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THE TOWER OF BABEL
I have a problem which I should like to share
with you.
As we
all know, the synagogue sermon
t
Ewe—$heusaaéfiyanaréfigg grew out of the public reading of Scripture.
The preacher would take the lesson of the week and either expound it
verse by verse or else use it as a point of departure and then range
more widely.
In either case, the connection between text and discourse
was maintained.
exercise.
The two were interdependent parts of one educational
Today thqy have become detached from one another;
The
modern preacher tends to deal with a theme — usually a theme of great
generality - and refer to the text, if at all, only incidentally.There are advantages in this, of course.
It
means that one can
deal with a topical subject
1éahi‘9§,£urrenh_ha§§eningsq irrespective of whether the traditionally
eak
appointed Scripture reaggzéeelate to it. But there are also dis—
advantages, for it makes the public reading of Scripture so much less
meaningful. It tends to become a mere ritual, a formality which could,
without any obvious loss, be omitted altogether. Ssgeéimesrfihxhaafrflma
bave~iuLJXL4afifikixrtmief—that‘tnay‘nave—iib%%e—v&}ue.
So there is the dilemma.
don't know what the answer is; but
I hope you would agree that we should keep alive the
tradition of the
(Tic-IX Hm
CM
textual sermon, at any mate, ease—ia—a—whéiea And
since, during the
past few weeks of festivals, we have had an abundance,not
to say a
surfeit, of general sermons, let today be such an
excep£ioh.
_
I
.
Efi—eéher
wards; Let us look, as it were, through a magnifying
glass, at the story
of the Tower of Babel which we have read,this—mefning.
LEO BAECK COLLEGE
u_\‘\ LHBFVUQY
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2;
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«ab-m1-
The author‘_thefe£e;e,’é§aws—a$teation_to the disunity of mankind.
This is to him a fact which requires an explanation.
Mankind, as he
believed, began, first with Adam and then again with Noah, as one family.
How then did it become divided?
to happen.
Surely God could not have intended that
Sunsky.disaaixy—éfi—an—evii—whict—vioiafies~flod4s~wii1.
Surely,
therefore, it must have resulted from an act of rebellion against God.
To identify that act is the purpose of the story,whieh~£e&lows.
It
begins:
usuikky—Granstabeéj "The whole earth was of one language and of one
speech." Was that a good thing or a bad thing? 60mmon sense suggests
that it was a good thing. We don't need to take the text too literally.
No doubt the author believed that there really had been, in prehistoric
times, a single language throughout the world, and the Rabbis were sure
that it had been Hebrew, the Holy Tongue which, accafling to them, was
Spoken already by Adam.
But the point which this verse makes is not
merely a philological one.
The implication is more general: that mankind
was united, and that is surely how God intended it to be.
However, tux some of the Babbis*_ia—sbeig—eageffiese—fie—iay—b%ame
~
Qn_hhe.geaeEaééxnr1fiftte—Towe£—o£—Bebeéq find already in this seemingly
innocent verse a hint of the sin which is to follow. For example,
they
YMQ‘
pick on the
in 'one language' and 'one speech'
UM
and suggest that the people spoke against Him of whomé the Bible
says,
adonai/eLahg%nn7\adanai\geua§4 "The Lord is our God, the Lord is One"
(Deut, 6:4). Alternatively, some of the Rabbinic commentators suggest
_ 5 _
that the unity of the people was of the wrong kind.
~l
.
kind of collectivism which destroys individuality.
They practised a
God wants men to
co-operate, but He also wants every human being to be true to himself“
aaé ta eKP?efifi_hiS—Own_Pogefisieiities,
_
He desires unity but'not uniformity.
The sin of the people, on this View, was the suppression of diversity.
The text continues: "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from
the East, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they settled
there."
The land of Shinar is Mesopotamia, and the implication therefore
seems to be XHHK that the human race came from an area still further east,
that is, from Central Asia, which was indeed, according to some modern
theories, the earliest cradle of civilisation.
But hare again, according
to one Opinion in §hé Midrash, the wordfi mikkedem, usgally translated
Efrem the East", xi: not to be taken literatly.
mfiéxiixg to be understood
mean that the people departed from kadmono Egg; 913E, "the Ancient One
of the Universe", that is to say, from God.
to
wever,
according to most commentators, aéEFihyaiaééeg—fitrtfie—ceaaea—
mafixrfifiiwg nothing untoward is implied by anything that has been said so
far, and the sin of the people is to be sought in the twe verses which
follow: "Then they said to one another: 'Come, let us prepare bricks and
bake them in kilns.‘
For they used bricks for stones and bitumen for
mortagfi And they said, 'Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and
a tofigyiggggfiing into the heavens."
