Tag Archives: blasphemy

The Torah is a remarkable book. It outlines a creation story, how the universe came to be, and that it all starts with nothing. There is no universe, it is null and void. And then God says ‘Let there be light’. Sounds a bit like the Big Bang; this sudden creation of something.

It took Copernicus another 2500 years to find out that the Earth goes round the Sun, not the other way round. In other words, the whole planet Earth on which we live is not in the centre of this solar system, let alone the universe. This means that humans are not the centre of the universe. They are not the founders of it and they are not the centre of it.

As we humans are not the centre of the universe,  we might get to thinking that we are so insignificant that each one of us does not matter, we are disposable.

 

 

The Torah says all the living things on this planet are created from this planet Earth and that humans are created also from Earth. The name Adam means red, the red earth.  All things, including living things, are therefore material (matter) which means we are all chemical beings.

But all things also have what the Kabbalists (the mystics) would say, a spark of the divine. So all material things are chemical, but also have the sparks of creation (the Big Bang) in them.

When humans are created, we emanate from God, according to the Torah, so we too have those sparks in, the sparks of the Divine or the energy of the Big Bang, if you prefer.

However it says in the Torah, we humans are also created after ‘the likeness and in the shadow of God’.

Humans, have a lot of sparks of the divine, but not only the sparks, they are in a similar spirit to God, in the shadow and likeness. This makes humans very special, very dear to God.

The Rabbis say that to kill a human is to kill a universe. You are killing what they are, their life; and you are killing what they could become; their potential. You are cutting off the sparks and the spirit.

I say this as we have just commemorated the 7/7 bombings in London, which occurred on the 7th of July 2005, ten years ago.

Fifty two (+4) human lives were obliterated.

Fifty two (+4) universes wiped off the planet.

All things are precious.

All living things are very precious.

Humans are in the shadow and likeness of God.

Killing humans is killing the likeness of God.

That is blasphemy.

Adam and Eve did not belong to a religion or tribe or cult. That is the beauty of these passages in the Torah. They were not Jewish, Christian or Muslim or anything. They were ‘every-human’.

Adam and Eve are the first humans. However they arose, by Creation or by Evolution, they are the parents of us all. That is what the Torah is saying. All human life descends from them, either because God created them or Evolution evolved them.

If you believe in Evolution, then each one of us is descended from our same ancestors. We are all related, one species. Killing any one of us is obscene. You are murdering your family members. Each and every one of us is related, regardless of tribe or belief. The Torah is saying the same thing.

If you believe that God created humans then killing their descendants, any one of us, is blasphemy. How dare you? How dare you say you believe in God and then try to kill God; to kill God’s spirit; to kill us humans? We are all in the shadow and likeness of God.

To kill a human is to kill a universe; a created or evolved universe, an emanation of the Divine or of Evolution, a descendant of God or of our common ancestors.  A spark of the Divine or of the Big Bang, whichever you prefer.

Each and every one of us came from the same place.

Each and every one of us is precious.

It is not for you, or for any one of us to think or to act otherwise.