02 Jun All People are Created in Hashem’s Image

Our rabbis taught (Avos 3:18) “Chaviv Adom she’nivra b’tzelem, Beloved is man for he was created in G-d’s image.” R’ Yisroel Lipschitz (Tiferes Yisroel) comments, notice it doesn’t say beloved are Yisroel, the Jewish people, but beloved are Adom, ALL people for every human being is created in Hashem’s image. To put it simply, you cannot be an observant Jew, be serious about Torah, and use derogatory language or names, practice discrimination, or maintain a prejudice against any of G-d’s children, no matter race, ethnicity or gender. Racism is wrong, immoral and must be categorically rejected. Equally true, society must not tolerate violence, looting or flagrant violation of law. Perpetrators must be held accountable and efforts must be made to restore order, justice, calm and peace. These two truths are not in conflict and good people must be united in articulating and fighting for both. R’ Rael Blumenthal shared the following powerful story that in a timely way, sadly describes where we are: When man landed on the moon for the first time in human history, a journalist asked Rabbi Yosef Kahaneman, rosh yeshivah of Ponevitch, “What is the attitude of Judaism toward this unprecedented event? Should this change the text of Kiddush Levana? We have always said: ‘Just as I dance toward you, but cannot touch you….’ Here we say that we cannot touch it, and yet now we are stepping on its soil!” Rabbi Kahaneman, whose family and world had been so brutally destroyed in the Holocaust replied: “When I heard about this great event, I approached the windowsill, looked at the people in the street coming and going, and I said to myself, ‘You wretched world, what a foolish world you are! We reach up and connect with the moon, but we cannot connect with our fellow man.’”