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All of Creation is Within Us
And God said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven,
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth . . .(Genesis 1:26)
This is one of the most intriguing sentences in the Torah.
It raises numerous questions such as, "To whom is God speaking? At first glance, this sentence seems to contradict a number of basic Jewish beliefs such as the non-physical nature of God and earth stewardship. How can we be made in the image of God when God has no image?
And what does it mean to have "dominion" over the earth?
For centuries, Jewish thinkers have speculated on the meaning of this sentence.
Rashi (Rabbi Schlomo ben Yitzchak) explains the view that God was addressing the angels, making them feel a part of the Creation of man. According to Jewish tradition, angels were somewhat jealous of Adam. Rashi goes on to explain that being created in the image of God means to have the ability to reason – i.e., free will or b'chirah in Hebrew. About the concept of dominion, Rashi takes a look at the Hebrew word yordu and points out its duel meaning in Hebrew. It can mean either dominion or it indicates a process of "going down." Rashi interprets this going down as a form of subservience.
Other Jewish thinkers have suggested other explanations for each of these questions. Yet, there remains a feeling of "something missing," something that
ties together the individual explanations into the larger picture offered here. Perhaps the answer is found in the following Middrash (Bereshit Rabah). After the realms of living nature had been
completed, the Holy One turned to them and said, 'I have one more work of art to make, which is a merging of you all. Combine together, to give him, each of you, a part of yourselves, and I will cooperate with
you, and give Him a part of myself.' And, The body of man is a microcosm, the whole world in miniature. The world, in turn, is a living being, a reflection of man.
The first Middrash offers a different explanation about whom God is addressing when God says, "Let us make Adam in our image." God is
speaking to all of Creation. This Middrash also helps explain the use of ""image" and "form or likeness." This is what the Middrash means by each part of Creation giving of itself to the final
Creation of Adam. Middrash even speculates about which parts of our physical selves reflect the parts of creation.
Hour hair is compared to the forests, tears to a river and the mouth to the ocean. According to our Torah, we know we came from the dust of the earth. We also know that we are composed of approximately the same percent of water relative to our body size as the percent of water found on the earth.
The question now becomes the relationship between being informed that we all of Creation is a part of us and then telling us that we shall have a relationship
with the earth that may be either an elevated one (dominion) or a subservient one (going down)? In a peculiar way, the Torah's use of the word yordu actually demonstrates a view of humankind's place in Creation as being neither above nor beneath any other part of Creation. We come to this view through a process of logic that proceeds as follows. Because the word yordu has a dual meaning and the text leaves ambiguous which meaning it intends, we must conclude there is a deeper understanding to be found in the conflicting meaning of the word.
A closer look at the apparent conflict leads us to understand the following.
The Torah is telling us that we have both the ability to rise above or to descend beneath all of God's other creations. This is a round about way of saying that we are an equal part of Creation. We are not automatically above or beneath anything else. If the human creature was created at a level superior to the rest of Creation, then it would be impossible to fall beneath the level of Creation. Likewise, if we were created with less importance, then we would not be able to rise above it.
This perspective does not alter another basic Jewish belief, that Creation is for the sake of humankind – that we are more important than a plant or an
animal.
And, if we accept the Middrash quoted above, then we are greater in the sense that only we include all other parts of Creation. If we reduce this dilemma to an algebraic formula, the answer becomes apparent. According to Middrash, we are made up of all of Creation. We represent Adam with the letter A. Rocks, trees, water, oceans, air, etc. are represent by the number 1, 2. 3., etc.) This means that A = 1 + 2 + 3, etc. Another way of saying this is that Adam, and all humankind is equal to God's creation – neither more nor less than the sum of this Creation. What makes us unique is the power of decision-making that we have. When we exercise this power devoid of ego, we become gardeners who loving rule and serve our gardens at the same time. This is deeper meaning of yordu.
Email me at gabe@njycamps.org and let me know what you think. Reference the subject matter as Teachings.
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