Every Human Being Bears God's Image. Even That Person. | 10@9 | 2026.10.09

Good morning. Today is Friday, October 9th, 2026. One of the most magnificent, momentous, and far-reaching statements of Judaism in the Torah is right at the beginning of the Torah, where the Torah says, in connection with God's creation of human beings, Adam and Chava, Adam and Eve. God created him, Adam, and also Eve, the Torah says, in the image of God. Many of us are familiar with the statement of Rebbe Akiva concerning another very important verse later in the Torah, the Habtelerachah Kamocha, you shall love your fellows, you love yourself. Amr Rebbe Akiva, Rebbe Akiva says, Klaugadal Batura, this is the main fundamental principle of the entire Torah. Everything rests on this, the Habtelerachah Kamocha. That's a well-known statement, but in fact, there are several different opinions about what is the Klaugadal Batura. One of the other opinions is this verse, Bezala Melakim Baro, so Ze Klaugadal Batura. This is the fundamental underlying principle on which the entire Torah rests. It is essential to our outlook on life, it's essential to our behavior every day. It is essential to how we see others and how we see ourselves. So the main question is, what does it mean? Because we are all so different from each other. We have different color skins, we have different sizes, different characters, different languages, later different religions, different ethnicities, different races, different cultures. How are we all, every human being, Bezala Melakim, somehow an image of God? In what way could we possibly all resemble God if God is one and we are infinitely varied? Certainly can't mean that we look like God. Obviously, God has no physical appearance and we all look differently. And it certainly does not mean that we all act like God. Clearly, there are many evil people in the world. So let me briefly first share four classic opinions about what this means. The Malbun, classic commentator to the Torah says, It means the who, Kliyakar. This person is a Kliyakar, a precious vessel. Every person, every man, woman and child, every human being is a precious vessel, something dear and cherished by its creator, by God. That's what it means to be created Bezala Melakim. And it's if Ravnatali Tsvihersh-Berlin writes, Vuh vizel Celem Melakim, Hamasavvah umagin alav minezik. To be created Bezala Melakim, and the word Celem, which we translate as image, but is related to the word Ceil, which means shadow, God shadows every person. God protects, surrounds every human being with God's protective shadow. The next two are connected to each other. Rehmer Simchov Dvinsk in his work, Meshhe Chokhmah, we quoted that last night, a different passage. A Celem helakaihu, what does it mean to be created in the image of God? Habakhirah Khovshis, it means that every human being has freedom to choose between right and wrong. Beleteh vimachriach, no person is fated by their upbringing, by their experiences, by their destiny. Rakhmei Ratsam Asekhu Khovshi, every person could choose in a choice between right and wrong, good and evil, but no person has the ability to choose. In other words, we, in a sense, imitate God in the way that we can choose, just like God can choose. We discussed this last night. God did not create us in a way that we were fated to act in a certain way. No, God gives us the ability to choose just as God has the ability. Finally, this is from Arabis in the Sifri, which is quoted by Ravzaman Siruskin in his work, Osnayim Lutora, a very important commentary to Lutora. He writes, She'iyin at Celem, hushan nasana kharashbarhu ba'adam ratsan v'koach li'iz damos e love. This is a little bit more direct to this idea. To be created in the image of God means that God gives each person the will and the ability to imitate God in various ways. Okay, what does it mean practically? How do I live my life with this concept as the clow-guttled, the underlying foundational principle of my entire life? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that people fear people not like them. And this fear of people not like me, this has been a source of violence for as long as there has been human life on earth. It is deeply embedded in human nature. The stranger, the foreigner, the outsider is almost always seen as a threat. But along comes the Torah and writes that every human being has created Bethlehem and Lachim and challenges us. What if the opposite is the case? What if the people not like us enlarge us rather than endanger us? And Rabbi Sacks writes this is a life-changing idea. It means the greatest religious challenge is, can I see God's image in one who is not in my image? Can I see God's image in one whose color, whose class, whose culture, whose creed is completely different from mine? Can I see that God cherishes them as God cherishes me? Can I see that God envelops them as God envelops me? Can I see that they have the ability to imitate God just as I have the ability to imitate God? Rabbi Sacks points out that this concept, this statement occurs twice near the beginning of the Torah. The first time I quoted to you, in our parasha, in the parasha of Berajus, right at the beginning, when God created Adam and then Chava, Adam, then Eve, Bethlehem, Lachim, Barah, Oso, God created Adam and then Chava, Bethlehem, and Lachim. That's in our parasha. In next week's Torah portion, the parasha of Noah, after the flood, God introduces a command, a prohibition against murder, Ha'Shofeik Dam Ha'adam, a person who murders another person, their blood should be spilled. This is the basis of capital punishment for murder. Okay, we've discussed this many, many times. Let's leave that to the side for a moment because I'm interested in the next part of the pasek. Kibitzelem ele kim Barah es Adam because God created man in the image of God. Now, the difference between those two passages is very, very important. It's fundamental because the passage in our parasha means that I am created in the image of God. Right? The Torah is talking about Adam and Chava and everybody else. I am created in the image of God. But with the pasek using the same words, the pasek in the next parasha in Noah teaches is something vastly different. That tells me that the other person is created Bethlehem ele kim. That's why it has to be repeated twice because the context is you have to treat another person in a certain way because that person is created Bethlehem ele kim. What we learn