Frances Fogel’s Reviews > Listening for God in Torah and Creation: A weekly encounter with conscience and soul > Status Update
Frances Fogel
is on page 15 of 599
Since in Jewish belief God has no image or likeness, the obvious question is: what does this actually mean? Rashi explains, sparingly, that humans were created 'with understanding and intelligence' * Maimonides, who devotes much of the first part of his Guide for the Perplexed to arguing that God neither has nor can have shape or form, understands the divine image as the capacity for knowledge:
— Nov 02, 2025 01:19AM
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Frances’s Previous Updates
Frances Fogel
is on page 54 of 599
“Which of us knows beforehand, or even after many years, what truly lies in the depths of our partner's psyche, with which we too must now live? Such occluded places exist in all our souls, larger or smaller. If we don't accept them and, when we can, attend to them with compassion, they will keep even the most faithful of partners - at least some of the time apart”.
— Nov 24, 2025 03:52PM
Frances Fogel
is on page 17 of 599
It is precisely because God has an image that idols are forbidden. You are the image of God. Every human being is God's image ... You can't make God's image; you can only be God's image.28
— Nov 02, 2025 01:25AM
Frances Fogel
is on page 13 of 599
yetzer hara, their evil inclination, … part of the human psyche from birth. It is not in fact truly 'evil, but, like the id, represents the drive and passion without which no one would be motivated to do anything. It becomes dangerous only if ungoverned by the yetzer hater, the good inch-nation', the knowledge and willpower to do what is right. It's precisely this internal tension and their capacity for choice
— Nov 02, 2025 01:11AM
Frances Fogel
is on page 12 of 599
is it worth the risk of creating independent beings with a will of their own… bound sooner or later to behave in ways that threaten the very enterprise for which they were made? It's an ancient version of the Frankenstein dilemma: might such a creature, with needs of its own, defy the will and hopes of its creator, and both destroy and, ultimately, self-destruct? … similar issues … to artificial intelligence.
— Nov 02, 2025 01:06AM

