Man As Idol

by Andreas Wittenstein

וַיִבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֱת־הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָם׃

And God created human in God's image; in the image of God God created human; male and female God created them. —Genesis 1:27

וְנִשְׁםַרְתֶּם מְאֹד לְנַפְשֽׁתֵיכֶם כִּי לֹא רְאִיתֶם כָּל־תְמוּנָה בְּיוֹם דִּבֶּר יְהוָֹה אֲלֵיכֶם בְּחֹרֶב מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ׃
פֶּן־תַּשְׁחִתוּן וַעֲשִׂיתֶם לָכֶם פֶּסֶל תּמְוּנַת כָּל־סָמֶל תַּבְנִית זָכָר אוֹ נְקֵבָה׃

Be very careful for your souls, since you saw no image on the day YHWH your God spoke to you in Horeb from out of the fire, lest you do harm and make for yourselves a sculpted image of any likeness: a model of a male or female. —Deuteronomy 4:15-16

One of the most innovative ideas introduced in the history of religion is the notion of an abstract but personal deity. We are created in God's image, but that image has no form. And we Jews are never to worship the image, nor even to create an image of God; for the instant we do so, we associate arbitrary physical characteristics of the image with God, and begin to idolize those characteristics, detracting from God's universality.

Despite these strenuous prohibitions on idolatrous imagery, one physical human attribute has insidiously crept into Judaism's image of God: masculinity. Indeed, masculinity has become idolized to such a degree that the Israeli Knesset seriously considers legislating prison sentences for Jews who dare pray at the Western Wall without male genitalia.

Obviously, God does not have a penis. To assign masculinity to God is to greatly diminish God, and to exclude half the human race created in God's image. How did masculinity mistakenly become associated with God? For an answer to this question, we need to look at linguistics and social history.

As linguists have long shown (most notably Edward Sapir, Benjamin Whorf, and Alfred Korzybski), the languages we use strongly affect our perception of the world. Hebrew is a two-gender language, in which every object or concept, no matter how sexless or abstract— must be either masculine or feminine. This distinction is thoroughly entrenched in the structure of the language. Masculine and feminine nouns, adjectives, and (except for the first person) pronouns have distinct forms, even in the plural. Verbs agree with the gender of the subject and (when marked) the object in every tense, aspect, and mood, for every person, singular and plural (with exceptions for the first person). Thus it is practically impossible to refer to a noun in Hebrew without assigning it a gender. Given the inescapability of gender in Hebrew, the very concept of a genderless being would have been virtually inaccessible to the Hebrews.

From the time the Torah was recorded, Hebrew society has been strongly patriarchal, with men monopolizing all public positions of power and authority, including kings, judges, and priests. Given that God cannot be genderless in Hebrew, it is therefore understandable that the grammatical gender assigned to God followed that of the available role models.

How can we overcome this idolatry? Only by dealing with its root causes: linguistic stricture and social bias.

There are only two ways to include both genders in Hebrew: explicitly listing both genders, and using the gender-inclusive plural. Remarkably, the Torah makes an effort to use both these techniques. The Torah emphatically includes both male and female genders in critical passages relating God to the human form, including both when describing God's creation of humans in God's image [Genesis 1:27], and when exhorting humans not to create images of God [Deuteronomy 4:15-16].

The most common title and address form referring to God in the Torah are אֱלֹהִים (’Èlohim) and אֲדֹנָי (’Adonài), which are literally plural (‘Gods’, ‘my Lords’), although they are always treated grammatically as singular nouns, in accordance with our notion of a single God. Although other controversial explanations have been advanced for these plural forms, I believe they were chosen to be gender-inclusive. As in most or all two-gender languages, the Hebrew gender-inclusive plural is formally identical to the masculine plural. Thus ’Èlohim can literally mean ‘male gods’, ‘male and female gods’, or &lquo;gods of unspecified gender’. Likewise, ’Adonài can mean ‘my Lords’, ‘my Lords and Ladies’, or ‘my Rulers’. So, even though it's a male-biassed way to render the gender ambiguous, the gender-inclusive plural is the best way available in Hebrew.

With our modern awareness of gender issues, we have no excuse to propagate this male bias. By using gender-neutral forms in all our references to God, we exalt God and honor all humans created in God's image. In place of King for מֶלֶך (Mèlèch), say Monarch, or alternate with Queen or מַלְכָּה (Malkàh). Instead of Lord or אֲדֹנָי (’Adonài), say Ruler, or alternate with Lady or גְּבִירוֹתָי (Gvirotài). In Hebrew, use feminine verb forms with masculine names for God, and masculine verb forms with feminine names for God.

English has lost all its grammatical gender distinctions except in third person singular pronouns such as he|she|it. So let's stop using those for God. Even apart from gender issues, we shouldn't use pronouns for God anyway. A pronoun's purpose is to stand for interchangeable nouns, but we have only one God, so calling God He is disrespectful (even if you can pronounce capital H uniquely). Yes, it's awkward to say God or God's instead of He or His. But this awkwardness serves the purpose of reminding us of God's unique place in the world. Touching the מְזוּזָה mezuzah each time we leave and enter home is awkward too, as it should be.

Let's stop idolizing masculinity now.

—from our March 2002 Newsletter

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