Friday Dispatch: In the Image of God

In true Jewish fashion, more questions than answers

Friday greetings,

I’m here with my coffee, Chupie snoring by my feet, no one else up yet. It has been another super full week, beginning with two days in NYC with my mom, visiting City Island where she lived ages 4-12 and Mt. Zion Cemetery in Queens where her maternal grandparents are buried. We talked a lot, ate Druze food, walked down Broadway the way we did in the early 90s when I was a Barnard student, and of course I said hi to many dogs :)

I shared a few words and photos Monday and Tuesday on Facebook – those are public posts, so you don’t need an account or to be “friends” with me to see them.

The rest of the week was filled with coaching clients, working on the e-course (it’s coming along!), NBA playoff games, connecting with my kids and Mani, and another emergency school committee meeting last night.

While I did plan on making a public comment, I had not actually intended to write about beyond that. That changed when I realized the meeting wasn’t being live streamed. It felt so important that the public know what kinds of things other community members said during the public comment, and that we collectively continue to call for accountability of district leadership for the abuses against LGBTQIA+ children. If you are following this situation, you can read my update, “Keep Showing Up,” over at the Amherst Indy.

Also, Aviva painted my toenails a mossy green and I love them.

Finally, yesterday was the fourth week (out of six) of Bagels, Belief, and Belonging.

Each week, we do check-ins and then I bring a theme to the group, along with a related reading. We then go into a period of timed writing, read our words aloud, and spend the rest of the time in conversation. These Thursday gatherings have led to much deep sharing, insights, ideas, and – in true Jewish fashion – more questions than answers.

This week’s theme was the concept of b’tselem elohim – being created in God’s image.

“Jewish tradition teaches that all people were created b’tselem elohim (literally: in the image of God). My Jewishness is rooted in this notion of valuing the humanity of each being, and Jewish values teach me that no one person is superior to the other. The Jewish lesson on ‘enoughness’ informs how I view and treat others and reminds me how to view and treat myself.” ~ Kesha Spoor :: read more

Below are the thoughts – and questions – this concept raised for me yesterday. As always, I love hearing what they evoke for you, so please feel free to leave a comment or reply by email.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

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Our Intrinsic Worth

When I think of the concept of b’tselem elohim, my mind immediately goes to our culture of self-loathing, self-criticism, self-improvement, comparison, striving, never being good enough or satisfied, never full, never content.

“And God saw that it was good” comes the refrain at the end of each day’s work in Genesis. God had an idea, made something, and thought, not bad. I imagine God sitting back in the evenings (after creating day and night of course), gazing at all those stars, and nodding with satisfaction.

Not so with us. We are prone to seeing what is unfinished and where we fell short, not the beauty of our creations. I notice the “self” in the first paragraph – self-loathing, self-improvement – and it points me towards a disconnect. When we are overly focused on ourselves as individuals, it is inevitable that we lose our sense of the divine within and around us? Is part of our dis-ease culturally a result of forgetting that we are created in God’s image? What would change is we saw each other in this way?

This quickly leads to sticky and murky terrain; how are we to see the divine in people who have no regard for the intrinsic worth of every human being, who devote their life force, their brief time on this earth, to hoarding power and resources, claiming superiority, and running roughshod over the very creations God ostensibly placed us here to tend and protect? It is probably one of the most difficult spiritual and practical questions of all, at least it is for me.

What did the Torah mean when it says, “Let us make men in our image, after our likeness?” As far as I can tell, at that point, we don’t really know much about God, other than that they contain multitudes as evidence by the plural possessive “our,” and they are a creator who likes to work on big canvases and takes pride in their work. Not bad attributes to be reflect and embody.

Later, we will also see God’s mercy, God’s wrath, God’s temper, God’s compassion, God’s patience and impatience, God’s ingenuity, God’s absence or neglect, and a thousand other qualities.

Does that mean being made in God’s image isn’t limited to what I would think of as the “good” parts? Does it mean it is God-like to be multifaceted, complex, sometimes contradictory, inconsistent, and even misguided? Does it mean we have the innate capacity to return to our creative powers and to consider how we can use those for the greater good?

Being created in God’s image sure sounds pretty, but I wonder if it’s actually so much more – more nuanced, more far-flung and wide-ranging, more fantastic and more challenging than appears at first blush.

Like everything in Judaism, I could spend the rest of my life exploring and still not have a singular answer. Maybe the best thing to do is look in the mirror for a good while, until it is not a flawed, tired middle-aged woman looking back at me but God themself.

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Upcoming opportunity

Join me for the next session of Bagels, Belief, and Belonging, six weeks beginning on June 15 of exploring your Jewish journey or Jewish curiosity in a small group where all questions are good questions.

Learn more and sign up here: www.jenaschwartz.com/bagels-belief-belonging.

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Last Word(s)

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