How self-conscious are you? Are you concerned about your image? Well, you should be, at least according to Rabbi Akiva. At Avot 3:18 he opens a three-part mishnah by telling us:
חָבִיב אָדָם
שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְּצֶֽלֶם, חִבָּה יְתֵרָה נוֹדַֽעַת לוֹ שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְּצֶֽלֶם,
שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: כִּי בְּצֶֽלֶם אֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה אֶת הָאָדָם
Beloved is man, for he was
created in the image [of God]; with extra love it was made known to him that he
was created in the image, as it says, "For in the image of God He made
man" (Bereishit 9:6).
Being created in God’s image is quite another matter. From
the moment we recognize that God has no visible or tangible form, we are forced
to accept that “God’s image” is a metaphor of some kind. Having accepted that,
we soon learn that there is no single metaphor that can encapsulate all the
qualities and attributes of an infinite and unbounded deity. This acceptance
gives us the opportunity to choose the metaphor that fits the moment. Just as
God is kind and merciful, so too do we mortals have the capacity to be kind and
merciful. Just as God is slow to anger and willing to forgive, so too is this
ability embedded somewhere within us.
When choosing our metaphors, we are careful to point to good
and noble qualities alone. Thus in the realm of middot we accept that God has
an awesome power to project His anger and to punish others—but these are not
for lessons that our Sages draw for us. The Torah too makes it plain that
vengeance is an attribute that is specifically reserved for Him and barred to
us.
In a short but fascinating essay on this mishnah in Foundations
of Faith (a companion to Pirkei Avot based on the thoughts and writings of
Rabbi Norman Lamm), Rabbi Mark Dratch reviews an argument between the rationalists
(R’ Saadya Gaon and Rambam) and the ethicists (led by the Ramchal). For the
former, the image of God is expressed by man’s ability to reason. The Ramchal
rejects this on the ground that a person can exercise reason and then fail to
act upon it. Rather, what makes man like God is the ability to act in accordance
with his perception of the distinction between good and evil.
The key feature of this ability to act, it is argued, lies
not so much in what one does as in what one refrains from doing: it is
effectively the ability to say “no”. Developing this point, Rabbi Aaron Levine
points to part of a verse in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 3:19) that appears daily in
our morning blessings:
וּמוֹתַר
הָאָדָם מִן-הַבְּהֵמָה אָיִן …
…and man’s pre-eminence over the
beast is naught….
Rabbi Levine gives these words a positive spin. They don’t
mean that man has zero pre-eminence over the animal. Rather, they teach us that
we are pre-eminent. Our superiority is based on our ability to say אָיִן (ayin, “no”). Ramming home this point, Rabbi Dratch
writes:
“An animal has no choice—no freedom—and
therefore must say ‘yes’ to his drives, to the world in which he lives. But a
human being can say ‘no’ to that which is unseemly and beneath his dignity. And
when he says ‘no’ to all that is ungodly, he is being Godly. He is showing that
he was created in the image of God”.
This is only one of a large number of explanations of Rabbi
Akiva’s words, but it has a special attraction:
“It was Rabbi Akiva, the man who
was able to stand up to the wrath and the might of the whole Roman Empire and
say ‘no’ to tyranny and despotism, who taught us ‘Beloved is man that he was
created in the image of God”.
Now that’s a point to ponder when, in our Mussaf service on Yom
Kippur, we reach the midrash of the Ten Martyrs, of whom Rabbi Akiva was the
most prominent.
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