BUT GOD CAME DOWN

TO LOOK OVER THE CITY AND THE TOWER

THAT THE HUMANS WERE BUILDING.

(Bereishit 11:5)

 

 

One Language? One Set of Words?

When they expressed this intention ("and let us make ourselves a name") God fully understood their intention and well knew that their end would be the opposite of what they thought. On the contrary, there exists the possibility of a unified nation. When? When a people is dispersed and scattered, with no one having dealings with his fellow - then can it be one people. But should they gather together in one place in order to escape from international conflicts, they will then fall into an even greater war, one man's sword against his fellow, because assembly of the wicked is bad for them, and because they said "Let us make for ourselves a name", everyone will want to rule over his fellow and be higher than him, for this is common among groups who do everything for the sake self-aggrandizement, so therefore it is better to disperse them and prevent them from this construction.

 (Kli Yakar on "Noach")

 

It appears to me that this decree (to disperse the Generation of the Scattering) was not a punishment, but rather a tremendous improvement on mankind's behalf. The primary significance of the Tower of Babel narrative lies not in the attempt to erect the tower, but in the preceding words: "All the earth" - revived post Deluge mankind - "was of one language and the same words." After the construction failure, many languages evolved, and consequently, different 'words', different ideas. It seems to me that the basis of the mistake, or sin, of the Generation of the Scattering, was not in the building of the city and the tower, but in the movement to maintain, via these artificial means, the situation of "one language and one set of words" - of centralization, which we, in modern terms, call totalitarianism.

 (From "Remarks on the portion of the Week", Prof. Y. Leibowitz, pp.14-15)

 

 

Noah - A Short Essay On Evil

Jonathan Shiftan

The portion of Noah is, at first glance, one of the most familiar in the entire Bible. Practically every children's book of Bible stories includes a colorful picture of the big boat with two of every conceivable kind of animal bird and reptile waiting to board the ship, or getting off it, with the rainbow in the background. Or, on a more sophisticated level, there is scholarly discussion of the comparative origins of the myth of the Great Flood in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh; or, among those who seek historical confirmation of the Flood story, there are archeological remnants of a petrified ark somewhere in the Turkish mountains; or even theories of cosmic catastrophes that upset the global climate, leading to the great flood, such as those of Emanuel Welikovsky {Worlds in Collision and other books). And indeed, the existence in a number of different cultures of a legend of a cataclysmic flood strengthens the case for its historicity.

But while all these may be important, it seems to that they miss the point. To my mind, the focus here lies in the perennial question of the Toldot Yaakov Yosef: what does this teach us "for every person, in every place and every time"? In other words, what message does this convey about the nature of the human being and his situation in the world?

We are told that God was so angry with humankind that he regretted creating them, and decided to destroy the entire race save one isolated individual (and his family) - Noah, of whom we are told, rather curiously, that he "found favor in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen 6:8). The question that begs for an answer is: what was the nature of the evil for which they were punished so?

One finds a progression in the opening chapters of Genesis through four levels of sin: Adam's avoidance of the Divine call "where are you?"(ayeka); Cain's unwitting (?) manslaughter; the generation of the flood; and the hubris of the tower of Babylon. What then was so uniquely terrible about the sin of the generation of the flood to deserve total annihilation?

Martin Buber, in his classic essay Good and Evil, speaks of two kinds of evil: the first is that bred of confusion and misdirection, in which the individual, overwhelmed by the myriad options and temptations offered by life, falls into a "whirlpool" of non-focused actions and fulfillment of desires; an evil bred of failure to focus his energies on the good. The second is a kind of radical evil, in which the person "surrenders his soul to evil with his innermost being," basing his entire life upon the attitude of the lie, upon malice and destruction of other people. Evidently, the generation of the Flood belonged to this second type.

