Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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It should c ome as no surprise that when Judaism, whic h so c learly emphasizes
t he prac t ic al over t he met aphysic al, int roduc es a doc t rine whic h seems so c learly t o
beg for a metaphysic al int erpret at ion, it immediat ely insist s on int erpret ing it in
prac t ic al t erms. T he imit at ion of God, t hat is, is not a met aphysic al issue in Judaism
but a prac tic al, moral one. Jews are not c ommanded (and it must not be forgotten
that the imitation of God, as the verses adduced above clearly show, is a
commandment of the Torah and was so c onstrued by most later authorities)
lit erally and ac t ually t o t ransc end t heir normal selves and bec ome in some sense
like God: rather, they are commanded to act in c ertain ways. It is through the
ac hievement of prac t ic al, moral perfec t ion, t hat Jews imit at e God and t hus fulfil
t heir dest iny as individuals c reat ed in t he image of God.
This point c an be made sharper if we c ontrast the Jewish approac h to the
imit at ion of God to two others, that of Plato and that of Christianity. In the
Theaetetus (176) we find Soc rates saying, ‘We ought to fly away from earth to
heaven as quickly as we can: and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is
possible: and to become like him is t o bec ome holy, just , and wise.’ Far from flying
away from earth, the Torah c alls upon Jews to imitate God here on earth, through
the fulfilment of his c ommandme nts. One does not then bec ome like God; one
walks in his ways, i.e. acts in a God-like manner so far as this is possible for a
human being. In Christianity we find an even c learer emphasis on the ac tual, literal,
and therefore metaphysic al interpretation of the imitation of God. The God of
Christ ianit y is so eager t o allow human beings to bec ome like him t hat he ac t ually
performs an ac t of imit at io humani and inc arnates himself in the body of an ac tual
living breathing human being. The imitation of God is then performed through an
intermediary and becomes imit at io Christ i, whic h finds it s expression, not in the
fulfilment of the six hundred and thirteen c ommandments of the Torah, but in
attitudes of faith and trust, and, before its self-destructiveness became evident,
through the imitation of Christ’s passion. (For a Jewish view of this, see Buber in
Kellner.)
The moral implic ation of humanity’s having been c reated in the image of God
underlies both spec ific laws (suc h as ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Lev.
19: 18) — bec ause your neighbour is no less c reated in the image of God than you
are) and the general universalistic thrust of the Hebrew Bible, something
part ic ularly evident in t he c lassic al lit erary prophet s (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). It
also lies at t he basis of rabbinic disc ussions of what we would c all moral issues.
I wrote above that the Hebrew Bible is not self-c onsc iously aware of moralit y
as a dist inc t religious or int ellec t ual c at egory. T his is also t rue, I would maint ain, of
the c orpus of rabbinic writings whic h c entres on the Mishnah and those texts whic h
developed around it. Here, too, we have no separate, distinct text dealing with
ethic s in an explic it fashion, and no apparent rec ognition of ethic s as a department
of thought whic h must be treated independently of other c onc erns. This is even
true of the well-known Mishnaic trac tate Avot, a c ompilat ion of maxims and
homilies, many of whic h embody what we c all et hic al t eac hings. T he point of t his
treatise, as Herford suggests, is to describe the ideal personality of the Mishnah: it
is therefore muc h more c onc erned with piety than with ethic s.