LET US GO DOWN AND DISRUPT THEIR LANGUAGE SO THAT EACH WILL NOT UNDERSTAND HIS FELLOW'S LANGUAGE.

(Bereishit 11:7)

 

Dor HaPalagah [the Generation of the Dispersal] - Ruthless Unity and Reforming Dissolution

Else we be scattered all over the world - One must understand why they worried that some of their number might move to another land; clearly, this is connected to the same words which they shared. Since people differ in their opinions, they were concerned to keep people from deserting their opinion and thinking differently. That is why they kept watch that no one should leave their place of settlement, and he who turned away from their same words would be sentenced to death by fire, as they did to our Father Abraham. It becomes apparent that their same words became a tyranny, and they decided to kill anyone who did not share their opinions.

(The NeTziV MiVelozhin's Ha'Amek Davar on Bereishit 11:4)

 

Will not understand - One asks for bricks and the other brings mortar, the first assaults him and injures his brain.

(Rashi ad loc)

 

Let us go down - that is to say, I shall fix this matter from its start to keep them from reaching the final evil. I shall disrupt their language, so that one shall not understand his fellow's language, and they shall enter into conflict with each other and separate from each other.

Will not understand [literally: will not hear] - [That is to say,] They shall not understand, and this [interpretation] does not deviate from the notion of hearing, since it refers to hearing with one's heart.

(Rabbi YaShaR Reggio, ad loc)

 

 

The Origins of the Nations

Amos Bardea

Parashat Noah constitutes the boundary between ha'olam ha'nivrah [the created world] and ha'olam ha'hadash [the new world], between the world of creation that was corrupted by the crown of creation (human beings) and the world rebuilt upon its ruins. The Torah describes the turning point following the flood in the end of chapter eight: So long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Here begins the world as we know it, a world that comports itself in accordance with the laws of nature instilled into it following the flood. In the framework of that world, human life is organized within national groups, also known as "peoples." And these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem Ham and Yafet, and they begot children for themselves after the flood (10:1). The Torah lists the nations that came forth from each of the brothers, ending each account with similar formulations: From these the island nations branched out by their lands - each with its language - their clans and their nations (10:5). These are the descendants of Ham, according to their clans and languages, by their lands and nations (10:20). These are the descendants of Shem according to their clans and languages, by their lands, according to their nations (10:31).

Human national life arose from the lives of individuals. Nationality is a prime factor that constitutes the kernel of primal identity for most people; a person is born into a particular nation just as he is born into a particular family. While secondary identities such as citizenship or occupational position (referred to by sociologists as "status") may be given formal definitions, the concepts of "nation" and "people" are difficult to pin down. The definition of nation is slippery because it is primary. Indeed, across the generations much philosophical and sociological thought has been devoted to the definition of "nation" and "nationalism." (Interestingly, this lack of formal definition makes it impossible for one to switch nationalities the way that citizenship or religious affiliation can be changed.) Various thinkers have tried to define "nation" in terms of objective factors. Surprisingly, all of these factors appear in the verses quoted above from chapter ten of Bereishit:

A. The ethnic element or genetic origin: The nation is defined as a large extended family whose members bear a shared genetic origin. Indeed, Classic Latin translated the Hebrew term am ("people") as gens. The verses I have cited speak of the nations having branched out according to their clans, or as Targum Onkelos has it, le'zareit'hon (according to their seed). Our father Jacob's family offers a good example of this. It grew and extended until its members saw themselves as a people. The first time that the Torah refers to the children of Jacob as a people occurs when they were still a family of limited size. After Jacob left his father in law Laban and before preparing for the encounter with his brother Esau, we read: Jacob was greatly frightened; in his anxiety, he divided the people [ha'am] with him, and the flocks and herds and camels into two camps (32:8).

B. The territorial element: A people consolidate itself by living together in a specific territory over time. A collection of families of varying ethnic origin can develop a unifying national consciousness after living together in the same place for an extended period of time. The cited verses introduce the territorial element with the terms island nations and by their lands. RaMBaN explains: "The meaning of from these the island nations branched out by their lands is that the children of Yafet were island dwellers and they dispersed, each of his sons lived alone on a different island, and their lands were far from each other."

