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"Let Us Make Man with Our Image"
One of the most extraordinary sentences in the Torah is found in the first chapter of Genesis (1:26) – God said, "Let us make man with our image and
likeness." The obvious question to ask is "To who is God speaking?" There are no people and there is only One God, so who do "us" and the "our" refer to? Some commentaries suggest that God was using the majestic "we" like when a king or queen would say, "We do not approve," meaning, "I do not approve." Kings and queens would do this because it was a way to enhance their image and to make themselves larger than they really were. But, in my mind, God does not have to do this. Nor do I know of another example of this.
So, what's going on? We turn to Jewish tradition in the form of a Middrash written about this sentence (Middrash Bereshit) that offers a more profound
explanation of which God was addressing. This Middrash states, And God spoke to all that He had created and said to them, "I have but one work of art yet to create. Each of you give a part of yourselves and I will give a part of myself. Let us make Adam with our image and likeness. This means that we are a composite of the entire universe. All of Creation is within us. As someone once said, "What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves."
This interpretation places an entirely different face on the line in the Torah that comes after God's statement about making "man in our image." The
text goes on to say, Let him dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock animals and all of the earth… So often, this sentence is heard as a denial of people's responsibility to be stewards of the earth. However, viewed in light of our Middrash, the statement takes on a far different texture. Now we see that the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock and earth are all a part of us. To dominate these things, means to dominate ourselves.
Email me and let me know what you think. Reference the subject matter as Teachings.
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