We're talking about way back in the beginning, just after the expulsion from Eden. We often skip ahead to the flood, but there's a fascinating, and unsettling, little passage in Genesis 4:27 that hints at an earlier decline. It says, "To Seth, too, a son was born, and he called his name Enosh; then commenced [huḥal] the proclaiming of the name of the Lord."
Now, what's so special about Enosh? Why does the Torah bother to mention Adam, Seth, Enosh, and then... just stop? That's the question that Abba Kohen Bardela was asked. Genesis lists Adam, Seth, Enosh, and then falls silent. It picks up again with Adam, tracing the generations down to Noah. So, what gives?
Abba Kohen Bardela offers a striking answer: "Until here [Enosh] they were in the image and in the likeness [of God]. From here on, the generations became corrupted and were created in a deformed state." Whoa. That's a pretty heavy statement. The tzelem Elohim, the divine image, was somehow diminishing.
But how did this happen? Bereshit Rabbah 23 goes on to describe four major changes that occurred during the days of Enosh, son of Seth. First, the mountains became rocky ground. – a shift from something perhaps more Edenic to a harsher landscape. Second, the dead began bringing forth worms. A grim reminder of mortality and decay. Third, people’s faces became ape-like. A loss of the distinctively human form, perhaps a sign of spiritual degeneration.
And the fourth change? This is where it gets really interesting: they became devalued [ḥullin] before malevolent spirits. This idea connects back to the diminished divine image. As long as people had their tzelem Elohim intact, malevolent spirits wouldn't antagonize them. But now, vulnerable and diminished, they became susceptible to malicious influence.
Rabbi Yitzḥak offers another layer to this understanding. It wasn't just a passive decline, he suggests. “It was they themselves who caused themselves to become devalued before the malevolent spirits, [as they declared:] ‘What is the difference between one who bows to an idol and one who bows to a person?’” Just as one might bow to a person greater than oneself, they reasoned, so too one may bow to an idol in the image [tzelem] of a person. This wasn't just about worshipping idols. It was about a fundamental blurring of the lines between the sacred and the profane, between the divine and the human. It was a willingness to diminish the unique dignity of humanity, the very thing that set them apart.
So, what can we take away from this ancient midrash? It's a sobering reminder that the divine image, the spark of the holy within us, is not something to be taken for granted. It needs to be nurtured, protected, and actively chosen. It's so easy to let our own actions, our own choices, diminish that spark, making us vulnerable to negative influences and further eroding our connection to the divine.
And perhaps, just perhaps, it’s a call to constantly re-evaluate what we truly value and how we choose to reflect the Divine in our world.