Seeking the Image of God in the Other Person

Genesis 9 speaks about the sanctity of life and the prohibition of murder. 

Rabbi Sacks writes this is one of his articles on this week’s Torah Portion, Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32).

He expands on the significant difference between the first creation account of man and the re-creation after Noah. He notes that after Noah, the we are emphatically told that the image of God is in the OTHER person, whereas with the first creation we were told that WE were made in the image of God.

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God, He made man.” (Gen. 9:6)

Sacks states that: “The difference here is fundamental. Genesis 1 tells me that I am in the image of God. Genesis 9 tells me that the other person is in the image of God. 

Genesis 1 speaks about the dominance of Homo sapiens over the rest of creation. 

Genesis 9 speaks about the sanctity of life and the prohibition of murder. 

The first chapter tells us about the potential power of human beings, while the ninth chapter tells us about the moral limits of that power. We may not use it to deprive another person of life.

This also explains why the keyword, repeated seven times, changes from "good" to "covenant." When we call something good, we are speaking about how it is in itself. But when we speak of covenant, we are talking about relationships. A covenant is a moral bond between persons.
What differentiates the world after the Flood from the world before is that the terms of the human condition have changed. God no longer expects people to be good because it is in their nature to be so. To the contrary, God now knows that "every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" (Gen. 8:21) - and this despite the fact that we were created in God's image.

The difference is that there is only one God. If there were only one human being, he or she might live at peace with the world. But we know that this could not be the case because "It is not good for man to be alone." We are social animals. And when one human being thinks he or she has godlike powers vis-à-vis another human being, the result is violence. 

Therefore, thinking yourself godlike, if you are human, all-too-human, is very dangerous indeed.
That is why, with one simple move, God transformed the terms of the equation. After the Flood, He taught Noah and through him all humanity, that we should think, not of ourselves but of the human other as in the image of God. That is the only way to save ourselves from violence and self-destruction.”

With this insight and call to recognize the sanctity of life and the evil of murder, it is most enlightening to reflect on the political reality we see today in the Western World, whether here in Australia and New Zealand or in the USA.

The Left, the socialist and fascist ‘makers and shakers’ of the political world (from our politicians to our mainstream mass media and the entertainment industry of Hollywood) are almost all fervently anti-life, and pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia. While the conservatives, the Right are almost exclusively pro-life and supportive of the prohibition of murder (with abortion being the most evil of all murders, as it is the murder of the most vulnerable and innocent of humankind).

So we can see that the Right, the conservatives, are generally biblical and God-fearing in their approach (though this is not to deny that sometimes the pragmatism of right-wing politicians over-powers their foundational belief in the sanctity of life – I have experienced this reality at the highest levels of Australian politics).

It seems the whole ‘woke’ culture and the politics of the Left rejects the message of Genesis 9:6 and as a result is clearly anti-God.

I love how John Notle defined ‘woke’: "Woke is what happens when a large part of our culture rejects the Judeo-Christian ideals of tolerance, a path to redemption, and forgiveness, and instead embraces a secular religion that demands rigid conformity, celebrates intolerance of dissent, and punishes individualism and intellectual diversity." 

Clearly the whole ‘woke culture’ is inconsistent and in total opposition to the message of Genesis 9.
But for those of us who are pro-God, pro-family and pro-life it is important that we also do not lose sight of the call to see the image of God in our fellow man (even when he or she is a full-blown, mis-informed and deluded Leftist ideologue).

We are called to try to see a trace of Yehovah in all people. 

So while we may be painfully aware of the short-comings of Socialism and its associated policies that are so anti-life, we need to try and find ways to connect to the people behind these flawed ideologies, so as to perhaps find ways to open their eyes to Truth, but more significantly, we need to try to re-educate the general public who are mislead by the Leftist MSM and tend not to see the reality behind the many tragic policies of the Left, from pro-abortion, and infanticide to ‘woke’ culture and censorship of free-speech and even the delusional and destructive policies of AGW (Climate Change).

For more from Sacks see: https://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/450982123.html