Avot196
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
TRACTATE AVOT, CHAPTER THREE, MISHNAH FIFTEEN (recap):
He used to say: beloved is mankind, [being] created in the [divine] image; [even] greater affection [is indicated] in that he has been made aware that he has been created in the [divine] image, as it says, "For He created man in the image of God". Beloved are Jews who are called sons of God; [even] greater affection [is indicated] in that they have been made aware that they are called sons of God, as it says, "You are sons of your God". Beloved are Jews who have been given a delightful means; [even] greater affection [is indicated] in that they have been made aware that they have been given the delightful means whereby the world was created, as it says, "For I have given you good instruction: do not forsake My Torah."
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
4:
Of all the great rabbinic personalities of the middle ages it was undoubtedly Rambam who fought the greatest fight against the 'humanization' of the deity. Of course, he gives the concept of God's absolute incorporeality its just place in the very first chapter of his momentous halakhic compendium, Mishneh Torah [Yesodé ha-Torah 1:7-8]:
This Deity is one: not two and not more than two, but a unity such as has nothing comparable among the unities that exist in the universe. It is not 'one' such as a species which comprises several individual 'ones'; nor one like a physical body which comprises parts and extremities… It is stated expressly in the Torah and in the prophets that God is not physical…
5:
But the place where Rambam expatiates most on the concept of the absolute incorporeality of the deity is in his great philosophical treatise 'The Guide for the Perplexed'. Indeed, it is his contention there that any conceptualization of God that is not absolutely free of physicality is tantamount to idolatry. The subject is so important for him that he dedicates to it the very first chapter of his book. The first part of 'The Guide for the Perplexed' is concerned with the elucidation of terms and phrases which appear in the biblical text (mainly Torah) which it might be thought imply a physical deity – terms such as "God said", "God came down" and so forth. The very first phrase that Rambam elucidates is man being created 'in the divine image'.
6:
[Guide for the Perplexed 1:1]:
Some have been of opinion that by the Hebrew tzelem [image], the shape and figure of a thing is to be understood, and this explanation led men to believe in the corporeality [of God]: for they thought that the words "Let us make man in our image" [Genesis 1:26], implied that God had the form of a human being, i.e., that He had figure and shape, and that, consequently, He was corporeal. They adhered faithfully to this view, and thought that if they were to relinquish it they would eo ipso reject the truth of the Bible : and further, if they did not conceive God as having a body possessed of face and limbs, similar to their own in appearance, they would have to deny even the existence of God. The sole difference which they admitted, was that He excelled in greatness and splendour, and that His substance was not flesh and blood. Thus far went their conception of the greatness and glory of God. The incorporeality of the Divine Being, and His unity, in the true sense of the word – for there is no real unity without incorporeality – will be fully proved in the course of the present treatise. In this chapter it is our sole intention to explain the meaning of the words tzelem [image] and demut [likeness]. I hold that the Hebrew equivalent of "form" in the ordinary acceptation of the word, – the figure and shape of a thing – is to'ar… This term is not at all applied to God. The term tzelem, on the other hand, signifies something's specific form, that which constitutes the essence of a thing, whereby the thing is what it is; the reality of a thing in so far as it is that particular being. In man the "form" is that constituent which gives him human perception: and on account of this intellectual perception the term tzelem is employed in the sentences "In the tzelem of God he created him" [Genesis 1:27]…. In the phrase "Let us make man in our image" the term signifies the "specific form" of man, that is his intellectual perception, and does not refer to his "figure" or "shape"…
7:
Thus Rambam says that while man does not resemble God physically, he does resemble God intellectually. Of course, the intellectual capacity of mankind does not even begin to approach the divine intellect, but man and God do have intellectual capacity in common. It may well be argued that primates other than man have an intellectual capacity too, but the intellectuality of – say – a chimpanzee is far, far below that of man. It has been shown that it is possible to train a chimpanzee to identify letters and pictures. But that is the result of training. We teach (train) a human child to identify letters in the same way. Superior human intellect comes to the fore on the day that the child uses those letters to create words and phrases that he has never been taught before.
To be continued.
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