The city, as becomes clear in the sequel, is the city of
Babylon.
But what about the tower? Was there such an edfifiiée in
Babylon with
which the author of our stofly could have been familiar?
No, there was
not, so far as we know. It is true that later there was
erected in
Babylon a colossal temple, camaea¥y known as the ziggurat, which
fits
the description. But it was not completed until the
seventh or even the
_ 4 -
sixth century, long after the period from.wbich our story presumably
But that is of no importance.
comes.
of a similar kind in earlier times.
There were no doubt other temples
In any case, it is highly probable
that our author took the idea, not from any buildings known to him,
but from the ancient Babylonian Creation Epic which describes, in
'1egendary form, the foundation of the city of Babylon and the erection
of
a
temple called Esagila.
The relevant $24536 reafl: "The firs; year
they prepared its bricks; and when the second year arrived they raised
the head of Esagila towards the heavens."
This, then, must be the sodrce.
way.
But the Bible uses it in its own
In the Babylonian Creation Epic the building of the tower is
related tgéamptafi€414 as a‘éiz£ig:§}acbievement.
In the Bible it
becomes, on the contrary, a symbol of man's sinfulness.
But what exactly was the sin?
What is wrong with architectural
creativity?
Nothing, if the motive behind it is a good one. But what
was the motive of the buildars of the Tower of Babel? The text conp
tinues: V'na-aseh lggg Eggg, "And let us make a name for ourselves."
XKKKXWH The aim of the buildBBS, therefore, was to glorify themselves.
of Mame/st
The edlflce they erected was hot to serve any utilitariaaurpose,
ififi?
’
.
wa3e—QhQ}—é§9§éreé—by—a£§—desira rn ornafp hnanfy PAr it: uwn—saks.
1V0 mprm magi",
b1 Ll» Mona! cite.
It was
.
They wanted to create a building
which by its sheer massiveness would stand as a momument
to their
ingenuity. They wanyed to demonstrate their power:
that, and nothing
more. They suffered, as we should say, from
megalomania,or from folie
de grandeur. mbs+, it wvuld °§?n°", wflsitb 1:45 m
a. v
gin;&§;ca;%ea—&nd-arrog&fiee1
1'
.a.
Farm—m
But the Midrasb is more Specific. The word
shem, it points out,
KHXK does not only mean 'name'. It also means “monument' and it
may
_ 5 _
refer to a pagan monument used for idolatrous purposes.
And here,
according to the Midyash, is the crux of the matter. The tower of Babel
wasn't just a tower.
It was a
worship of a pagan deity.
temple, and a temple dedicated to the
Indeed, sys the Midradl, on top of the tower
the buildpns erected an idol, and not pnly an.idol, but an idol brandishing
a sword as a gesture of defiance against kbevbruevead,.the God of heaven.
Nor is this interpretation as fancilful as it may sound, for the Babylonian
ziggurats were indeed temples and were surmounted by shrines to pagan
deities.
And so the sin of the buildBrs was not merely arrogant self—
assertion; it was, at the sane time, a repudiation of any other power
greater than their own.
And, indeed, the two tend to go together.
The
more man becomes proud of his own achievements,.tbe*mvre~he’beeemes “VHL
intoxicated with self—admiration)and;iel£—congn&$a&afiicn, the more he
tends to lose that sense of humility which is the foundation of religion.
The story of the Tower of Babel may therefore be compared with the story,
in Greek mythology, about Erometheus who tried to defy Zeus by stealing
the fire from heaven.
of the TOwer.
our time.
present.
Prometheanism, that was the sin of the buildnrs
Ahd that, too, is what makes the story so relevant for
For if ever there was a Promethean generation, it is the
The immense achievements of technology have given us an
exaggerated sense of human power. The ancients built towers hundreds
of feet high. We build space rockets which can
travel millions of miles.
Surely, therefore, there is no limit to what we can do.
Surely, therefore,
we must go ahead and exploit our power to.its fullest
extent. Never mind
if technolpgy destroyfs the bealty of the countryside.
Never mind if it
leaves the social problems of humanity unsolved. The
exploitation of
power becomes an end in itself; it has its own logic which must be
.
+
_ 6 _
relentlessly pursued.
And one of the caéualties is the sense of awe and
wonder and reverence om which religion depends.
