Tzelem Elohim — The Image of God
The Torah's declaration that human beings are created in the image of God (Tzelem Elohim) is the foundation of Jewish ethics and human dignity — every person carries the divine image and must be treated accordingly.
Genesis 1:26-27 declares: 'Let us make man in our image (tzelem), after our likeness.' This single teaching generates the entire edifice of Jewish ethics regarding human dignity, the prohibition of murder, the imperative to honor every person, and the basis of universal human rights. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5) derives from this teaching that one who saves a single life is as though they saved an entire world, and one who destroys a single life is as though they destroyed an entire world — because each person contains the divine image and therefore an entire cosmos. Medieval commentators debated what 'image' means (since God has no physical form): Rambam (Maimonides) argued it refers to intellect; Ramban (Nachmanides) to sovereignty and dominion; Kabbalists to the divine attributes (sefirot) reflected in the human soul. What all agree on is the ethical implication: every human being possesses inherent, inalienable dignity that no circumstance can remove.
God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative — 'Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always as an end and never as a means only' — is the secular philosophical expression of the same ethical claim encoded in Tzelem Elohim.
Torah