The opening verses of the chapter mention two reasons for the Flood: "the world was filled with violence (hamas)" and "all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth" (hishhit... darko al ha-aretz) (6:11-12). Rashi comments that the former phrase refers to rampant theft, while the latter alludes to sexual licentiousness and to idolatry. Genesis 6:1-4 relates that, just before the Flood, "the sons of God" or "the Nefilim" took women "from whomever they choose," combining sexual greed and lawlessness with violence. Whomever these may have been - more powerful groups of men within human society, descendants of mythic giants, or "fallen angels" - the nature of their sin is clear: the violent seizing of women by the stronger men, leaving the weak -  their fathers or rightful husbands - standing helplessly by. More broadly, their sin involved the complete rejection of all natural morality: a combination of violence against property with sexual hedonism. Perhaps the Torah is telling us that, unlike today's hedonists, who present themselves as gentle pleasure-lovers (as in the 60's slogan, "Make Love not War"), the release of sexual hedone as such is ultimately linked to violence as well.

A close reading of Rashi's comment here - that hashahat derekh is equated with sexual licentiousness and paganism - implies that there is a derekh, a well-known, proper way, in the areas of both sexuality and in that of the worship of God. We may infer from this a notion of Natural Law: the idea that man, from the Creation, is granted innate intuitive knowledge of right and wrong in these two areas. Evidently, as we may learn from Parshat Bereshit, The path of monogamy is seen as the native, natural condition of the human race - primitive marriage consisting in a man and a woman making a covenant between them. Likewise seen as part of hashahat derekh is homosexuality and the mating of different species - in brief, ­sexuality of all kinds run riot.

Equally interesting is the concept of a "path" in the worship and knowledge of God. Maimonides, in the first chapter of Hilkhot Avodah Zarah, propounds the theory that man is inherently monotheistic. Adam knew God. It was only after Enosh that men began to stray. Interestingly, the "error" described by him has an almost Hegelian dialectic: the good carrying within itself the seeds of its own antithesis. Knowledge of God contains the seeds of its opposite: through their wish to honor God, men accorded honor to his celestial creations; then built idols to represent them; then began to worship them; and ultimately forgot why they did it in the first place.

This idea is significant, because contemporary rationalism, the heir of the Enlightenment culture that has shaped the course of the "high culture" of the latter half of the millenium now ending, assumes man to be naturally atheistic. Religion is seen either as: the product of fears, a projection onto the cosmos of parental figures (Freud); a tool of economic domination (Marx); a reification of society (Durkheim); or primitive attempts at explaining an unknown, mysterious world, long superceded by philosophy and science.

The above mentioned passage, by contrast, suggests the idea of an innate, natural religious and ethical sense within mankind. True, the relation of this idea to the concept of the seven Noachide commandments is a knotty and difficult question in its own right. Many invoke Rambam's remark in Hilkhot Melakhim 8:11, that a Noachide must perform those commandments applicable to him because he believes them to have been commanded by God in the Torah, via Moses, but if he performs them as the result of reason - i.e., because he discovers them to be self-evident, innate ethical principles - then he is "neither among the pious of the nations, nor one of their sages." However, the late Rabbi Joseph Kapah, noted Maimonidean scholar and translator, in his critical edition of the Yad, cites an alternatuve reading of that passage, based upon early manuscripts. The proper reading, he asserts, is not "and not of their sages" (ve-lo mehakhmeihem) but rather "but one of their sages" (ela me-hakhmeihem). A single letter changes the meaning entirely! (See on this Eugene Korn, "Gentiles, The World to Come and Judaism: The Odyssey of a Rabbinic Text," Modern Judaism (1994).)

Indeed, Rav J. B. Soloveitchik, in his major essay on the nature of the religious experience, "Uvikashtem misham" ("And You Shall Seek from There"), develops a phenomenology of what he describes as the "natural experience" and the "revelational experience." (Ha-Darom 47 (1978/79), pp. 1-83; reprinted in Ish Hahalakha ba-galuy uva-Nistar.) The former is based upon a combination of innate intuitions within the human soul and man's reaction to the grandeur and mystery of nature. The latter manifests itself, most outstandingly, in the Jewish encounter with God at Sinai, the revelation of the Torah, and the historical experience of the covenantal community created as a result.

