Parshat Noach: The Tower of Babel

While most of this week’s parsha focuses on the story of Noah and the Flood, there is another event in the parsha which is also pretty well-known and is very instructive. The Tower of Babel is only nine versus. Here is a bit of an edited version of it:  

Now the entire earth was of one language and of a common purpose… And the (people) said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them in fire”. So the bricks were to them for stones, and the clay was to them for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a City and a Tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the entire earth.” And the Lord descended to see the City and the Tower that the sons of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have but one language, and this is what they begin to do?! And now, nothing will hold them back from whatever they propose to do! 

God ends up confusing their language so they wouldn’t understand one another, resulting in the people scattering and the project ceasing. 

At first blush it is not very clear what God was so upset about. This City/Tower plan might be considered the first Industrial Revolution in history where people gravitated from agriculture to a more urban-based economy. What is so terrible about people wanting to improve their lot? Furthermore, there seems to be a strong desire on their part to stay unified and together lest we be scattered upon the face of the entire earth. What is so bad about unity, oneness and the spirit of “All for one and one for all”? 

Commentaries throughout the ages fill in the blanks with suggestions that it was an act of rebellion against God, an Idol of sorts, and that they were looking to replace God with the god of their own self-glory and self-deification.  

Apparently the crux of the matter is that God is alarmed by their unity and oneness, and the possible destructive power that can ensue from them being so tight-knit. Behold, they are one people, and they have but one language, and this is what they begin to do?! And now, nothing will hold them back from whatever they propose to do!

The issue on God’s mind is that when everyone thinks alike, dangerous notions can take hold and become the undisputed truth. Need proof? Here is a recent example we Jewish people have been inundated with: Genocide. In certain circles, there is no question that Israel has committed Genocide against the Palestinian people. It is taken as a simple given, despite all the facts to suggest otherwise. Listen to any news, discussions or interviews on Al Jazeera about Israel and the term is regularly thrown around as accepted fact. “Well, what do you expect from Al Jazeera?” you may wonder. True, but the same can be said about the streets of many European cities and numerous campuses here is the United States.  

Gerald Baker of the WSJ had a piece this week titled, Biased Media Needs a Culture Change. He was lamenting how media-type are cut from the same cloth and arise from the same educational backgrounds and spew the same ideas. He writes, “Often, as I have dealt with mainstream journalists in the past 10 years, I have asked myself: How many of them voted for Mr. Trump? Realizing the answer was scarcely ever more than one, I’d move to the more interesting corollary: How many of them even know someone who voted for Mr. Trump?” 

This is the danger of everyone speaking the same language. It isn’t about English or Spanish or French. It’s about the same ideas being supported by group-think and echo chambers, no matter how outlandish they might be. If everyone says it is so then it must be. False notions, ideas and morals being reinforced by like-minded people who have the same cookie-cutter view of life from the same background and socio-economic place, who will in turn educate and tell others the same. “Two genders you say?! Pffff, What are you – a caveman? We have evolved from such nonsense and if you believe such a thing, well then you must be a bigot and a transphobe and, sorry, but I cannot talk to you anymore.”

This is what God was concerned about. When you are in a place where everyone thinks and acts exactly alike, it becomes an Orwellian oppressive society where any dissent cannot be sanctioned and anything goes to justify keeping the sacred views of the group. Anything goes to protect the ideology of what is perceived as the greater good. The project, news narrative, agenda, country or belief is all-good and individuals, if need be, shall be sacrificed on its alter, cancelled and done away with. It becomes a place best summarized by a Midrash about the construction of the Tower of Babel:

If a man fell and died they paid no heed to him. But if a brick fell, they sat down and wept, and lamented, “Woe is us! When will another brick come and replace it?”

God’s first solution was to scatter them and break them apart. But His real means of dealing with this problem would not come until next week’s parsha with the birth of Avraham the Ivri/Hebrew. Ivri, from the Hebrew word, לעבור meaning to cross over to the other side. Avraham the trend-setter, the individual, the free-thinker, the man who would go against much of common beliefs and give rise to a people who will do the same. The Jewish nation who, time and again, buck the system and show the world an alternative way at looking at things in the quest to discover the Truth and Good in our world.

And this is our job as Jews – to smash the Tower of Babels wherever they may be.    

Snow, cement
And ivory young towers
Someone called us Babylon…

It’s party time for the guys in the tower of Babel
Sodom meet Gomorrah, Cain meet Abel…
In the tower of Babel
Watch them dig their graves
-Elton John