That is why the triumph
of technology and yhe so-called "death of God" have coincided.
Modern
man does not worship God because he worships himself.
And another casuality is humaneness.
There is a Midrash which
relates that "the Tower of Babel had steps leading up to it from the
east and from the west.
On one side the buildnes went up with their
bricks; on the other side they descended.
Ndw if a man fell and died,
they paid no attention to him; but if a brick fell, they fasted and wept,
saying, 'Alas!
when will another brick be brought up to take its piace?"
So, too, in our technological society, things tend to be valued more
highly than persons.
Earadoxical though it may beem, the worship of man
debases man; it is the worship of a Being greater than himself which
exalts him.
p
The Sqrmptural story continues: XXHKXKKXXEKXK "Lest we be scattered
all over the world." The Tower, therefore, was intended, not only to
demogstrate human power but égégggggugggfignd. That is, of course, auéggd
moé:;;; The only trouble is that the unity of mankind was to be based
upon the wrong fpundation. It was to be based on the affirmation
of man
and the denial of God. Such an attempt is doomed to
failure.
It is only
when men look beyond themselves to God that they become
truly united.
is only when they stand in awe before 8 Being superior
to themselves
It
who
at—tbe—eame—time the source of a universal moral law,
it—éa—eaiy—éhen
that they learn truly to care for one another.
is
The tem; continues: "The Lord came flown to look at
the city and
the the tower which man had built, and the Lord
said: 'If, being one
people and having all of them one language, this
is what they begin to
do, then nothing will restrain them from doing whatever
they may scheme
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Theredore I will go down and confound their speech there, so that
they shall no longer understand one another's speech.‘ Thus the Lord
to do.
scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they
stopped building the cdty. And that is why it was called Babel, because
there the Lord confounded the speech of the whole earth."
There is here a pun based on the similarity of the Hebrew for
Babylon, which is Egzgl, and the Hebrew for 'confound', Whidh is Eglgg.
Thus the author explains, at one and the same time, how the fabulous
city bf Babylon came to be so called, and how the diversity 6f tongues
arose in the history of mankind.
There is a good deal of popular
explanation of this kind in the early chapters of Genesis whichjis,
of course, not to be taken seriously.and—haebGQEG—ae—deefen_me&ningf
A{zagcku
wuuwvw
But, as always, the Midrash asks—ae£gtéuné::23$aL—qae§3éGas.
Why,
for example, if the builders of the Tower committed
so grave a sin, did
they receive so light a punishment? After all, the
generation of the
Flood was destréyed, with the exeeption of one
family, the-femifrfim9
fibab. Why then was the generation of the Tower
merely scattered? Because,
says the Midrash, the generation of the
Flood,flXEX§XX§§§KXXfiX though they
did not deny God, was steeped in
robbery, whereas the generation of the
-TL um¢km
Tower, though they did deny God, loved
one another. fhat they "loved
one another" is of course inconsistent
with that other Midrash about
their indifference to any labourer
who fell and died; but then the
Midrash does not aim at consistency.
It allows
'
diverfigent interpretations
to stand side by side, each
conveying its own message. And for tfiééhahJ
purpose it is asserted that the
generation of the Tower loved one
another
on the basis of the verse that "they
were
In other words, they were
united,
and therefore could not endure.
of one language and one speech".
Their unity was indeed falsely
b
1) W a4 f~pm"k"
ge%a0«~ J~
But while it lasted,
a
.
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though they did not care for God, they did care for one another; and
to God it is important that human beings_should behave debently to one
another than that they should acknowledge Him.
To put it crudely, it
is better to be good without being religious than to be religious without
being good.
And so the story of the Tower of Babel, like so many stories in
the Bible, contains more than meets the eye. It has been invested by
our interpreters with many meanings, meanings relevant to them and, in
many cases, relevant to us. Can we sum up those which are relevant to
think we can do so in the following prepositions. First, it is
God's will that mankind should be united. Secondly, it must be a
unity
us?
I
which respects the diversity of human beingsraad—e§eeu£ages_indé¥éé&aéfiy.
Thirdly, it must be based, not on a common pursuit of power, but on a
common pursuit of righteousness. And finally it will come about in
full
measure only when human beings learn that the power they possess
is to
be used, not for their Kfifi self-glorification but for the
fulfilment
of purposes which emanate from a Being greater than
themselves: only when
the prophecy will be fulfilled: "All your children
shall be taught of
the Lord, and great shall be the peace of
your children."