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Podcast: The Great Sources with Rabbi Shnayor Burton
Episode: S1, E6 Man's Divine Image, according to the Shaarei Orah
Description: Man was created "in the image of God." What does this mean? How could the form of man be identified with the formless and shapeless God?
Shaarei Orah teaches that the human being is the symbolic representation of the divine. God is formless, shapeless – and utterly unknowable. We can know Him only indirectly, through an image that represents Him: the human being.
According to this teaching, man's perfection is to properly represent the divine, to actualize it in this physical and limited world. When perfecting himself, man is perfecting God's representation and actually embodies the di...