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Sforno: and nothing that they propose to do will be out of their reach. Therefore there is no deterrent to prevent them from completing their intentions, and the religion they choose will become universal for the whole human race so that no man will turn to [seek] the knowledge of the Creator, the Blessed One, or understand that God formed all. The opposite of this will happen when there will be division between the nations, regarding their strange gods, for each one of them does believe that there is a 'god of gods' with whom all other gods agree and through him their governance of all existence reaches perfection.
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The early stories of Genesis remind me of Kipling's 'Just-So' stories (that explain why the elephant has a long nose). Why are snakes creatures without legs? Why (if we are all descended from Adam (and Noah) are there different people and different languages? What is the significance of the colourful bow in the sky? Why are there (ziqqurat) towers in Babylonia (today's Iraq) that look unfinished? While these early stories (and some later ones too) have an etymological function, the Torah's purpose is not only to explain origins. So why does the Torah tell us this story of the Tower of Babel?
This week's parasha begins with the familiar story of the flood and Noah's Ark, and concludes (just before a brief genealogy to introduce Abram- stay tuned next week) with a short episode describing the attempt of the citizens of Shinar to build a city and a tower 'with its head in the sky.' The building of a tower seems, at first glance, to be an innocent enough project, and the Torah emphasizes that all the earth 'had the same language and the same words.' God later refers to them as 'one people,' even though in the previous verse to our chapter, the descendants of Noah's three sons had already 'branched out over the earth after the Flood!' (Gen. 10:32). This means the unity of humanity was not genealogical, but linguistic. Obviously, people were still living in peace and harmony. So what was God's problem?
Unlike the generation of the flood that was, the Torah tells us, 'wicked and corrupt', the people here seem peace loving and cooperative. While the tower is commonly understood to be a symbol of arrogance and the people's actions as defiance to God (following Rashi), neither idea is not explicit. After all, this post-flood generation seems to have achieved what we today only are able to dream about: universal understanding and harmony. (Interestingly, the Jewish-Polish opthamalogist, Dr. Zamenhof, invented Esperanto in the hopes to increase world understanding and peace). The midrash has to admit: "The wrongdoing of this generation is unclear..." (Breishit Rabbah 38:6). So instead of destroying them, God only stopped them from finishing the job,"because there was peace between them." (Breishit Rabbah).
But let us look at this story in the larger context of Genesis's description of human beginnings. Leon Kass, (Professor, author of The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, and Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, 2001) suggests there are four conditions to human life illustrated by these early narratives:
First, the condition of simple innocence; the Garden of Eden. That didn't last very long. Although idyllic, ('Garden of Eden' has become of a synonym for 'paradise') humans aren't satisfied with this kind of childlike life. They long for autonomy, and desire knowledge of good and evil, even if the price is self-consciousness. Now expelled, we enter the second stage: life without law, or anarchy. It's every person for themselves; Cain murders his brother Abel, and the world is described as being totally corrupt and violent. God now has to set limits: to begin with, 'no murder.' The solution to a society of anarchy and violence seems to be through unity. The midrash identifies Nimrod, the mighty biblical hunter, as building a peaceful society through fear, control, and domination. Imagine Orwell's 1984. This is stage three. The tower builder's goal according to Sforno was one religion for everyone, one point of view on the world, one accepted politcal way of doing things. Harvey Fields (in A Torah Commentary for our Times- recommended read) writes: "The tower builders believed that differences of opinion, controversy, and diversity of belief were dangerous and unacceptable. They opposed freedom of thought or discussion. Those who questioned their views or authority were to be crushed."
Nimrod set out to bury diversity; to inhibit change and innovation. There were to be no new inventions, no new ideas. In such a world, life itself ceased to have meaning. The midrash describes this: When a brick got to the top and was dropped, everyone would sit down and weep, crying “Oh how long it will take for another brick to be brought up to take it’s place!” but if a man was at the top and fell, no-one would even blink. (Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer).
God intervenes once more. A homogeneous society is not the solution. God scatters the people and confounds their languages. The problem wasn't building the tower, so God didn't destroy the tower. The problem was human unity based on linguistic unity. Not one language per se (Sumerian, or as the classical commentators believed, Hebrew), but a humanly-constructed vision of the world and the complacency it tends to produce.
Sforno suggests that a universal religion would prevent anyone from discovering the truth: "The opposite of this will happen when there will be division between the nations regarding their strange gods, for each one of them does believe that there is a 'god of gods' with whom all the other gods agree, and through him their governance and the governance of all existence reaches perfection." In other words, even in religion, a little competition is a good thing! Abram could only emerge in a society with a diversity of opinions and beliefs.
Lessons for Today
All this talk about the dangers of unity and the benefits of diversity contrasts with the daily prayers that point to a time: "when God will be one, and God's name will be One." God is one, but God loves diversity. Perhaps the answer is found in our parashah; God's covenant of peace is symbolized by a rainbow.
How does the rainbow symbolize peace, unity and the continued existence of the world? It is because it is composed of a number of colors, shades and hues, all of which unite into a single whole. The same is true with the differences between people, groups and nations. A life based on mutual understanding and tolerance, on harmony and peace, is the basis for the existence of the world, "a token of the covenant between Me and the earth." (Hillel HaZaken)
One lesson we can learn is that language, culture and traditions all represent significant strengths and blessings for humanity. There's a difference between harmony and homogeneity; between unity and conformity. While we need to all get along- we don't all need to agree. The world is beautiful when it reflects all the colours of the rainbow.
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