Комментарий о цитате к Йехезкэля 32:2

Thou art He that drew me forth out of the womb; Thou didst make me trust upon my mother's breasts: – גֹּחִי (that drew me forth) = מוֹצִיאִי (that caused me to issue forth), as “And thou didst burst forth (וַתָּנַח) with thy rivers” (Ezek. 32:2). He says: How is it that Thou dost not save us while we confess Thee and know and acknowledge that strength is from Thee, and that Thou art He that helps and brings to the birth and causes the babe, whose sustenance is received only at the hands of others, to trust upon its mother's breasts? And Thou art He who makes him trust also, so that gradually he will grow and his strength and (power of) use increase in him until he can seek his sustenance of himself, and the man is mature in marvellous wisdom – from his mother's breasts until he grows up. And all is by the direction of a Director and the guidance of a Guide, and not as is asserted by those who say that everything is by nature and chance, without the direction of a Director and the guidance of a Guide. We also are the people who confess Thee.

ושם הנהר השני גיחון, this river flows in a southerly direction flowing around the whole land of Kush from which it enters Sarnediv known as the great sea, (Mediterranean) according to the experts in geography. After the Torah used the expression הסובב when describing the manner in which the first two rivers wended their way on the surface of the earth, it switches to the verb הלך in describing the flow of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. It appears that these first two rivers did not cross a certain country diagonally but detoured around it. גיחון, this name appears to reflect the manner in which this river splits up into many smaller rivers. [again we appear to face the concept of “tributaries” as being reversed, the main river creating something like a delta, i.e. breaking up into smaller distributaries. Ed.] The word means “exit” We find it appearing in this context in Job 40,23 כי יגיח ירדן אל פיהו, or in Ezekiel 32,2 ותגח בנהרותיך, as well as in similar instances. Incidentally, the שילוח is also called גיחון, seeing it splits into so many different rivulets in order to irrigate the gardens in Jerusalem.

בצלמנו כדמותנו, according to the interpretation of my father of blessed memory, the meaning of the word בצלמנו applies both to a physical likeness as well as to a spiritual likeness, the ending נו not applying to two different subjects, “our,” but applying to two different parts of the same subject. It matches the prefix נ in the word נעשה. If we understand the word נעשה as applying to the angels, we must treat the words צלם and דמות as referring to spiritual attributes only, the meaning being that man would be endowed with parts of the spiritual attributes known as צלם and דמות respectively. The expressions צלם and דמות respectively, are sometimes applied to something physical and on other occasions applied to something abstract, spiritual. The word צלם is an attribute sometimes applied to a physical entity, such as in Samuel I 6,5 צלמי טחוריכם, “images of your hemorrhoids,” or in Numbers 33,52 צלמי מסכותם, “their molten images.” The same expression is also used to describe something spiritual, as in verse 27 of our chapter here.
The same is true of the word דמות as for instance, in Song of Songs 7,8 קומתך דומה לתמר, “your posture resembles that of a date palm,” or Ezekiel 1,13 ודמות החיות, “and the appearance of the chayot,” (a category of angels shown to the prophet in this vision). The same word is also used to describe physical appearances such as in Ezekiel 32,2 כפיר גוים נדמית “you were compared to a young lion;” or in Psalms 102,7 דמיתי לקאת מדבר, “I am like a great owl in the desert.”
The word נעשה is justified seeing that these attributes are means employed by G’d. The letter ב which serves as a prefix to צלמנו, is to be understood as a “helper,” meaning “equipped with our attribute צלם, i.e. our intelligence, we shall produce a creature whom we will endow with portions of these attributes of ours.” We will do this although, essentially, man is of the earth, to wit his name אדם. Alternately, it is possible to understand the prefix ב in the word בצלמנו as a letter that describes that something is equipped with an attribute. G’d would be saying that this new creature called אדם, man, shall be equipped with the attribute known as צלם.