88.