In the Divine Image: Judaism's Foundation for Human Rights

 (A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Bebendo na fonte judaica dos Direitos Humanos")

It was John Locke who first defined the concept of ‘human rights’, a set of fundamental protections to which all human beings are entitled. Although the Hebrew term ‘זְכוּיוֹת הָאָדָם’, z’khuyot ha-adam, is even more recent as a label for this idea, Judaism had already developed the notion of the inalienable dignity of every human being long before John Locke formulated his theory.

In the classical Jewish perspective, the creation of the human being ‘in the Divine image’, an idea developed in this week’s parashah, Bereshit, grounds the concept that every human figure is endowed with dignity and deserving of respect. Nahum Sarna writes that the likeness of man to God reveals the infinite value of a human being and affirms the inviolability of the human person.[1] The same author notes that in other cultures it was not uncommon for the king alone to be considered created ‘in the Divine image’, whereas only in the Jewish tradition is this idea universalised, making every human being a reflection of God’s image. This concept, which might have remained an interesting curiosity without practical application, receives concrete implementation already in the next parashah, Noach, when, after the Flood, God prohibits murder, stating that ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a person, by a person shall that person’s blood be shed, for in the image of God humanity was made.’[2]

This fact, on its own, would already secure the centrality of these texts in constructing a Jewish view of human rights. Indeed, in rabbinic tradition, the expression ‘בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים’, b’tselem Elohim, ‘in the Divine image’, is used to refer to concepts that would later be included within the definition of ‘human rights’.

There is, however, an additional dimension in this week’s parashah that is not captured merely by the idea of creation in God’s image. During the process of Creation, every time God brings forth a new category of living beings, the category is expanded through the expression ‘לְמִינֵהוּ’, leminehu, ‘each according to its kind’. So it is with vegetation, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees, great sea creatures, all the living beings that swarm and fill the waters, domesticated animals, creeping things and wild animals.[3] When God created adam, the first human being, however, the expression ‘each according to its kind’ was not used. Our sages understood that the absence of this phrase indicated that all humanity belongs to the same kind, even though we display different physical characteristics.

A midrash, noticing that people born in different parts of the globe have different skin colours, relates that, when creating the first human, God gathered soils of different colours from the four corners of the earth. In this way, when a person dies, the soil of that place cannot say, ‘Return to the place from which you came, since your soil does not belong here.’ ‘On the contrary,’ says this midrash. ‘The human being belongs to every place to which they go, and to there they may return.’[4] What a powerful expression of a worldview that recognises the humanity of every person and the dignity of the stranger, wherever that person may be found.

Today, however, there are not a few circles in which the idea of human rights is presented in opposition to a worldview based on biblical values, in which racism and prejudice are given religious legitimacy. May we, on this first Shabbat of the Torah reading cycle of 5786, recover Jewish religious perspectives that are deeply committed to the dignity of every human being, and commit ourselves to public policies that give expression to this value.

Shabbat Shalom,

[1] Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 12.
[2] Gen. 9:6.
[3] Gen. 1:11, 21, 24–25.
[4] Yalkut Shimoni, Bereshit 1:13.