A recent collection of essays, Jews and Genes, addresses the implications for Jewish identity and Jewish peoplehood of recent discoveries in the field of genetics. Jonathan Kirsch writes in his review:
Significantly, some of the richest and most provocative essays in the collection have nothing to do with science. For example, Yosef Leibowitz . . . deconstructs the text of Genesis to extract the distinction between “the nature of the human soul and the image of God within it.” Leibowitz argues that the power bestowed upon humankind by the Creator is always checked by moral boundaries, and the constant tension that exists between power and morality “lie[s] at the core of our humanity.” Contrary to many of his fellow contributors, Leibowitz concludes with an unsettling question: “If God’s ‘image’ is within us so long as our physical bodies are here to embrace it, are we to nurture and protect it from the moment of the first living cell until the last?”
Read more on Jewish Journal: http://www.jewishjournal.com/books/article/parsing_the_jewish_genome