The Sin of the Builders of the Tower of Bavel
Student Summaries of Sichot of the Roshei Yeshiva
Yeshivat
Har Etzion
Parashat
noach
SICHA OF HARAV
YEHUDA AMITAL SHLIT"A
The Sin of the
Builders of the Tower of Bavel
Translated
by Kaeren Fish
Our
parasha describes the actions of the generation that built the Tower of
Bavel, as well as the punishment meted out to them. At first it is difficult to understand
why God was angered by their actions.
Is the desire to band together and to live as a single, unified society
really so odious?
The
gemara (Sanhedrin 109a) explains that the sin of this generation lay in
their construction of the tower.
Three different explanations are offered for this initiative:
They
(the people) were divided into three groups: one declared, "We shall go up [to
Heaven] and dwell there." The
second declared, "We shall go up and worship other gods." The third declared, "We shall go up and
wage war."
It
is important to understand the differences between these groups of builders, all
of whom were jointly building the tower, and the specific sin represented by
each approach.
As
we know, one of the foundations of faith is the constant dialectic between love
and awe. On the one hand, a person
must strive to come close to God and "cleave" to Him; he must not remain a
"bystander." At the same time,
excessive closeness is not desirable, and may have terrible consequences:
"Anyone who draws close to God's Sanctuary will be put to death." The first group described by the Gemara
expresses the desire to dispense with the aspect of awe in their relationship
with God; they want to move directly and exclusively to a relationship of love
and closeness: "We shall go up and we shall dwell there."
Today,
too, there are religions that seek a connection with God that is built on love
alone. Examples include not only
certain eastern religions but also Christianity, and we are well aware of the
immoral and murderous actions to which such an approach may
lead.
The
second group wanted to build the tower in order to facilitate idolatrous
worship. The foundation of idolatry
is the belief in powers that are outside of and separate from God. Even the nations of the world know that
there is one central God Who stands above all the other deities that they
believe in. However, as Rambam
explains at the beginning of Hilkhot Avodat Kochavim, the problem with
the idolaters is that they feel that God is so great, so transcendent and
distant, that they have no connection with Him. Therefore, they prefer to worship forces
which are admittedly "lower," but which – for that precise reason – are more
accessible, and to which one can feel closer. Thus, the sin of the second group was
their belief that there are forces other than God, and their attempt to worship
them rather than their Creator.
The
third group sought to "wage war."
Apparently, this group believed that just as there are wars in our lower
world, so there are also wars in the upper realms, in God's domain. The Gemara in Sanhedrin goes on to
describe how the punishment for this group was that "they became monkeys and
spirits and demons and fiends."
What the Gemara seems to be teaching us is that their punishment was
"measure for measure": the people who believed that the upper world is just like
the lower world turned into caricatures of the ministering angels, in the form
of spirits and demons. The upper
world is not a material realm; it is a world of spirit. Therefore, there are no wars there, as
we experience them in our world.
The people who viewed themselves as belonging to the upper world became
part of that spiritual world – but instead of becoming angels, they assumed the
form of the "lower" spirits and demons.
Through
this narrative, the Torah lays the groundwork for parashat
Lekh-Lekha and all that is to come.
In contrast to these mistaken and misguided perceptions of Divinity in
the world, we find Avraham appearing on the scene afterwards. He answers God's call, "Go forth," and
begins disseminating the religion of truth.
(This
sicha was delivered at seuda shelishit, Shabbat parashat Noach 5748
[1987].)