Saadia Gaon already wrote for this very reason that the text should read “and in the image,” and the intention is that in the very form and likeness of the human being He fashioned from him an everlasting structure.

Thank you for the answer.

If Maimonides is correct in his generalization regarding the word “form,” then we are dealing with a term specifically used to describe a physical shape in space. In my opinion, the contexts in which these things are said in Scripture show that what is negated is every such form (contrary to some views in scholarship), and not only human form — but this is not the place to enter into a long polemical interpretation.

As for the original meaning of the blessing, it seems to me that there is at least some probability that the non-anthropomorphic interpretation is not the plain meaning originally intended. Though perhaps I am mistaken. After all, there are anthropomorphic sayings in the Sages alongside anti-anthropomorphic sayings — the question of anthropomorphism was apparently still not settled in their time, at least not in the Hekhalot literature. The fact is that some of the greats of Israel opposed Maimonides’ war against anthropomorphism, and if they had thought the position was clear in the words of the Sages, it is not clear why.

Likewise, it seems that for the average secular person (and perhaps even the average religious person), the blessing is not understood on first hearing the way it was nicely explained here, unless he hears the explanation — which may still sound apologetic. And when people are not well versed in the sources, they may come to think that the sources are at the very least ambivalent on the issue. The midrash says that there had to be a strong reason to write something liable to mislead, such as the statement “Let us make man” — namely, to teach the trait of humility. What reason is there that prevents us from omitting this phrase, or at least adding a note?

Here is the midrash:
“He said before Him: Master of the Universe, why do You provide an opening for the heretics? He said to him: Write! And whoever wishes to err, let him err. Write, for if the great one comes and says, ‘Why should I seek permission from one lesser than me?’ they say to him: Learn from your Creator…” (Bereishit Rabbah 8).

As I explained, I don’t think that is the meaning, and certainly not how it is understood today. The fact is that it doesn’t bother any listener, and we are all sensitive to anthropomorphism. As for the concern about error, I already wrote that nowadays there is no such concern at all. And you yourself brought the midrash at the end of your remarks.

The interpretation the Rabbi wrote appears in the Ritva on Ketubot 8.

The Ritva arrived at the view of the Maharmad"a! If I dared, I would say that the human being’s form is not what it is today, but rather the androgynous form from before the separation. This is how Daniel Boyarin explained the matter at length, claiming to find this interpretation developed by Paul. The meaning there, for one who was a student of Rabban Gamliel, is that God is above sexuality and distinctions, and that is exactly how He created His image from the outset. But this is a long discussion and most likely also incorrect.

Yehuda, I’m glad to hear it. (Glad for his sake, as Gil wrote 🙂 ).
I looked it up, and indeed it is literally word for word:
The version in the books is: “who created the human being in His image, in the image of the likeness of his form.” The explanation is: “in His image” means the image of the likeness of the human being’s form. For regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, it says “image,” which is a term suitable to be said about form without a body, and about something the eye has no permission to grasp and see. But regarding the human being, who is a body, it uses the term “form,” which is only ever said of something non-spiritual, as it is written: “the form of every creeping thing on the earth.”

Gil,
Boyarin is a well-known hunter of provocations.

“And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
“And God created the human being in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
“And the Lord God built the side that He had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.”

Simply put, the blessing is referring to the fact that God’s form is male and female. And that from this form He prepared for him the everlasting structure, the woman. The plural of “Let us make man” also points to male and female saying it. And the cherubim also hint at this idea.
The prophet Isaiah, like Maimonides in his generation, did not accept this conception. But it seems more fundamental in the Torah than the belief in incorporeality.
That is how it seems from the simple plain meaning.

It’s worth adding that in the Kafih edition of The Guide of the Perplexed, he also brought a similar interpretation. Kafih also added there the possibility that the meaning of the word “form” in the time of the Mishnah was different from its meaning in the biblical period, and therefore there is no problem attributing it to God.

P.S. I personally think the Torah used anthropomorphic language because there was no way to convey the message of abstraction in ancient times, and for that reason the Sages may also have held anthropomorphic views. Therefore it seems to me that the whole project of reinterpreting anthropomorphic verses is unnecessary, because the Torah used those expressions intentionally as a message and did not mean their abstract interpretation (similar to the unnecessary move of giving a scientific interpretation to the verses of the creation narrative). Maimonides too suggested something along those lines in The Guide regarding the language of prayer.

