Tselem as mediator of the human - non-human relationship in rabbinic thought

• In Event: Non-Human Worlds in Rabbinic Literature and Law

Abstract

In early midrash (B'REISHIT RABBAH 8:11), one finds the teaching that the creatures of the upper realms were created in the image and don’t reproduce, while the creatures of the lower world were not created in the divine image and do reproduce. The one exception that bridged these two realms was humanity, which both was created in the image and yet does reproduce. This paper will explore several aspects of this important motif. The seemingly clearcut and obvious division between realms proposed in BR 8:11 was repeated as a motif throughout rabbinic literature and in later Jewish thought, yet it also challenged both the apparent meaning of the Torah (that the human alone is in the divine image) and many later rationalist understandings of Judaism in significant ways, especially by asserting (as this paper will demonstrate) that the physical heavenly bodies were created in the divine image. Moreover, there are instances where early rabbinic texts ate away at the edges of this framework, proposing that certain aspects or traits equated with God’s image could be found in the natural world (that is, among the lower creatures beyond humanity), in ways that seem to contradict BR 8:11. Most importantly, characteristics of human sexuality associated with divinity were also noted as being found in exceptional cases in other lower creatures. Lastly, the BR motif that the human being uniquely united the characteristics of the upper and lower realms evolved in later midrash into the idea that the human was the lynchpin or hub that held the wheel of Creation (that is, the natural world) together. This idea had a profound impact on later Jewish thought, especially Kabbalah. In sum, this framework was determinative in more than one way of the rabbinic understanding of the human place in Creation. This understanding of the divine image in humanity and the human purpose in Creation therefore reframes our imagining of the anthropocentrism of the rabbis -- not only in ways that are significant for understanding rabbinic thought, but also in ways that are profoundly important to modern questions about Judaism's stance vis-a-vis ecology and anthropocentrism.

Author

• David Mevorach Seidenberg, Independent Scholar