Designated Representative
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27 NASB
Image – Emphasis! Typically Hebraic, a repeated word acts as an exclamation in a language without punctuation. So the verse repeats ṣelem (image) in order to emphasize the special quality of this particular creation. But is that all? Well, maybe not. Maybe we need the word repeated because “image” has more than one level.
When we read that God created Man in His own image, we probably think of the spiritual and relational dimensions of human beings. Both of those, of course, require two parties in interaction. Two “images.” But there might be more. Jonathan Sacks makes a comment that hints at something else.
Judaism takes a balanced view of the human personality. Our instincts are not evil in themselves. The religious life is not a matter of self-denial and renunciation. But neither is it hedonism, the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. Instinct has its darker side, which culminates in violence. The good life involves education of the passions and the acquisition of habits of self-restraint. The holy life involves the sanctification of instinct. Only thus can we create a gracious society in which love, not power, rules the affairs of humankind.[1]
Perhaps “image” captures the duality of human existence; not a dualism of body/soul like the Greek idea but rather the duality of yetzer ha’ra/yetzer ha’tov, the fundamental arena of choice. Neither side of the duality is “evil” in itself, but both sides require active and deliberate choices. Isn’t that what it means to be in God’s image, that is, to choose? Instinctive existence isn’t about choices. Animals don’t choose. They respond with built-in reactions. They are not like the “Lion King,” a calculated human misrepresentation. We—human beings—choose. That’s what it means to be in the image of God; to choose between good and evil, to choose self-restraint when confronted with instinct options, to choose to act as God would despite the tug of ego. Maybe the reason we need a repetition of ṣelem is to remind us of this duality. No, more than remind us. To underscore the uniqueness of this duality. We alone operate on the arena of free choice.
Notice Sacks’ conclusion about the outcome of instinctual behavior. If instinct isn’t sanctified, the whole society devolves into violence. Not just the person, but the whole community. The duality of image isn’t limited to just me. There’s another level to ṣelem, a communal one. This duality is the balance between individual and community. It is also interactive, transitive, reciprocal. The choices of one affect the outcome for many. The more we look, the more we find in the words “made in God’s image.”
Topical Index: ṣelem, image, Genesis 1:27
[1] Jonathan Sacks Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Leviticus: The Book of Holiness (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2015), p. 174.
