A HOME HAUNTED BY STRANGERSNovak’s nonphenomenological approach to the value of the human person as some-
thing that is rooted in a dynamic, relational understanding of ‘‘being in the image’’ reso-
nates with the limited ‘‘theoretical’’ literature of RHR,^30 though the action-oriented
implications of such an approach are most evident in its practice and practice-focused
online postings and news commentaries. In a recent text that summarizes some key as-
pects of RHR thinking concerning human rights,^31 for instance, the concept of human
personhood as reflection of the divine is presented as the basis for a ‘‘religious humanism’’
that makes the value of each individual equal to that of a whole world, paving the way
for equal ethical obligations toward Jews and non-Jews. Concerning the right to life, in
particular, the author Noam Zohar writes: ‘‘The unique attribute of a human is in one’s
being part of the divine presence, an attribute which characterizes each and every off-
spring of the first person, each minted from the same stamp—‘loved is man who is created
in God’s image.’ Indeed, whoever destroys a single life not only causes a quantitative
decrease in the presence of God, but actually destroys a unique manifestation of this
presence, for which ‘the world was created,’ and qualitatively and irreparably diminishes
the image, ‘as if one had destroyed a whole world.’ ’’^32
This is not to say that the notion ofb’tselemnecessarily affirms the absolute or equal
value of every human being, however, as this would amount to a religiously sanctioned
phenomenological humanism. On the contrary, for Zohar the search for religious
grounding for a human rights discourse requires maintaining a gap between what, follow-
ing Levinas, we could refer to as the ‘‘ontological contraction’’ represented by a (human)
being bearing a specific identity and the divine infinity of which such being is a trace.^33
In Zohar’s words, ‘‘almost every language of values that describes human nature must
emphasize that certain human attributes are not manifested equally among each and every
person. Humanism is not just a declaration of human value, but also a challenge for
everyone to realize their great hidden potential as human beings.’’^34 This is not to suggest,
however, that people who are not Jewish or have committed crimes against Jews and
violated divine law forfeit some of their dignity as beings madeb’tselem, which would in
turn reduce their (human) rights to life, property, or freedom. The act of taking human
lives, for instance, is said to cause divine sorrow in all cases, even when divine law itself
enjoins capital punishment for certain categories of criminals. Moreover, offering a sort
of generalized version of Arendtian forgiveness as a form of human interaction rooted in
the ‘‘excess’’ ofwho a person isvis-a`-viswhat she does,^35 Zohar suggests that there is always
a capacity for bearing witness to infinity in each human being, which demands to be
preserved unless a person’s being alive directly endangers other lives.
In David Novak’s view, this capacity exists differently at the universal level and at
that of the ‘‘chosen people,’’ since humanity as a whole partook in a first covenant be-
tween God and Noah, while Israel alone was chosen (at least for the time being) to be
God’s partner in the Abrahamic covenant. From Novak’s standpoint, this means that
there is continuity between universal human rights, which were granted to humanity
PAGE 567567.................16224$ CH28 10-13-06 12:37:03 PS