Israel and Humanity - The man regarded as the temple of God
II.
The man regarded as the temple of God.
The Judaism even give the man a title even more August, making it the temple of God on earth, because, as we have said, it summarizes all parts of creation and meets somehow organic conditions necessary to receive and house the spirit that animates it, like the human soul, tied to a particular organization, it can not get in touch with nature. This is not an idea only professed by the Kabbalists, but also by the Hebrew theologians who, without avail himself of the Kabbalah, taught as the author of Kozari [1] that form, the organization is a material condition of the descent and habitation of the mind. It should also be expected, pushing stubbornly Kabbalah, to lose a rich source of the noblest and most profound teachings.
In the eyes of the Theosophists, the organization of the human body and its physical faculties are seats and clothing spirituality. Made in the image of heavenly things, man is the realization in the material. Not only the rabbis and Talmudic Midrash agree on this point, but the Bible itself [2] is no stranger to this idea, since the notion of God's presence, the immanence of Shekina whose sacred books are filled, merges with it. Without doubt, in Scripture, but rather the nature, the community of created things which we represented as the temple of God. But this sort of divine presence implies the other, at least to some extent. Do not forget that the Bible is for the entire nation, it aims at generality, there is a finding that may be made in all other levels of ideas and has not escaped the penetration of scientific and religious criticism. But we must not think why Judaism neglects the individual, it would be a shocking anomaly which the history of religions offers no examples. Instead, it is very fair to apply to humans in particular what Scripture says about the whole people.
Surely the perfect Temple is the holy nation itself, until it is all mankind, but the individual is a cornerstone of the edifice, it is also a temple, not only as a component or constituent part, but as reproducing, their respect and in a smaller sphere, the divine. Because the moral world has this particular materials or components, linked together to form the superior being, not merely the means, they have an end in themselves and keep their own value, at the same time that they compete with others to the composition of the whole. It is now accepted by a certain school for gifted elements of matter are also of high quality and especially the human body, gigantic confederation of junior worlds, culminating in a monad Supreme summarizing all. In reality, Judaism, the universe, mankind, nation and people, are all degrees in which the divine manifests itself and where it resides and is therefore correct to see them in many parts Temple of God.
This theory of man as the temple of God has appeared elsewhere in Judaism. Probably when Jesus was asked about the coming kingdom of God, answered: "The kingdom of God is within you" [3] it is only repeating what a thousand voices around him and proclaimed before him. But paganism itself, through the mouths of his most illustrious [4] thinkers, spoke sometimes with some intuition of this truth. Deus in turns bono SEDET is expressed as Zeno, and Demosthenes also said those beautiful words: "The most beautiful altars and most saints are in the very soul of man "I [5]. Judaism does not deny the point to the wise pagan glory that belongs to them, he claims only that of having said all this before them and having said all that each said separately.