C. The linguistic element: A human group which possesses a spoken and written national language. The linguistic element creates a national consciousness, even among people who lack a common genetic origin, and even if they do not live in a single geographical region. Our cited verses refer to the linguistic element with the words each with its language and according to their languages. Language is not merely spoken language; it is an expression of a culture built upon codes of behavior that are peculiar to a particular nation.

D. The political element: A nation consolidates around the political system it creates to organize its life. For example: the American people is a nation of immigrants which consolidated round the U.S. Constitution, a document based on the value of liberty, which underpins the nation's political and civil life.

The story of the Dor HaPalagah [the Generation of the Dispersal] tells of a nationality based on all these elements. Language: Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words (11:1). Territory: As they migrated from the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there (11:2). Political might: And they said: "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the earth (11:4). God cancels the power concentrated in their national consciousness by confusing their language and dispersing the builders of the tower across the earth. Thus, He removes speech, territory, and polity as constitutive elements of national power. Let us, then, go down, and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another's speech. Thus the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city (11:7-8).

Empirically speaking, sometimes the defining elements of nationality and peoplehood are missing. There exist nations who lack the objective elements (the Jewish People, for example), while there are also groups of people who share all of these elements but who have not formed unified nations. Recognition of this led to the development of a subjective approach that does not base nationality only upon objective characteristics, but rather takes into account the subjective feeling of belonging to a nation as integral to the factors that make up national consciousness.

In the end of chapter eleven, the biblical narrative turns to the figure of Abraham, the great man of faith, and to his origins. Abraham discovers his Creator and sees himself as standing before Him to serve Him. Already in the twelfth chapter of Bereishit, with which the parasha Lekh Lekha begins, Abraham is called upon to make the first payment for his faith. Abraham is required to break away from the national framework that was the prime core of his identity: And the Lord said to Abram: "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you" (12:1). Abraham leaves the environment in which his personality was formed, the territory in which he grew up, his family and birthplace, for the sake of an ideal which would eventually found his descendants' nationality. The Israelites grew into a nation out of their family origins; they changed from an extended family into a people. It is an external factor which defines the Israelites as a national body. In Shemot 1:9, Pharaoh speaks: And he said to his people: "Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us." The Israelite nation stands before the Egyptian nation, threatening it.

The Israelites leave Egypt as a national entity founded upon common ethnicity. However, the goal of the exodus from Egypt was the creation of a people that, as a nation formed upon earthly foundations, would stand before God and accept His covenant, thus raising up truth from the earth. A nation formed upon genetic foundations would change the kernel of its national identity into a religious identity connected to the covenant with God: Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, "All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do! (Shemot 24:3). The Israelites awaited their entry into the land, in which they were required to form a national life on the foundation of the divine covenant, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Moses announces that the people have been founded by having stood before God and having accepted His covenant: Moses and the Levitical Priests spoke to all of Israel saying: "Silence! Hear, O Israel! Today you have become the people of the Lord your God! (Devarim 27:9). Thus, religion and nation become two sides of the same coin; a Jew must belong to the Jewish religion, and someone who subscribes to the Jewish religion must belong to the Jewish People. Religion becomes the defining element of the nation, and all other elements become inessential accessories, as Rabbi Saadia Gaon said, "Our nation is a nation only because of its Torahs" (the Written and the Oral Torahs).

Following the entry to the land, the Kingdom of Israel was established there. Despite his Moabite blood, David was chosen to reign over the people, and it was even promised that King Messiah would be his descendant. After the destructions of the commonwealths, the Jewish People was dispersed in foreign lands, there losing its ethnic, territorial, linguistic, and political elements, but it survived as an independent national entity on a religious basis. The modern era saw attempts to place under doubt the unbreakable bond of the people defined as a religion, beginning with the period of the emancipation in the 18^th and 19^th centuries up to the early 20^th century. On the one hand, there was an attempt to dismiss national identity and make Judaism into a purely religious matter (Moses Mendelssohn in his book Jerusalem, assimilationist supporters of the documentary hypothesis, and the "reform rabbis."). On the other hand, in the period of national awakening there was an attempt to base Jewishness on the nation as the central element of Jewish identity. An additional attempt was made by the ideologues of secular Zionism to change the core of Jewish identity from a religious identity to a political-civil identity. What factor unites the Jews of our day, joining together the Polish Jew with the Ethiopian Jew or with the Jew who has just arrived from South America?

