The Torah famously tells us: And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image/tzelem, after our likeness.
… Man in his image/tzelem, in the form of Elokim, He created him, male and female, He created them. (G. 1:26-27)
The core question is a simple one: What does the Torah mean by, “in his image”?
We can answer this by looking at the word for “image,” tzelem, and how it is used elsewhere in the text. The word is rare: tzelem only appears four more times in the Torah!
Here are those verses:
- When Adam had lived 130 years, he begot a son in his likeness after his image, and he named him Seth. (G. 5:3)
Why is Seth described this way, but Cain and Abel, earlier sons, were not? Surely they looked like their father, too. So why was Seth made in Adam’s image, but Cain and Abel were not?
The text gives us a hint: Seth is the first person in the Torah named by his father. Which tells us that Seth was not merely the product of procreation: Adam invested into Seth – which tells us in turn that it is the investment of oneself, not the physical creation, that makes a created person in the image of their Creator.
The next time tzelem is mentioned is after the Flood:
- Whoever sheds human blood,
By human [hands] shall that one’s blood be shed;
For in the image/tzelem of G-d
Was Adam/mankind made. (G. 9:6)
Blood in the Torah represents the spirit of a thing (Cain’s blood calls out, we are forbidden to eat blood because it is the spirit of the animal, etc.). Flesh with its spirit, which is its blood, you shall not eat. (G. 9:4)
This verse reinforces the idea that tzelem refers to the divine spark and investment into each person, the spiritual element within each person. It is that spark, the blood of a person, which gives them value in the eyes of G-d (as opposed to animals, who can be slaughtered as needed). And because G-d invested in mankind by creating us, killing a person is a crime against G-d.
- Have no fear then of the people of the country, for they are our bread: their tzelem has departed from them, but G-d is with us. Have no fear of them!” (N. 14:9)
In this case, the people of the land of Canaan are still living, breathing humans. But the text is telling us that G-d has removed His tzelem from them! We are thus allowed to fight and kill the Canaanites, as they no longer have that divine element in their persons. Which tells us that the quality of tzelem must be spiritual, and not physical – since the Canaanites were still physically alive. They lost their divine quality, becoming akin to animals.
The text suggests that the words for “spirit” (nefesh) and “soul” (neshama) exist for both man and animals (see G. 1:20 for nefesh of animals, and G. 12:13 for nefesh being the life of a person. See G. 2:7 for neshama in a person and G. 7:22 for neshama in an animal, and D. 20:16 for neshama referring to all life). Which means that the key word to describe man’s unique quality is not “spirit” or “soul” but is instead tzelem, referring to the spiritual investment that G-d made when he blew His spirit into Adam.
- you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land; you shall destroy all their figured objects; you shall destroy all their molten images/tzelem, and you shall demolish all their cult places. (N. 33:52)
This use of tzelem reinforces the idea that tzelem is about spiritual energies: molten idols made from glowing liquid metal have had the creative energies of the worshippers invested into them. Just as G-d’s investment in each person is also tzelem.
There is a secondary question from this verse as well:
Man in his image/tzelem, in the form of Elokim, He created him, male and female, He created them.
The Torah is telling us that the way in which we are in the tzelem of G-d is through the combination of man and woman!
In other words, no one person completely reflects the spiritual image of G-d without being paired with the opposite sex! Men and women must be together in order to be truly in the image of G-d. No one person could thus be said to encompass the meaning of being in the tzelem of G-d.
P.S. Adam is not described as being the image of G-d. There is a prefix there, a single b letter, meaning “within.” As in the first line of the Torah translated literally: Within the head, G-d created heaven and earth. (G. 1:1) If man is created “within” the image of G-d it suggests that each of our souls is a divine spark – but only a fraction of all the sparks and possibilities found within G-d’s totality. Within G-d’s mind, the world was created. And within G-d’s energies, man was created, reflecting G-d’s invested spirit within each person.
By contrast, Seth is not created “within” Adam’s image. Instead, he is “similar” to Adam’s image – a different prefix letter.