Unity and Individualism
PARASHAT
HASHAVUA
PARASHAT
NOACH
Unity and Individualism
by Rav Ezra
Bick
Parashat Noach is about the flood.
That fact so obviously dominates the parasha that we do not always have
any energy left for the end of the parasha. Of course, the birth of Avraham will get
some attention, at least as part of the introduction to Lekh Lekha. But Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel)
has a tendency to remain mired in our memories of second grade. Today we are going to try and bring the
tower up to date.
When reading the short section describing Migdal Bavel (11,1-9), we tend
to be completely dominated by the midrashic interpretations cited by Rashi. The people of Bavel were in some sense
rebelling against God, and their punishment was dispersion. The tower was a symbol of overweening
human pride, a mighty monument aimed at heaven. The dispersion was God's humbling of
Man; the tower remains unfinished, a prototype of Ozymandias' pedestal in the
empty desert.
If, on the other hand, we read the section with a completely fresh
approach, we will immediately perceive that there is no explicit description of
a sin, no explicit indication that God is angry, and no clear designation of the
dispersion as a punishment at all.
Without Rashi, we not only do not understand precisely what is going on,
in fact, we do not even understand why the section exists at all. What is the purpose of this story? The more we examine the details, the
more perplexing it becomes. Why are
they traveling from the East (verse 2)?
Why do we need to know that they baked bricks instead of using stone
(verse 3)? Why are their plans
presented in the form of "and they said, come, let us...." (3,4)? In short, what is going
on?
Since I do not propose to ignore the midrashic interpretations, let us
first quickly review the different suggestions found there (Bereishit Raba
38). The focus of the midrash is on
two phrases: the first in verse 1 - "And the entire land was one language and
ONE SPEECH;" the second in verse 4, - "They said: Come let us build for
ourselves a city and tower, whose top will be IN THE HEAVENS, and we will MAKE
FOR OURSELVES A NAME, lest we be dispersed on the face of all the
earth."
(1) R. Eliezer said:
"One speech (devarim achadim) - sealed speech (devarim achudim)." The sin of the generation of the flood
is explicit, but the sin of the generation of the dispersion is not explicit.
"Devarim achadim" - they said sharp (chadim) things about Our God who is one
(echad) and about Avraham, who "was one in the land." They said: Avraham is a sterile mule who
cannot bear children. And about God
they said: Is it right that he has taken the upper worlds for himself and given
us the lower worlds? Come let us
make a tower and place an idol on top of it, with a sword in its hand, so that
it will appear as though it is making war on Him. (Rashi quotes the last line
as: "Let us ascend to the heavens and make war on Him).
(2) Another
explanation: One speech - shared speech.
What belongs to one belongs to the other, and what belongs to the other
belongs to the first. (Note: If you do not believe that the Sages said that the
tower was built by communists, please do not rely on me - look it
up).
(3) Another
explanation: They said: Once every 1656 years the heavens collapse (the great
flood took place in the year 1656 after creation). Come let us build supports, one in the
north, one in the south, one in the west, and this one here will be in the
east.
The Abrabanel advances a number of arguments - some of which are somewhat
contradictory - against understanding these midrashim literally. Either the people of the tower were
fools (if they thought they could actually reach the heaven), in which case they
deserved no punishment at all, or they were totally corrupt heretics, in which
case the punishment was not severe enough.
Verse 5 seems to indicate that God thought they could accomplish their
goal if left undisturbed ("And now, nothing will prevent them from achieving
that which they planned to do"), which is ridiculous if they were trying to
build support pillars for the sky.
His conclusion therefore is to advance a completely different
explanation, but to try and fit it in metaphorically to the midrashim. In this we shall follow the Abrabanel's
lead, which is, I think, the proper way to understand the PSHAT of midrashim
like these in general.
The powerful images of these midrashim have inspired centuries of
"drush." I remember once hearing
the Rav, Rav Soloveitchik zt"l, explain the difference between the generation of
the flood and that of the dispersion by saying that the first was modern America
(moral corruption, pursuit of money and pleasure), while the second was
communist Russia. This
identification has probably lost much of its meaning in the last fifteen years,
but anyone who has seen a Russian propaganda film with one-million volunteer
workers joyfully building the world's greatest dam with their bare hands will
understand what the Rav meant. The
idea of communal man triumphant, knowing no bounds, banishing God and building
his own secure future on the power of human construction, based on a faith in
technology and engineering, does seem to be the underlying picture of the
midrashic interpretation of Migdal Bavel.
