Tselem

A few years back, PETA made a bit of a splash by comparing the slaughter of chickens by KFC to the Holocaust. This, of course, enraged many people, as it seemed to make light of the mass extermination of a people. Still, at the time, I only found the item ridiculous. I assumed PETA was being merely sensationalist, attempting to grab the attention of the media to further their message, subscribing perhaps to the old adage that “there is no such thing as bad publicity.” I was surprised therefore, when having lunch with a young woman at a university a few years back, she told me that, in a hypothetical in which I and her cat were trapped unconscious in a burning building and in which she’d have time to save only one of us, she would save the cat. I laughed at first, assuming she was being funny. But it turns out she was perfectly serious. Her cat and I are both living creatures, she argued, neither more important than the other, but she’s known her cat longer. This stunned me. It’s not so much that she would let me die that bothered me, but her logic. She assumed that all living things deserve the same amount of respect and protection and that a human life was in no way more valuable than a cat’s. Well, she was young, and irreligious, so one shouldn’t be too surprised. What is surprising is that her attitude is on that seems to be growing among the Bible believing religious. This is a disturbing trend and one I wish to counter.

The Torah tells us that when HaShem made man, he singled him out from the rest of creation. The previous creation of fish and fowl, followed by beasts and finally man, suggests a progression, with man as the pinnacle of creation. And then He stops in the creation process and announces his intention to make Man. Something special is about to occur: “And God said, ‘Let us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness. They shall rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over the animal, the whole earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created Man in His image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1.26-27.) Man is the only creature made in His image. He does not make cows, chickens, or cats in his image—only man.

Some take it to mean that God is man-shaped, a terrible error, inasmuch as God is incorporeal. Had God corporeality, He would have parts, and having parts, it would follow that He must have been created. (For a full discussion on this point, consult Duties of the Heart by R’ Bachya ben Joseph ibn Paquda.) Moreover, other primates would seem to bear God’s image as well, to one degree or another. We might be left with the impression that being made in God’s image refers to opposable thumbs.

In The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides discusses the world tselem, translated in Gen. 1.26 as image. He compares the word tselem with toar, the latter used specifically to refer to physical form. “The term tselem, on the other hand, signifies the specific form, viz., that which constitutes the essence of a thing, whereby the thing is what it is; the reality of a thing is 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 tselem is employed in the sentences ‘In the tselem of God he created him’ [1]. He also mentions that the word tselem is used when HaShem condemns the form of an idol. Maimonides argues that it is not the physical shape of idols displeasing to God, but “some idea represented by them.” Likewise it is not Man’s physical form which is the image of God, but something inward. The tselem of God impressed on Man is Intellect. It is this that sets Man apart from the rest of animalia.

Man is a thinking animal—the thinking animal. Animals are not on the same level as humanity. This is evident in the treatment given to each by HaShem. He tells Noah: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; like the green herbage I have given you everything. But flesh; with its soul its blood you shall not eat. However, your blood which belongs to your souls I will demand, of every beast will I demand it; but of man, of every man for that of his brother I will demand the soul of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man” (Gen. 9.3-6.) Now, if an animal’s life is of the same value as that of a man’s, how can Man be granted license to eat it? Note also, where a man may kill an animal for food, he may not kill another man. And why? Because he has an equal life to right as any other? More than that, he was made in the image of God. He has a special relation to God that no other created thing shares.

Now some will take this as license to animal cruelty. But part of God’s command to Noah was that animals should not be eaten with the life still in them. The Torah is full of mitzvahs relating to the kind treatment of animals. And the Noahide commandment not to eat the limb of a living animal is only a category of further commands regarding the proper treatment of animals.

If reading this, one has come to the conclusion that I am opposed to vegetarianism, one has missed the point. Vegetarianism is not prohibited by the Torah and it has much to recommend it. But what cannot be lost is the difference between humanity and the animal kingdom. When we rate all lives the same, we ignore great differences and we degrade humanity. Man is distinguished by Reason. God has declared Man to be something special. Dead chickens, no matter the number, do not equate with dead humans. If you are forced with the choice between saving a human or a cat, go for the human. The cat you allow to die will bear you no ill will, but neglecting the human is bound to earn one the ill will of Heaven.


[1] Maimonides, Moses. The Guide For The Perplexed. Trans. M. Friedlander. New York: Barnes and Noble. 2004: 18-20.