Admittedly, the Rav places greater emphasis in this essay upon the latter, which he sees, if not as more authentic, as leading man to a higher level of objective encounter with the divine, as well as providing the basis for a stable, more lasting religious commitment. However, he too, in speaking of "Adam the Second" (in Lonely Man of Faith), likewise speaks of the ­religious quest, of the asking of existential questions, as based upon an innate aspect of human nature. Indeed, Medieval Jewish theology constantly speaks of Creation as a central theological category. Thus, Ramban's Torah Commentary, Sefer ha-Hinukh, etc., speak of such mitzvot as Shabbat, Pesah, etc., as intended to inculcate the doctrine of Creation; in other words, the truth that this is a created world is one of the basic sources of religious knowledge.

Too often, there is a problem within the Orthodox community of an overemphasis upon the aspect of "revelation" - the call for a faith that transcends reason, the Jewish counterpart of "Credo que absurdum est," emunat hakhamim, of almost rejoicing in the "oddball" effect of certain halakhot - as if to accentuate the difference between oneself and the non-observant, rather than seeing religious faith as first and foremost a natural faculty of the human being as such.

 

Attachment to the Soil Profanes

"Now Noah was the first man of the soil", because he became attached to the soil, he became profane. (Ha-Darom 47 (1978/79), pp. 1-83; reprinted in Ish Hahalakha ba-galuy uva-Nistar.) In the beginning, he was a righteous, wholehearted man; now he is a man of the soil.

 (Tanchuma, Bereishit 13)

 

The Raven Also Has Rights

The dog that used to protect Hevel's sheep, guarded over his corpse against all beasts of the field, from all birds of the skies, and Adam and his helper sat and wept and mourned over him, and they knew not what to do, for burial was not customary. A raven, whose companion had died, said: I will teach this man what to do. What did he do? He took his companion and dug in the earth, covered his eyes, and buried him. Said man: I shall do as did this raven. He took Hevel's corpse, dug in the earth, and buried it, and the Holy One, Blessed Be He, rewarded the ravens generously in this world. What was their reward? They give birth to white offspring, and they flee from them, thinking them to be offspring of serpents. Then The Holy One, Blessed Be He, brings mosquitoes and provides their nourishment and they eat: "Who provides food for the raven". Yet more, they cry out for rain on the earth and The Holy One, Blessed Be He, hears their voice and sends rain upon the face of the earth, as is written: "He gives bread to the beasts, to the raven which cries out."

 (Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer, Chap 21)

 

One Must Behave Honestly Towards Gentiles Too

Rabbi Shim'on ben Shatach purchased a donkey from an Ishmaelite. His disciples discovered a precious stone hanging from its neck. Said the disciples to him: Rebbi, "God's blessing makes one wealthy" (Proverbs 10:22). He replied: "I bought a donkey; I did not buy a precious stone". He went and returned it to the Ishmaelite. The Ishmaelite exclaimed: "Blessed be God, Lord of Shim'on ben Shatach."                                                                                                    

 (Devarim Rabba 3:3)

 

"In the Image of God He Created the Human"

This form [tselem] in which man was created contains all the fields of knowledge, for with it all of them can be attained, and in this we, community of Israel, were made partners with all the other nations.                                       

 (R' Yosef Yaavetz, quoted in Torah Shelema: R' Menachem Kasher.)

 

... This is to say that the intelligence, or - in modern philosophical style -  the understanding, is the lot of all the human race, and in this tselem all members of the human race are equal, Israel having no advantage in this respect over the other nations. The image of God in man does not define the individual with respect to his essence and his attributes; it tells us about man's significance as a creature of understanding, and about the responsibility imposed upon him and which he cannot avoid, and about man's decision to act according to his will - whether positively or negatively, as Tzaddik, wicked man, Jew, or gentiles, all created in the image of God.

From the sidrot of "Bereishit" and "Noach" we learn that man - created in the image of God - can be Cain, murderer of his brother, Enosh who worshiped idolatrously, a man of the Generation of the Deluge living on corruption and destruction, or one of those builders of the city and the tower; but in those very same early generations, the image of God could also be realized in the persons of Noach, the blameless tzaddik, of Shem and Yafet who had the sense to cover their father's nakedness while looking away, and - in the twentieth generation - in the person of our father Avraham, the Hebrew who struggled with Nimrod.

 (Y. Leibowitz, Seven Years of Discussion of the Weekly Portion, p.38)

 

 

 

 

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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