so murder was not just a crime against humanity but a sacrilege: “Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human blood is regarded as if he had diminished the divine image.”7 God had created only one man at the beginning of time to teach us that the destruction of a single life was equivalent to annihilating the entire world; conversely, to save a life redeemed the whole of humanity.8 To humiliate anybody, even a slave or a goy, was a sacrilegious defacing of God’s image9 and a malicious libel denied God’s existence.10 Any interpretation of scripture that bred hatred or disdain for others
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