from the second instance is that just as I am cherished by God, so too you are cherished by God no matter how different from me you are. Just as I am protected by God, so too you are. Just as I can imitate God, so too you can imitate God. And therefore, it is a very practical application. I have to respect you. I have to act towards you with dignity to every single human being no matter how different from me that you are. Rabbi Sacks writes, Adam knew he was in the image of God. He was told by God. He was created Bethlehem ele kim. Noah and his descendants are commanded to remember that the other person is in the image of God. The great religious challenge is, can I see a trace of God in the face of a stranger, in the face of someone unlike me, in the face of someone I don't recognize, I don't share backgrounds or commonalities because that is precisely what God demands of us when he creates all of us, Bethlehem ele kim. And along with that is the behavior towards every single other human being that comes from recognizing that they are Bethlehem ele kim, just as I am. Rabbi Moshe Cohen Sha'ali, a blessed memory, was the chief rabbi of Iranian Jewry. He passed away a little over 30 years ago. And he was the person, the rabbi who coordinated and ushered in the aliyah of Iranian Jews when they came in large numbers to make aliyah to Israel. And when he did so, he was very insistent that he would did not want to bring in these Jews in order to create a uniform Israeli because for many years, in the early years of the state, that was a goal that people came from all different places. Jews came from all different places and there was a desire to assimilate them into one type of Israeli Jew. And that still continues today. And he said, no, it's essential that every ethnic group of Jews who come to Israel retains their identity, their customs, their minhagim, their practices, their culture, because everyone, every one of these different groups, no matter where they come from in the world, they add something to the multicolored mosaic which is being formed in Israel. He wrote as follows, Our land is a gathering land, the land of Israel, a land that gathers her sons and daughters who returned to her from all corners of the earth from more than 100 countries and who speak more than 80 languages. Each ethnic group of Jews and its manners, its countries, its customs, those who preach to merge all ethnic groups into one and not know how big the loss and the damage from this merger will be, which is nothing but the blurring and loss of those values, traditions and beautiful splendid customs that each ethnic group of Jews has been living with for around 2000 years since we were separated by the diaspora, by the exile. A vase with different flowers of a myriad hues and smells is much more preferable and much more beautiful than a monotonous vase in which there are only flowers of one kind and one color. We must keep the uniqueness within the unity to recognize that Selam Elohim in all the variety of human life. Let me share one more story, a very mundane pedestrian story from Sarah Tuttle Singer and there is nothing special about this story. It's the last line that is momentous. So the story goes like this. She writes it in the third person, clearly it's about herself. I've told you many stories about Sarah Tuttle Singer. Years ago as a young woman, she made aliyah from Los Angeles. She lives in Israel with her children. I just thought you should know that in the middle of Jerusalem, rife with tensions, strife and drama, where too often Arab and Jew, secular and religious are pitted against each other in what feels like an intractable conflict, a tired mom wearing a short black dress, bare legs and arms and covered in tattoos, she's referring to herself, was struggling to get her baby carriage out of a crowded outdoor restaurant. The path to the exit was blocked by customers, including a man with a walker who couldn't easily move and this young woman's baby was beginning to whine, seconds away from a full scale howl. I think every parent of a young child can relate to this. To her left was a low wall and beyond it the street. In front of her, that is to get out the normal way, is a sea of people who couldn't easily move. A haredi man, a religious man was sitting alone at a table and he saw that this young woman, so different from him in every way, was struggling to figure out how to safely get her baby out of this crowded restaurant. And he could see that this young mother, her shoulders were rigid, her eyes were tense, she was anxious, and this haredi man said to this tattooed young woman, can I help you? And you could see at that moment that this young woman immediately relaxed. So this man took the stroller and with the help of the family sitting by the wall, remember there's a low wall, they lifted the stroller over the wall so that it was now in the street and the mother could carry her baby through the crowd to get safely out and to be able to leave the restaurant easily and safely. That's it, that's a whole story. It's a nothing story, it's a prosaic story. But the point of it is, two very very different people who could have looked down on each other, there could have been conflict or at the very least ignoring each other, but each one of them, as different as they were, treated the other with respect and kindness. There's nothing special to that, except when it is special. But here's why I tell you the story, because Sarah concludes with these lines, two people from vastly different worlds sharing one beloved city. These things happen all the time here, we just need to believe them to see them. Well, if I really believe that you and I can be as different from each other as possible, and perhaps even as apprehensive of each other as possible, and also at the same time believe that we are both Selam Elohim, that both of us reflect God, that both of us are cherished by God, are protected by God, are able to imitate God if we really believe that, if we believe that we can be kind and respectful, then we will see it happen. Maybe not all the time, but surprisingly often that's what Selam Elohim means. Selam Elohim asks us to believe that about each other, and to look for that in each other. And Selam Elohim promises that often, surprisingly often, we will find the other person reflecting God just like me. My friends, I wish you a great day and a beautiful Shabbat, and I look forward to seeing you soon in person.