Noach6 Cheshvan 5761, 4 November 2000

by Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - Why did the Torah commence with the majestic pronouncement,"In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth,"rather than with the first commandment the Almighty gave the Israelites, or with Abraham, the emergence of the first Jew? After all, is not the Bible first and foremost a Jewish document, chronicling the visions, vicissitudes, virtues and vanities of the people of Israel?

So ask our major commentaries, each providing his unique response and interpretation. I would very simply respond, however, by insisting that our Bible wishes to explain at the outset that the G-d of Israel is the Lord of the entire universe, and that His ultimate concern is for the well-being and eventual perfection of all of its creatures. Indeed, as my teacher and mentor Rav J.B. Soloveitchik of Blessed Memory often commented, the Almighty attempted to give His Divine charge to all of humanity, first to Adam with the command to refrain from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and then to Noah - the second Adam, after the flood - with the fundamental laws against bloodshed and immorality (Genesis 9:4-7).

Unfortunately, both Adam and Noah proved disappointing - and it was not until the advent of the remarkable Abraham twenty generations after the Creation that G-d entered into a covenant with an individual and his descendants, the nation of Israel. Even then, however, the Almighty did not give up on the universal vision of human perfection. At the very beginning of his election, G-d presents His mission to Abraham:

"All the families of the earth shall be blessed through you". (Genesis 12:3).

Indeed, the earlier Biblical portions dealing with "every-men" Adam and Noah foreshadow key events in the life of Abraham, emphasizing the parallelism between these three Divinely chosen leaders, as pointed out by Rav Professor Mordecai Breuer in his PIRKEI B'REISHIT. Adam and Noah each have three sons from whom humanity emerge, just as the nation Israel develops from three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There were seventy Noahide heads-of-families from whom the world emerged after the flood (Genesis 10:32), paralleling the seventy Jacobite souls who went down to Egypt from whom the nation of Israel emerged. And the fundamental blessings bestowed by G-d upon Adam, Noah and each of the patriarchs all feature fruitfulness and filling the land (Genesis 1:25, 9:1, 17:6-8), albeit the entire land in the case of Adam and Noah, and the land of Israel in the case of the patriarchs. Israel serves as a microcosm for the world, having been chosen by G-d as the instrument through which the message of ethical monotheism will ultimately be accepted by the world. Israel and the world share interlocking destinies.

This parallelism between Israel and the world finds a remarkable literary allusion in the story of the Tower of Babel. Noah has died and Abraham has not yet been born; the verdict of utter hopelessness for the success of a post-Noah society has not yet been handed down. "The entire earth had one language and uniform words" ("Safah AHAT, dvarim AHADim", Genesis 11:1) resonating with our prophetic vision where "The Lord will be King over the entire earth, and on that day the Lord will be one His Name will be one"(Zecharya 14:9). The fear of this united humanity, gathered together in the valley of Shinar (Sumer, identified with ancient Babylon), was that they would be exiled into different places, scattered throughout the world. In order to prevent this, "they said,'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, whose tops shall reach the heavens.'" (Genesis 11:4). This is certainly reminiscent of our Jewish dream of the holy city Jerusalem with its tower -Sanctuary reaching up to the heavens in order to ensure Israel's eternity and express Israel's mission; it even brings to mind Jacob's dream at Bet-El (lit. House of G-d), where he saw a ladder rooted on earth but whose top reached heavenwards (Genesis 28:12).

There is however one major flaw in Shinar which turns the entire Tower of Babel into a transgression of hubris: their purpose in construction is to "make for ourselves a name" (Genesis 11:4), rather than to build for the Name of G-d and for the sake of a just and compassionate humanity.

Much to the contrary. The Almighty decides to "confuse their speech, so that one person will not understand (shma) the language of the other" (Genesis 11:7), because such a punishment will fit the crime; a totalitarian state united in order to establish a collective name has neither the energy nor the motivation to empathetically hear or sensitively internalize the individual needs of anyone else. And such an inhuman and godless society must be stopped in its tracks before it does even greater damage. Hence, "from this place, G-d scattered them over the face of the entire earth and they stopped building the city" (Genesis 11:8). Is this not strongly reminiscent of the punishment in store for an errant Israel, forsaking G-d and humanity by their great sin of causeless hatred, as a consequence of which the Almighty destroyed our Holy Temple, took away our national sovereignty in the city Jerusalem and scattered us throughout the world? "And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other" (Deuteronomy 38:64).

However, unlike the peoples of the Tower of the Babel, the Israelites will remain united as one nation with one sacred language and universal ideal despite their far-flung diaspora; indeed, from the midst of their exile, and within each of their diverse host nations they shall return to G-d and his ethical teachings: You shall seek from there the Lord your G-d and you shall find Him. Even if you are scattered from the ends of the heavens, from there will the Lord your G-d gather you and from there will He take you up. And He will bring you to the land which your fathers have inherited, and you shall inherit it" (Deuteronomy 4:29, 30:4,5).

And, much more to the point, the Israelis will right the wrong of the Tower of Babel. When we return to Israel at the end of the day and rebuild our Tower - Sanctuary, it will be for the sake of G-d and not for the sake of materialistic self aggrandizement; it will serve as a meeting place for all nations in humanistic unity and not totalitarian uniformity, "when nation will not lift up sword against nation and humanity will not learn war anymore, and when all the nations will walk, each in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our G-d forever". (Micah 4:3,5,) "The remnant of Israel will not act callously, and the language of deception will not be found in their mouths. For then I will change the nations towards speech of purity for everyone to call on the name of G-d and to serve him shoulder to shoulder". (Zephania 3:13,9).

Shabbat Shalom

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