P.P.S. Since this has been a popular topic lately, I’ll note for anyone interested that the entry “Anthropomorphism” in the Hebrew Encyclopedia contains a collection of several good arguments in favor of the view that the Sages really did not believe in anthropomorphism, and that this is not late apologetics by lovers of philosophy. Also in Yair Lorberbaum’s book Tzelem Elohim (who does not hold this view), there is a collection of scholarly arguments on this issue.

M, isn’t there some later authority who explicitly claimed this? (That the Torah used these expressions intentionally as a message.)

It still grates on me. Rabbi Michi’s explanation requires shifting the possessive reference in the same sentence from God (“His image”) to the human being (“his form”). As if some commentator had inserted his own words here to add something to the previous expression. Rabbi Michi is willing to do this because of the question why the repetition appears: “in His image,” and afterward again “in the image of the likeness of His form” — after all, we already understood that he is in His image.

But one could answer just as well that “in the image of the likeness of His form” was meant to clarify that not only was the human being created in His image (that is, the abstract form), but also in His form (shape), and thus we have answered the question of the duplication. Then what remains in comparing the interpretations is the awkwardness of transferring the possessive reference to someone else in mid-sentence. This interpretation seems simpler: “who created the human being in His image” (God’s), and not merely in His image, but “in the image of the likeness of His form” (God’s).

But such an understanding creates a contradiction within the tradition, and when the need arises to reconcile tradition with itself, interpretations like Rabbi Michi’s (and the Ritva’s) emerge. From a purely interpretive standpoint, however, Saadia Gaon’s solution sounds more plausible to me. He would not have felt pressed to add a vav so casually if he thought the plain meaning was like Rabbi Michi and the Ritva. Saadia Gaon says: I am willing to reject (or improve) the tradition when it makes mistakes of this magnitude. Rabbi Michi and the Ritva: not willing to let tradition make mistakes of this magnitude.

I’m willing to do anything and I have no problem changing a tradition if it seems mistaken. I’ve done that here more than once. But I have not been convinced that it is mistaken. On the contrary, the straightforward interpretation seems to me to be what I said.

This is probably a matter of personal judgment. I don’t know of any isolated expression like this anywhere in the Sages, “in the image of the likeness,” to which the word “his form” refers. I would expect to see it elsewhere too. So either I say that the only place it appears is in this blessing, or — more simply — that this is not its meaning. True, there is “in the image” (“Beloved is man, for he was created in the image”) according to the second interpretation presented here, but that would create an even more unusual form of expression. The blessing begins in a flow of speech, suddenly stops on one word in order to say something about it (“in the image — the likeness of his form”), while the possessive reference shifts from God to man, and then returns to the previous flow of speech.

According to Saadia Gaon, were it not for the addition of the letter vav, the meaning would be that God created the human being in His image (in what sort of image?) — the image of the likeness of His form — and there is no break in the rhythm of the blessing.

I already said that it can be read both ways: “image” — “the likeness of his form,” or “in the image of the likeness” — “his form.” But in any case, I still do not see the strain.

Kobi — I don’t know; there are people more expert than I am. I’ll just say that Maimonides himself, in his remarks on anthropomorphism in the first blessing of the Amidah, hints in exactly that direction and attributes it to the Sages. In any case, the idea as a general approach already appears in various contexts regarding the Torah אצל thinkers שונים (see, for example, explanations of slavery in the Bible, the commandment concerning a married woman, reasons for the sacrifices, and more).
I was told that at the Yedaya Institute there is a draft of an article on the subject (which may perhaps be published someday) that brings several proofs, some of them less well known, for distancing anthropomorphism, and also this direction.

One has to remember that language and words are part of culture and of how the world is understood within that culture. When we are talking about a span of thousands of years, we need specifically to understand the intent of the words from the content, and not the other way around. (As was written above: form = shape.) Because of a lack of concepts, sometimes the same word is also used with a different meaning depending on the context.
In addition, Judaism has the secrets of the Torah, and therefore “the Torah speaks in human language.” In every generation according to the language of that generation.
Our understanding of the world today is completely different from what was known in ancient times and in the time of Maimonides. Today every cultured person knows what a whole system is (like the education system, the transportation system, etc.), a concept that did not exist in the distant past.
In my opinion, in the verses we are discussing, “form” refers to an ecological system.
Therefore, in my opinion, the question of anthropomorphism that Maimonides feared was solved with the understanding of ecological systems. Just as the human body is one ecological system with organs and a soul, so too the Holy One, blessed be He, includes the whole physical and spiritual world (the lower and the upper) as one infinite ecological system. In this way one can also understand “And I will dwell among you” as physical and spiritual at the same time.