The Torah explains (Deut. 21:22-23) that if a person is found guilty of a capital offense and is executed, his corpse must be impaled on a stake but it may not remain there overnight. The body must be buried on the same day “for an impaled body is an affront to God.” Since Man is created in God’s image, even the corpse of one guilty of the most heinous crime may not be disgraced.
Rashi cites a midrash from Sanhedrin 46b that offers the following parable. Twin brothers lived in the same city. One became a king; the other became a criminal and was hanged. All who saw the hanging corpse would exclaim, “The king is hanging.” So similar is the human body to the divine image that we are concerned a passerby will mistake the former for the latter.
But is this really the Torah’s concern? One who sees the corpse probably won’t conclude that the King of Kings is hanging, but perhaps he should. If we recognize that each and every individual is created in the image of God and take that point seriously, then we may very well confuse the hanging corpse with God Himself, even if just for a moment.
Often, the Torah reflects the imperfect reality in which we find ourselves. An example of this is the eshet yefat to’ar, discussed earlier the same parashah. In such a case, the Torah teaches us how to respond when we find ourselves in a less than ideal situation. Here though, the Torah does the opposite. Burying the corpse on the same day as the execution prevents a passerby from mistaking the hanging body with the image of God. This mistake is reasonable, but only if we fully appreciate the relationship between the human being and the image of God. The two are, of course, not the same thing but are rather like twin brothers, (should be) easily confused with one another.
