Parashat Va’ethanan is always read on the Shabbat after
Tisha B’av. Moreover, the reading for Tisha B’av morning comes from the same
portion. It begins: “When you have begotten children and
children’s children and are long established in the land, should you act
wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness, causing
the Eternal your God displeasure
and vexation” (Deuteronomy 4:25).
In the covenant between God and Israel, idolatry is the
source of all evil and destruction. Moses warned the
people about this again and again: “Do not to act wickedly and
make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a
man or a woman...” (Deut. 4:16 and other verses later in
the section).
The theme reappears in the Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for
yourself a sculptured image, any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or
on the earth below, or in the waters below the earth” (Deut. 5:8).
Why is it so important? After all it’s clear that no
image made of stone or wood could replace or even represent true Divinity. Why
then is God so concerned? Because we might be led to forget who is indeed a
genuine representative of God on earth. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explained:
And yet there is something in the world that the Bible does regard as a symbol of God. It is not a temple or a tree, it is not a statue or a star. The symbol of God is man, every man. How significant is the fact that the term tselem, which is frequently used in a damnatory sense for a man-made image of God, as well as the term demuth, likeness—of which Isaiah [in this week’s Haftarah] claims (40:18), no demuth can be applied to God—are employed in denoting man as an image and likeness of God. Man, every man, must be treated with the honor due to a likeness representing the King of kings.[1]
His words imply that the idol worship for which the First Temple was destroyed and the baseless hatred for which the Second Temple was destroyed are closely related, because every human is created in the divine image and belittling any human is effectively equivalent to idolatry. Therefore, rebuilding after the destruction requires a reversal in our human interactions.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg provides additional detail when he explains that creation in the divine image bestows humans with three dignities: 1) infinite value, 2) equality, and 3) uniqueness.[2]
That’s the principle, a grand theory that is devastatingly difficult to implement. There is a huge gap between the ideal and the real. How can we close it?
With careful persistence, one step after another. Rabbi Greenberg emphasizes (too often to my liking) the necessity of taking into consideration the human dislike for change and progressing slowly towards the utopian world that is the goal of the covenant between God and Israel.
It’s a good thing that weekly practice sessions are built into the conditions of that covenant: Shabbat, when we are supposed to live as if the world were already perfected. Part of that perfection is the equality of all humanity. In Exodus, this is expressed through the connection between Shabbat and creation. Like the Creator, people created in the divine image, including enslaved people, are commanded to rest. In this week’s portion, human equality is given even greater emphasis: “your male and female slave shall rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt…” (Deut. 5:14-15).
Only life circumstances distinguish you from your servant, a slave or anyone in a disadvantaged position. Today, the other guy is a slave, but you were, too, back in the day. In their substance everyone is equal and therefore entitled to rest. It’s really a shame that this aspect of Shabbat has mostly been forgotten in public discourse.
Life circumstances are indeed the factors that divide and distinguish between people, socio-economic factors, and health as well. My friend and study partner Rabbi Judith Edelman-Green is writing a book The Well of Compassion about her work as a chaplain in retirement homes and hospitals. One of the chapters is dedicated to the temporariness of life, to the fact that anyone who’s healthy today might not be healthy tomorrow. And every person who isn’t healthy – either physically, or psychologically or both – is created in the divine image. One of her guiding principles for meeting people living with dementia is to look deep within, piercing the fog, not in order to search for what is missing but rather to identify what remains, while expressing warmth and connection. The person in her/his full humanity always remains.
I can confirm that based on my own personal experience. Not only with my father and his mother before him, but also as a volunteer with Savyon Association in Kfar Saba working with people living with dementia, in their homes. Sometimes it is easier for a person from outside of the family or circle of friends, who has no prior acquaintance with the person, to discern the healthy aspects, identify skills that remain and even reinforce them.
We are currently in the seven weeks of consolation between Tisha B’av and Rosh Hashana, a period of rebuilding after the destruction and before starting a new year. As the nation and as a people we’ve been going through some challenging times that began during the international, Covid-19 shake up. I’m finding the uncertainty very tough and it’s extremely tempting just to curl up and hide, but escapism doesn’t contribute to rebuilding.
What does?
Increasing our awareness of the divine image in the world, by directing our intentions and efforts towards relating to every human as an image of the Divine. This is a complex challenge but every small success, no matter how small, will create a moment of blessing and redemption.
[1] “Religion and Race”(reprinted in Insecurity of Freedom) first published in 1963.
[2] In “The Image of God, Human Dignity and God: Some Reflections after the Holocaust” (1977) and many other places. Rabbi Judith Edelman-Green (see below) and I studied Rabbi Greenberg’s thought in the Project Zug course, “The Triumph of Life.”
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