Love isn’t enough: Faith in humanity through the lens of the Torah

He places the center of Torah not in belief but in the way a person turns toward others. Compassion, a readiness to step beyond the self, forms the bedrock of both human character and religious life. Without mercy and compassion, piety slowly erodes, losing its moral core.

The centrality of loving another as oneself had already been articulated generations earlier by an intellectual forerunner of Rabbi Akiva. Decades earlier, Hillel had placed this trait at the heart of religious life.

Hillel responded differently. He recognized that not everyone arrives with the same patience or intellectual endurance. Rather than dismiss the request, he offered a point of entry. He directed the convert to focus on loving one’s fellow as the core of religious experience, a principle simple enough to begin with, yet one that can guide a person through the entirety of religious life.

Interestingly, Hillel did not merely identify love for another Jew as the central tenet of religious life. He gave it definition and measure. The command to love can remain abstract and difficult to grasp. People often hurt those they love. Love and hurt often walk hand in hand.

Hillel redirected the convert toward action rather than emotion. “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In reframing the command, Hillel made it concrete. It is not simple to feel love for every person. Jews, by nature, are confident and often stubborn. Differences in outlook inevitably lead to friction. Hillel was not asking for perfect emotion; he was guiding behavior. Treat others with dignity and respect, even when you disagree, even when they irritate you. Use your own expectations as the standard. Do not impose on others what you yourself would find hurtful. Instead of speaking in abstract terms, Hillel anchored the mitzvah in daily conduct.

Separated by only a few generations, Hillel and Rabbi Akiva arrived at a shared center. Treating others with dignity stands at the heart of Jewish identity. Among all the powerful verses in the Torah, this one emerges as central and can serve as a portal to growth in religious life.

However, this was not the only way to define the center of Torah. Interestingly, there was a dissenting voice. Another sage, Ben Azzai turned not to the command to love but to a verse in Genesis that describes the creation of man. In the fifth chapter, the Torah presents man as having been created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God.

Of course, this cannot refer to any physical likeness, as God has no form or semblance. Rather, it points to a cluster of capacities that set human beings apart from the rest of the natural world. We possess emotion, free will, moral awareness, self-reflection, creativity, language, and the ability to form deep relationships. These qualities are either absent in other creatures or appear only in limited form.

It is precisely this distinction that defines us. We stand apart from nature, and in that we reflect our Creator, who stands beyond nature entirely. Our distance from the natural order is not accidental; it is the imprint of the divine image within us.

By highlighting this instead of “Ve’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha,” Ben Azzai introduced two important shifts.

First, this verse is not a commandment but an assertion about human nature. Hillel and Rabbi Akiva identified a formal mitzvah as central. Ben Azzai suggested that the axis of Torah values can emerge from a statement about who we are.

Religious life is shaped not only by obligation but also by how we understand the human being, by the moral awareness embedded within us, and by the way we see the world and our place within it. It is striking that, in Ben Azzai’s view, the central verse describes who we are rather than telling us what to do.

Second, Ben Azzai widened the scope of compassion and respect from fellow Jews to humanity as a whole. The command to love your neighbor is directed toward those who are your ideological neighbors, those who share your identity and way of life.

The verse in Genesis speaks more broadly. Every human being is created b’tzelem Elokim. That shared divine imprint demands a wider circle of respect. Honoring another person is, in effect, honoring the One who fashioned him. When that respect is absent, it reflects not only a failure toward others but a failure in our regard for God.

It is not always easy to respect every human being and the divine image within him. We stand at the edge of a major shift that may reshape how we understand ourselves. No one knows exactly where this is headed. Will AI elevate our sense of human dignity as we begin to generate creativity itself? Or will this process continue to erode what makes us distinct and chip away at our image of man?

This process has been unfolding for centuries. Copernicus taught us that our planet is not the center of the universe. Darwin taught that we were not created as wholly distinct but share an evolutionary branch with other primates. Freud taught that we do not fully possess free will but are often driven, almost irresistibly, by darker psychological forces within us. With each step, something of human uniqueness felt diminished. Creativity remained one of the final markers of distinction.

If even that begins to fade, how will we understand ourselves? This question will take time to unfold, but it will shape how we see the human being and what it means to be created in the image of God.

Of course, even before any of this unfolds, the world already feels unmoored, gripped by hatred and drawn toward false narratives. The hostility we face and the poor judgment we see around us can tempt a person to lose faith in humanity. So many seem unable, or unwilling, to recognize the moral clarity of our cause.