What is the problem with these interpretations? I think we often make a mistake when
viewing midrashim or other interpretative suggestions of this sort. There is no question that certain kinds
of questions can be answered by introducing facts not mentioned explicitly in
the parasha. These are questions
where not knowing the answer does not render the story incomprehensible. For instance, if you ask why God chose
to speak to Avraham in the beginning of next week's parasha, the midrashim about
Avraham's early life in Ur Kasdim provide a plausible answer, once we accept
that the Torah does not consider it crucial for us to know those stories. In other words, why Avraham is chosen is
not an essential part of the Torah's narrative. But it is illegitimate, in my opinion,
to use unrelated facts, even if hinted at in the usual midrashic manner, to
explain the basic story-line. If
you do not understand what is going on without recourse to a midrash, then the
story is incomprehensible on a "pshat" level. Midrash can help us to understand pshat,
but cannot substitute for it.
In our case, the Netziv expresses this succinctly:
ONE SPEECH: The verse
did not explicate what they said except through a hint, as is explained in the
midrash. But the verse did not
explain them, only mentioning that they were "one." This teaches us that God was not aroused
by the content of their speech, but because it was "one," irrespective of what
they said.
In other words, the midrash can answer the question, "what did they say,"
but not the question, "why did God react as He did." The reason is that the first question is
not crucial to the flow of the story (apparently - that is precisely the
Netziv's point), whereas the second is. You are meant to understand the point of
the story by reading it - very carefully, perhaps, with a great deal of thought,
but nonetheless by reading it alone.
Once you understand that, the midrashic information can add a great deal
of information.
The Netziv follows the school of thought (see Ibn Ezra and Ralbag) that
identifies the basic motive of the people of Bavel as being a fear of
dispersion. This is explicitly
stated in verse 4 - "lest we be dispersed on the face of the earth." This in itself is not a sin, but it is
opposed to God's will and purpose in creating man, to whom was given the
blessing of "Peru u-revu u-mil'u et ha-aretz" - to conquer and settle the entire
earth. Hence God arranged that they
be dispersed, not as a punishment, but simply as a device to further the plan of
creation. This explanation ignores
the midrashim quoted above. The
Abrabanel also simply does not understand what is wrong with living together as
long as it is economically feasible.
To these questions the Netziv gives a single answer. The reason why they wanted to live
together, he claims, was because of the "one speech" explicated by the
midrash. Their ultimate plans,
unimportant in themselves, required unity, and they knew that if people spread
out, they would develop independent ideas which would detract from the
fulfillment of the grand project.
Furthermore, in order to maintain this unity, they would need police and
strict totalitarian social control, which is how the Netziv explains "and make
for us a name." The "name" means
people in charge, supervisors. The
outcome would be oppression, as exemplified by the story of Avraham and the
furnace of Ur Kasdim. (The Netziv
explains that the sentence about making bricks rather than using stone is a hint
to this midrash - they needed a great furnace to produce the bricks). The "project" leads to the need for
social unity, which leads to social repression. To prevent this, God disperses
them.
(The idea of Bavel as a totalitarian state, based on the stories of
Nimrod and Avraham, is also quoted by the Abrabanel in the name of the Ran).
I would like to suggest a variation on this explanation of the Ibn
Ezra-Ralbag-Netziv, by reversing the relationship between the "one speech"
midrashim and the fear of dispersion as outlined by the Netziv. That which is explicit in the verses -
the fear of dispersion - is what is visible in the story. The midrashim, based on hints in the
language of the verses, describe that which is hidden in the history of the
story as well, beneath the surface.
The story is about social unity and pluralism. The people of Bavel are making an
attempt to create a unified cohesive society. The tower is, as the Netziv claims, a
unifying symbol, a center of gravity, as it were, for all mankind who rally
around it. Nothing more (though
nothing less either) was the surface intent of the people.
But, the midrashim are clarifying for us the CONSEQUENCES (rather than
the causes of) the unitary state.
