Chinese evil and Maimonidean demons

Can humans ever sink to such depths of depravity that they effectively lose their humanity? Or worse?

Last week’s UN report published last week once again directed world attention to the mass incarceration and horrific abuses being carried out in the Xinjiang region of Northwest China. The indescribable horrors which are being inflicted on an entire population as well as the highly advanced technology that makes this oppression possible prompted me to recall a passage that I wrote in Judaism Reclaimed.

The Torah describes Adam’s son Shet as being in the image of Adam — a term which Rambam (Moreh 1:7) links to the earlier description of Adam as having been created "betzelem Elokim" (in the image of God). Rambam then cites a Gemara which states that, from the moment of his sin until the birth of Shet, Adam bore offspring which were not in his image but rather were "ruchot" or demons.

Tzelem Elokim — the element of humanity that can be said to be Godly — is identified with the intellect. It is through this uniquely human intelligence that people can make moral judgments to distinguish right from wrong, subdue their negative impulses and thereby direct their sophisticated intellectual capabilities so as to benefit the world around them.

In Rambam’s understanding, those who ignore their human calling to use their intellect to refine and control the animalistic aspects of their personality are considered behema betzurat adam (an animal in human form) rather than betzelem Elokim. Membership of this unesteemed group therefore can cause people to forfeit their human privileges such as divine providence and a share in the World to Come.

Far worse than this, however, are those who take this divine gift to humanity of a powerful intellect and use it to subdue and oppress others. As history repeatedly demonstrates, the greatest misery and hardship experienced by mankind is caused by people who have used their intellect to devise ways of furthering human suffering. These are the sorts of “demons” that, in Rambam’s understanding of the Gemara, were said to have been sired by Adam prior to Shet. It can be presumed that Rambam would offer a similar interpretation of Talmudic accounts of demons who dwell in uninhabited areas, damage unguarded buildings, and attack those who travel unaccompanied at night.

Tragically, the powerful Chinese government embodies this latter category of people, using their human intelligence to devise ever more effective methods for spying on their citizens and then seeking to control not only their behaviour but even their thoughts. Instead of utilising the gift of a divinely-granted intellect to improve the world by refining and elevating humanity – instead of channelling their science to the cause of alleviating hunger and disease – the atheist state implements a hideous mass-experiment in “re-education” to manipulate and subdue the tzelem Elokim of its religious citizens.

At the other end of the scale, world governments using their tzelem Elokim to build and improve the state of humanity is considered a key requirement for the onset of the Messianic era. Rambam writes later in the Moreh Nevuchim (3:11):

For through awareness of the truth, enmity and hatred are removed and the inflicting of harm by people on one another is abolished. It [Tanach] holds out this promise, saying “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb…”. Then it gives the reason for this, saying that the cause of the abolition of these enmities, these discords and these tyrannies, will be humanity’s knowledge of God…

The primary and perhaps exclusive causes of warfare and misery are obsession with and competition over material possessions, power and pride. Once humanity is taught or becomes aware of this folly, its energies and capabilities will be channelled towards achieving universal happiness and spiritual fulfilment, thus “they will beat their swords into ploughshares…” and “your sons and daughters will prophesy”.

First posted to Facebook 4 September 2022, here.