the image of Gd

Over the holiday of Simhat Torah, I bumped into a simple but extraordinary insight offered by Aviva Zornberg, a textual scholar from Jerusalem who mines the language, images and narrative of the Bible in amazing ways.

She teaches the following about the story of creation:

Humans, she notes, are made in the image of Gd (Genesis 1:26). “At the heart of the word image, tzelem, is the word “tzel," shadow … There is the sense that the human being is a shadow that God casts in the world. One of the primary functions of shadows is to say something about the reality of what is casting a shadow."

Here is what I learn from that: We are the earthly reflection of the divine. Our presence and actions point to the source of our energy and being. And like a shadow, we can be a blessing or a detriment. Shade can serve to offer coolness, comfort, relief and protection; or it can serve to blot out, block out, deprive, steal the light and life from that which it covers.

As humans exercising the powers we possess as the shadows of Gd, which way shall be our legacy on this delicate earth, which we have so unwittingly, yet decisively, damaged?