Have you ever noticed that certain biblical narratives gain more notoriety than others? For instance, the story of the Tower of Babel has entered common culture not only as a story but with a whole level of understanding distinct unto itself. To Babble is to talk rapidly or meaninglessly, and Babbel. com is a language learning program. For all that the narrative of Migdal Bavel, as it is called in Hebrew, has gripped our imaginations, most people do not realize that it is a mere 9 verses in the Torah (Bereishis 11:1-9). Those few verses, however, are rich with subtext.
It is a common concept within Divrei Torah to talk about the generation of Bavel and compare it to the destroyed generation of Noah and comment on how this demonstrates that Hashem is far less worried about humankind insulting or fighting against Him than He is about humanity destroying each other. The generation of Noah was destroyed because they had managed to create a world of total chamas, violence – defined by the sages as a world of selfish grabbing whatever they wanted. The generation of Bavel, on the other hand, worked together and was, therefore, spared destruction.
Let us divert a moment to speak about the concept of unity. Unity is a very important concept in Judaism, and we are inundated with messages about the importance of Jewish unity (although it is a goal we still struggle to achieve). Even as we long for a time when Klal Yisrael will be united, to the time of Moshiach, we do not discuss it as an era where all of humanity will be united except for in one thing, which is the innate knowledge that Hashem is the King of Kings.
But unity was not what was expected of these immediate descendants of Noah’s sons. The Dor Haflaga, the generation that was scattered (meaning bavel), was not meant to be a steadfast settlement of people who stayed together. Rather, they were meant to fulfill the blessing/command the Hashem gave to Noah and his three sons when they returned to land: “Be fertile and increase, abound on the earth and increase on it” (Bereishis 9:7).
The fourth verse of the narrative relays: “And they said, ‘Come, let us build us a city, a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered over the world” (11:4). On this verse, the Rashbam* points out: “…their principal sin was in not fulfilling G’d’s basic directive to be fruitful, to multiply, and to populate the whole earth, not just a small valley. Their declared objective had been not to scatter (verse 4). The fact that G’d forcefully scattered them afterwards shows that their sin must have been their failure to do so voluntarily” (translation on Sefaria.org).
If God wanted them to spread out, to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the earth, why did they fear being scattered? Why did they desire walls to keep themselves together if already Hashem has promised that “The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand” (9:2) – that the natural world would be easily ruled by humankind. Whom did they fear if everyone on earth was unified in their actions, as is implied in the verse: “Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words… and they said to one another…” (11:1,3)”? The Netziv** notes in Haamek Davar, “And it is understood that this [their fear of being scattered] was related to the uniformity that was among them. And since the opinions of people are not identical, they feared that people might abandon this philosophy and adopt another. Therefore, they sought to ensure that no one would leave their society” (sefaria translation).
It is interesting to note that while we think of the narrative of Migdal Bavel being the first place to mention language, this is not so. Bereishis 10, which is a list of genealogy, discusses languages three times. Each time noting the descendants of the sons of Noah and how they became specific clans and languages. The word for language used in Bereishis 10, however, is lashon, associated with tongue. The word for language in Bereishis 11 is safa, associated with lips. “Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler*** explains the difference between these two terms as follows: One’s ‘lip’ is an external feature of his body, while one’s ‘tongue’ is an internal feature. Consequently, one can only refer to a language as a lashon (‘tongue’) when its speakers embody the inner meaning of that language. By contrast, a language can be called a safa (‘lip’) when its speakers embody only the technical, external features of the language, but not its core values” (taken from Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, “Speaking in Tongues” ohr.edu, December 23, 2017).
Here what I say may be radical, but perhaps now we can understand why Hashem saw the need to knock down, so to speak, their tower. Hashem saw, perhaps that they were all speaking to each other in the plural tense – “Let us build a city and a tower… let us make a name for ourselves,” but Hashem knew that in their hearts each one was striving to rule the other. (Certainly, this fits in with the personality of Nimrod, whom the Midrash tell us was the leader). Following the idea that Hashem could understand that their seemingly plural-unified language was false was perhaps why Hashem, the One God, used the same syntax to announce His plan. “Let us then, go down and confound their speech” (11:7). He was revealing to us that He understood the true meaning of their words.
Hashem destroyed their collaboration because He understood that each man involved (and numerous commentaries suggest that there were specifically 70 as in the 70 nations of the world) were determined to set themselves up as “a name.” They each thought that they could take over as the diety, for it is generally understood that their building of the tower was with the aim of supplanting the angels and overthrowing Hashem. The idea that a human could think of themselves as Divine seems ludicrous only to those ignorant of history.
Today, our power struggles are far less overt. However, the lessons remain the same. We live in an era where we truly war with and on words. Right now, in the 2020s, we have become experts at manipulating language, but the language that we share is most often safa, that which is meant only externally rather than revealing our lashon, the language of our honest, most spiritually connect selves. If we wish to rebuild a world we find broken by safa, we must learn to speak with our lashon.
This week’s Dvar Torah is dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Dovid Chaim Hacohen ben Tzipora.
*Rashbam: Rabbi Samuel ben Mair (1085-1158) ** Netziv: Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (1816-1893) ***Rabbi Dessler – Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892-1953)
No comments:
Post a Comment