The psychological need for unity, the social pressure involved, the
strength and power that result from this unity, all will result in the
monolithically totalitarian state, which will result in both civil repression
(as in the furnace of Avraham) and spiritual hubris (as in the idolatry reaching
up to heaven with a sword). The Torah describes the following
progression:
1. Cultural unity -
one language and one speech (verse 1);
2. Social
cohesiveness - living together (verse 2);
3. Industrial advance
- the brick factory (verse 3);
4. What does one do
with one's newfound power - monumental construction (verse 4), leading to
centralization, pride and rebellion, and totalitarianism.
The midrashim describe in detail various potential developments of the
centralized totalitarian state based on technological man - the expulsion of
God, ideological dictatorship, social repression. Organized idolatry, ascribed by the
midrash to Nimrod king of Bavel, is a means of ideological control, giving
everyone a central figure of authority easily manipulated by the ruling
class. Perhaps this is due, as the
Ran suggests, to the fact that the moral basis of the society is weak. But I think that the Torah is saying
that this is inevitable if everyone must be included in the unitary
society. The basis of total unitary
society for all mankind will of necessity tend towards physical symbols, a
tower, or an idol, and will of necessity be intolerant and compulsive. Because there is no other basis for
unitary society other than the shared industrial projects, there will always be
a need to invent new projects and force every part of society to take part in
order to provide the strength and power inherent in organized mass society. In this context, the midrash (no. 2
above) that adds shared property to the norms of Bavel is unusually
prescient. The goal is a unified
mass, dedicated to building central institutions which will perpetuate the
unity. A logical eventual form of
such a society may well be the Stalinist state.
God's solution to this tendency of man is first of all forced cultural
diversity - different languages - and secondly, physical dispersion. This will hardly prevent tyranny in the
future, but it does ensure that each people and culture will develop
individually. It may seem strange
that cultural development requires inhibited communication, but the midrashim
are spelling out the alternative.
Total unification of humanity is not desirable, if humanity is to
develop, because diversity and pluralism are necessary components of freedom,
and human development requires freedom.
In this case, freedom is protected by a counterweight to the human desire
for the security of unity - the counterweight is, paradoxically, lack of
communication.
This explains why this story is here, in this location in the Torah. We are perched on the verge of the
creation of the Jewish people.
Avraham will be asked shortly to separate himself from his father's
house, his country, his birthplace, and create an individual unit of spiritual
perfection. The question is why,
why is the truth of the Torah not offered to all of humanity? Is not Judaism and its message a
universal one? Why is Judaism a
national religion? Why is the Torah
given in a way that makes it incomprehensible to most of mankind? The Torah explains to us that even
though the universal mass society of Bavel included pious individuals (Shem,
Ever, even Noach are still alive), the service of God cannot arise out of such a
society. It is too repressive, too
dedicated to maintaining its own existence. Man must be dispersed in order to
develop individually. There is a
real spiritual basis for the need for cultural pluralism, including different
and somewhat mutually incomprehensible languages. In this context, one nation can arise
slowly, over a long period of education, trial, and redemption, which will carry
on God's message for humanity.
Within Nimrod's Bavel, Judaism is impossible. Within any world order, world empire,
Judaism cannot arise. Mankind is
dispersed to develop individual character, cultural diversity. In one corner, without having to worry
about the destiny of all mankind, a small family will build the kingdom of
God. Cross-cultural dissonance is
the price that must be paid for spiritual development. In Avraham's case, that dissonance will
be even more extreme. Only through
lonely separation can true spiritual greatness be achieved. The unity of the Jewish people will be
achieved through that spiritual development, slowly over many generations, with
the Torah and Eretz Yisrael at its center.
Having broken up the totalitarian unitary state, the Torah is ready to
embark on the adventure of Avraham Ha-Ivri, the man from across the river, a
stranger in a strange land.
Further
study:
1. Go back and answer the questions raised
in the third paragraph of the shiur.
2. The midrash (no. 1 above) has the people
of Bavel speaking against God AND Avraham.
This is continued by the midrashic identification of Nimrod king of Bavel
with Amrofel king of Shin'ar (14:1 - see Rashi ad loc.), and the statement of
the midrash that the purpose of the four kings in stating the war with Edom was
to kill Avraham. Why is Nimrod and
his people so opposed to Avraham?