The most well-known event in Parshas
Noach is of course, the Flood which lasted for forty days and nights and
destroyed all life. At its conclusion, Noach, his family, and the animals that
he brought into the ark, were left to repopulate the world. But that isn’t the
only major historical event found in this week’s parsha.
At the end of the parsha, we learn about
the famous Tower of Bavel. At that time, everyone in the world lived in the
same area and spoke the same language. However, as the population grew, they
began to spread out and away from each other. In order to prevent themselves
from being spread too far away, they came up with a plan. “וַיֹּֽאמְר֞וּ
הָ֣בָה | נִבְנֶה־לָּ֣נוּ עִ֗יר וּמִגְדָּל֙ וְרֹאשׁ֣וֹ בַשָּׁמַ֔יִם
וְנַֽעֲשֶׂה־לָּ֖נוּ שֵׁ֑ם פֶּן־נָפ֖וּץ עַל־פְּנֵ֥י כָל־הָאָֽרֶץ” “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 on the face of
the land” (Bereishis 11:3). Hashem observed this construction, became upset
with the people, and caused them all suddenly to speak different languages,
thereby causing them to spread apart anyway. A few questions arise from this
story. Why did they want to build a tower to the sky? Why were they afraid of
being spread out across the land? And what exactly were they doing that Hashem punished
them?
The basic explanation
of this story is found in Rashi. The people didn’t consider the Flood to have
been caused by sins, but rather by a reaction of God which would occur every
1700 years regardless of circumstances. In order to stop God from destroying the
World again, they decided to build a tower and fight Him. Hashem was upset that
the amazing gift He had given them, clear communication leading to total
cooperation, was being put to such wicked purposes. So He took that gift away, which
resulted in the Tower construction being discontinued and everyone moving to
their own areas depending on their language.
The Kli Yakar adds in
a number of details which change what the issue was. Like we explained,
originally everyone spoke the same language and lived in the same basic area,
and was at peace with each other. Once the population expanded and they had to
begin moving to other areas, they were afraid that this would lead to war and
general strife between each other. They felt once they had different countries,
they would have different agendas and values, leading to disagreements and
fights. Therefore, they decided to build a huge tower in one location so there
would continue to be enough space for everyone to live together without having
to move away.
They built the Tower to keep the peace,
why were they punished for that? The Kli Yakar explains that it has to do with
the phrase “וְנַֽעֲשֶׂה־לָּ֖נוּ שֵׁ֑ם”.
Even though it was what they told themselves, the real purpose of this tower
was not to keep everyone together, it was a chance for them to make a name for themselves.
If the population stayed together, then any greatness a person would gain would
be witnessed by the entire world. But if they kept expanding and moving
outwards, the ability to show themselves off in front of others would be
limited as well.
If they had really
intended to build the tower for the sake of peace, they would have been
successful. But based on their true intentions,
if they had been successful, the exact opposite would have happened. Keeping
everyone together when the purpose was to allow some to be better than everyone
else would have led to even more strife than if everyone was spread out and
different. Hashem came and saw their true intentions and immediately broke them
apart. So in fact, causing everyone to speak different languages and spreading
everyone all over the world didn’t cause the cooperation to cease, it increased
it!
Shabbat Shalom!
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