Exploring Genesis: This week’s Torah reading
And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth. And God created man in God’s image, in the image of God, God created them: male and female, God created them.
— Genesis 1:26-27 (edited JPS translation)
Only human beings were created in the image of God. From this, Maimonides notes that humans alone—like God—are endowed with morality, reason and free will.
Thus, the Torah goes out of the way to distinguish between human beings and animals in two arenas. People alone are made in God’s image, and humanity is to rule over nature.
One of the consequences of an increasingly secular society is the loss of those distinctions. While the Torah later makes it clear that animals should be treated humanely, human beings have greater intrinsic value than animals. And while we are to appreciate and value nature, it is not to be worshiped.
— Rabbi David Woznica