Defining Dignity: Living in the Image of God

Parshat Ki Tavo

by Rabbi Avi Billet

One of the more disturbing images from our parsha’s great rebuke is, “Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and beasts of the land, and no one will be concerned.” (28:26)

If we end up as food for birds, there hasn’t been burial. So why add “no one will be concerned”? Clearly!

Netziv gives two possible explanations. First, that no person will even show up to chase away the birds. Alternatively, a person will come, but will have no success in chasing them away, “A sure sign that the person’s tzelem Elokim (God-like persona) is gone.”

The human being sans tzelem Elokim has not the spark that separates him from the animals, that typically causes the bird to fear him. How does a human being fall so low to lose one’s tzelem Elokim? Let’s explore the explanations of two Hassidic masters.

The first - Rav Tzadok of Lublin - taught that God created the human in His image: Just as the human was supposed to have fear of God, every creature was supposed to have fear of the human. When the human lost his fear of God, what he really lost was his tzelem elokim. After receiving the punishment of being a wanderer after having killed his brother, Kayin felt that any human who lost his tzelem elokim could take the next step to commit murder.

Let the irony not be lost on us as Kayin is concerned that others will disregard their tzelem elokim and possibly kill him, though he had abandoned his own tzelem elokim when he murdered Hevel.

R. Zvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov, in his Igra D’Kalla (Breishis) also references the Kayin story, that when Kayin’s offering was not accepted, he was VERY angry. The rabbis teach that when the word “tov” (good) is present, it references the good inclination. The word “me’od” (very) indicates the presence of the evil inclination. Kayin’s evil inclination flared up because he had gotten angry, and anger causes a person to lose one’s tzelem Elokim. Nedarim 22:1 equates getting angry with killing one’s own soul. Only a person who has no soul can commit murder, and how much time passed from when Kayin got angry until he murdered his brother? (Not a lot...)

In the Laws of Teshuvah 3:6, Maimonides compiles a list of the kinds of people who have no share in the world to come. Most of the sins attributed to these people are kind of heinous, but among them he says “Those who speak lashon hora (gossip/slander).” Some possibilities for where Maimonides gets this notion include Arakhin 15 – “Anyone who speaks lashon hora denies God.” The spies (Bamidbar 14) were infamous for speaking lashon hora and denying God, and they are presumed to not have a share in the world to come.

Along similar lines, R Elazar Hamodai notes in Avot that one “embarrasses his friend in public” has no share in the world to come. The Talmud in Bava Metzia 58 has a related teaching, “Causing the face of your friend to whiten is akin to having committed murder.”

Just to drive the message home, the Talmud Yerushalmi tells us at the beginning of Peah that there are four sins for which a person suffers in this world, and deals with it further in whatever ends up being his/her world to come experience. The first three are murder, idolatry and immorality, and the fourth is Lashon Hora, which is “as bad as all of them.”

We begin to understand what the Tokhacha is saying. If you lose your tzelem elokim because you don’t fear God, if you lose your tzelem elokim because you are easily angered, then it’s a short hop and skip to committing murder. And the murder which many of us commit regularly is not the kind that is put on trial, but it is lashon Hora, whether the slanderous kind, the bring others down kind, or the whiten the face kind.

The Shem Mishmuel argues that the main ingredient to victory over the Yetzer Hora, is tapping into one’s tzelem Elokim. And so we’ve come full circle.

Diminishing, disregarding, or having a lack of tzelem elokim – brought about through not fearing God, through anger, and through Lashon Hora – all bring about the triumph of the Yetzer Hora. The Yetzer Hora is what causes us to do all these things. But if we can herald and raise our tzelem elokim, we will be victorious in battle against our Evil Inclinations.

So let us be kind. Let us be nonjudgmental. Let us offer critique when it will be accepted, but in a loving way. Let us be accepting of a rebuke that comes from a place of love. Let us remember that every person has a tzelem elokim. And that everyone’s tzelem elokim is elevated when that is the fabric of humanity that we note as our commonality.