כתיב ויברא אלקים את האדם בצלמו בצלם אלקים ברא אותו וכן כתיב כי בצלם אלקים עשה את האדם. It is written (Bereshit 1:27): “God-Elohi”m84While the English translation of all these names is usually rendered simply as “God,” in Hebrew God has many names, each of which denotes a specific Godly attribute or way of manifesting in the world. We will therefore include the Hebrew form of the Name, for later in the text the author will address the meanings of a few specific Names. [thus] created man with His tzellem85Heb.: b’tzalmo, often translated as “in His image”. For the moment we leave it untranslated, as Rav Chayyim immediately addresses its meaning.; with the tzellem of God-Elohi”m, He created him.”86Translations of text from the Tanakh are rendered by the translator with assistance from a range of popular English language translations including Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s “The Living Torah” (Maznaim, New York/Jerusalem, 1981), “The Stone Edition” (Mesorah Publications, Brooklyn 1998), the Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, 2003), and the Soncino Books of the Bible (Rev. Dr. A. Cohen, editor—The Soncino Press, London, 1949) And it is also written (Bereshit 9:6): “... for with the tzellem of God-Elohi”m He made man.”
הנה עומק פנימיות ענין הצלם. הוא מדברים העומדים ברומו של עולם והוא כולל רוב סתרי פנימיות הזוהר. אמנם כאן נדבר במלת צלם בדרך הפשטנים הראשונים ז"ל על פסוק נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו: This is a reference to the deep inner meaning of tzellem, it being one of the loftiest concepts in creation, containing within it most of the Zohar’s innermost secrets. That said, herein we will address the term tzellem in the manner of the early plain-text commentators on the verse “Let us make man with our tzellem and per our d’moot” (Bereshit 1:26).
והוא כי מלת צלם ודמות כאן אינו כמשמעו כי כתוב מפורש (ישעי' מ') ומה דמות תערכו לו. אלא פירושו דמיון מה באיזה דבר. כמו דמיתי לקאת מדבר כי לא נעשו לו כנפים וחרטום ולא נשתנה צורתו לצורת הקאת רק שנדמה אז במקרה פעולותיו שהיה נע ונד כמו הקאת מדבר שהוא צפור בודד ומעופף ממקום למקום. כ"ה לפי הפשטנים הראשונים ז"ל. The use of the words tzellem87We translate tzellem here simply as “image”, though it has a much more complex and technical definition. and d’moot88We translate d’moot as “likeness”. are not per their simple meanings, for it is explicitly written (Yeshayahu 40:18): “And what likeness will you compare unto Him.” Rather, their meanings imply a similarity in some feature, as in (Tehillim 102:7): “I am like a desert pelican.” It’s not that he was given wings and a beak, and not that his physical appearance was transformed into a pelican, but rather that he is described in that instance by his actions, that he wandered from place to place like the pelican in the desert (a lone bird that flies from place to place). This is per the early plain-text commentators (OBM).
וכן עד"ז הוא ענין מלת צלם. כי המה דומים במשמעם בצד מה: And so this is what is meant by tzellem: that the one resembles the other in some fashion.