The message relayed by the description of the evolution of the developing national consciousness as it moves from earthly foundations to the religious foundation of a people that stood before God well-explains the reason why parashat Noah takes trouble to deal with the origins of the nations.

Dr. Amos Bardea is a scientist and thinker.

 

 

Two of each shall come to you to stay alive - He informed him that they would come, two of each, on their own; he would not have to hunt them in the mountains and on the islands. Then he would later bring them into the ark. And He specified that they come male and female. This was the general rule. Afterwards, He commanded that Noah take of every clean animal seven of each; in this case He did not say that they would come on their own, but that Noah should take them, for those who come to be saved and to preserve their seed come on their own, but He did not decree that those who come in order to be offered as sacrifices come on their own to be slaughtered, but Noah took them, for the command of seven of each was so that Noah be able to use them for sacrifices.

(RaMBaN, Bereishit 6:20)

 

Noah... went into the ark because of the waters of the Flood - Rabbi Yohanan said: Noah lacked perfect faith, for had the waters not reached his ankles; he would not have entered the ark.

Two of each came to Noah - Falsehood came and wanted to enter. Noah said to him: You may not enter, unless you wed a spouse. Falsehood went and sought a wife. He met Curse, and she said to him: From where do you come? He told her: From Noah - I wanted to enter the ark, but he refused to admit me unless I had a wife. She replied: And what will you give me? He said to her: I stipulate with you that you may take all which I accumulate. She listened to him, and the two entered the ark. When they exited the ark, Falsehood went and accumulated, and Curse kept taking first. Falsehood came and said to her: Where is all that I accumulated? She replied: Was this not our condition, that I take all which you accumulate? He had no answer. Therefore it is written He hatches evil, conceives mischief, and gives birth to fraud (Psalms 7:15). The parable says: Falsehood begets - but Curse takes all.

(Yalkut Shimoni, Noah, 56)

 

The World's Existence Depends Upon Law, Morality, and Interpersonal Respect

The world exists thanks to law, you can see that the flood came to the world because they lacked law, they stole and robbed from each other, as it is written, the land became full of robbery. And if this is so, then one who judges, upholding the law faithfully, causes the world to persist in its existence. It is as if he becomes a partner [to the Creator].

(Siftei Hakhamim Shemot 18:9)

 

Now that the exile has continued for too long because of our sins, Israelites should separate itself from the vanities of this world and hold firm to the seal of the Holy One blessed be He, which is truth, sanctifying themselves even in regard to that which is permitted them (Yevamot 20a), lying neither to Israelite nor gentile, and not misleading them in any way, for it is said: The remnant of Israel shall not commit injustice nor speak falsely, and deceptive speech shall not be found in their mouths (Zephaniah 3:13). And it is also written: And I shall sew them in the land (Hoshea 2:25). Does a man not sew one kur unless it is in order to reap several kur? So too, the Holy One Blessed be He sews Israel in the lands in order that converts join them (Pesahim 87b). As long as they treat them without deceit, they shall join them. And the Holy One blessed be He is strict about theft from wicked people, for it is said: and the land became full of robbery.

"There is a story involving Rabbi Shimon ben Shetah, who bought a donkey from a certain Ishmaelite. His students went and found a precious stone hanging from its neck. His students told him: Rabbi, It is the Lord's blessing that enriches (Mishlei 10:22). He said to them: I bought a donkey; I did not buy a precious stone. He went and returned it to the Ishmaelite. The Ishmaelite called out: Blessed be the Lord, God of Shimon ben Shetah!" (Devarim Rabbah 3:3)

And so in the Yerushalmi (Bava Metiya 2:5) [we read]: "The wise elders bought wheat from the gentiles. They found a bunch of coins in it, which they returned to them. The gentiles said: May the God of the Jews be blessed!" Likewise, there are many cases when they returned [such items to the gentiles] for the sake of the sanctification of the Divine Name.

(Orhot Tzadikim, Chapter 23 - Sha'ar Ha'Emet)

 

 

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