A Conflict of Interests
When Noah and his family emerged from the ark, God both blessed them and charged them with responsibilities for the future of humankind. God offered protection for human life while imposing an obligation to perpetuate it:
“He who sheds human blood, by humans his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made humankind. As for you, be fruitful and multiply, swarm through the earth and increase on it.” (Genesis 9:6–7)
The underlying idea connecting these two verses seems clear. God values human life because He created human beings in His image. Consequently, following the destruction wrought by the Flood, God sought to ensure that human life would not only resume but also flourish. This required a stable moral order that protected human life and ensured the perpetuation of humankind. According to most interpreters, the first verse establishes the principle of capital punishment, while the second imposes an obligation on human beings to procreate.
Rabbinic hermeneutics, the ways in which the Sages read and interpreted Scripture, offers a different reading of these verses, one that draws on their juxtaposition. Bereishit Rabbah presents a discussion in which Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and Ben Azai explore the relationship between the sanctity of human life and the obligation to procreate:
Rabbi Akiva expounded: Anyone who sheds blood is considered as though he has diminished the divine image. What is the source? “One who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed.” Why? “For He made man in the image of God.”
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah expounded: Anyone who refrains from procreation diminishes the divine image. What is the source? “For He made man in the image of God,” followed immediately by: “And you, be fruitful and multiply; teem on the earth, and multiply.”
Ben Azai expounded: If someone refrains from procreation, Scripture considers him as though he has shed blood and diminished the divine image. What is the source? “One who sheds the blood of man”—why? “For He made man in the image of God.” What is written thereafter? “And you, be fruitful and multiply.”
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said to him: “It is appropriate when thoughts are expressed by those who carry them out. Ben Azai expounds appropriately but does not act appropriately.” Ben Azai replied: “I [refrain] because my soul yearns for Torah [study], but the world can be sustained by others [who do procreate].” (Bereishit Rabbah 34:14, Theodor-Albeck edition, pp. 326–327)
Rabbi Akiva’s derashah represents a normative understanding of the passage: taking a human life is an offense against God because every human being is created in the divine image. To harm a human being is, therefore, to affront that image.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva, takes the argument in a different direction. Focusing on the juxtaposition of the two verses, he interprets the obligation to procreate as deriving from the very same principle that makes the taking of human life so grave: both concern the presence of the divine image in the world. Just as killing a human being diminishes that image, so too does failing to bring new human beings into existence.
Ben Azai, another contemporary of Rabbi Akiva, advances this argument even more forcefully. He equates refraining from procreation with the shedding of blood, thereby placing the failure to create new life in the same moral category as the destruction of existing life.
What makes Ben Azai’s position particularly intriguing is that he himself neither married nor fathered children. When Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah challenged him over this apparent contradiction, Ben Azai did not retreat from his argument. Instead, he explained his own conduct by invoking his absolute devotion to Torah study: his soul yearned so intensely for Torah that he could not devote himself to family life, but he maintained that the world could be sustained by those who did procreate.
Rabbi Akiva’s position recognizes the unique value of human life as a reflection of the divine. Consequently, taking a human life is an offense against God. Rabbi Elazar shares this concern but extends it to the future, understanding the obligation to perpetuate human life as an affirmative religious duty. Ben Azai takes this argument even further, placing the failure to perpetuate life on the same moral plane as murder. His position, however, creates an apparent conflict between his convictions and his own way of life – a conflict for which he offers a compelling explanation.
Ben Azai’s predicament makes him a particularly compelling figure. It reminds us that even the Sages struggled to reconcile competing ideals and that such struggles are not necessarily failures of religious commitment. In some cases, as Ben Azai’s example suggests, they may be an inevitable consequence of taking competing obligations seriously. What is right as a communal ideal may not always be the right course for every individual. The tension between these two perspectives leaves the struggle over fundamental questions of human existence a permanent part of the Jewish tradition.
