Conquering a World of Confusion

 

As we read Parshat Noach, I feel it’s appropriate to quote Genesis…the rock band.

    There's too many men
    Too many people
    Making too many problems
    This is a land of confusion…
    Tell me why, this is a land of confusion.

Parshat Noach begins and ends with confusion. Let’s explain why.

The word mabul, flood, has the same Hebrew root as bavel, as in Tower of Babel. BLL is the root for words which mean “upend,” “mix,” or “confuse.” Essentially, God upends the world with a flood so it can start again and responds to the Tower of Babel by confusing everyone. Let’s look a little more closely at the Migdal Bavel, Tower of Babel episode of confusion.

“Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words.” (Bereishit 11:1)

People were all speaking a common language. They acted together to build a tower to the heavens to make a name for themselves and protect themselves from “being scattered all over the world.” God takes a look and is displeased. “If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they act, then nothing they may propose to do with be out of their reach.” God sees this ending badly. So God decides to “confound their speech, so that they not understand each other.” And that’s what God did. “That is the place is called Bavel since this is where God confounded (BLL) the speech of the whole earth and scattered them over the land.”

What was so wrong with the plan to make a name and build a tower? What did God’s confusing and scattering them solve?

Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the Netziv, explains it was the mindset of the Builders of Bavel that was so detrimental.

“The text did not explain what the people’s 'few words' were…[I]t wasn't because of the content of the words themselves that the Holy One of Blessing was distressed. They were what they were, and in its simplicity there is not sin, and on the contrary all appears well. But here what happened is that all thought the same thing, and this came to be the problem of the settlement.”

The problem with the Builders of Bavel was they were trying to construct a society built on absolute conformity, of people being required to think and act alike. It is one thing to have a common purpose or community standards. It is destructive, however, when the people demand absolute allegiance to a society of their own creation.

The answer was to confuse them. Force people to have to find a way to live together even when speaking and acting differently. The Netziv comments that we don’t know what happened to the tower they were constructing. It doesn’t matter. With the people separate and disparate, it was now up to them to find a will and a way to get along and live together.

What was true then is still true today.

We live in a world where, all too often, people want to live only with those who think, act, and speak alike. Long ago, Martin Buber (1878-1965) noted this problem with society. He wrote the fact “that people can no longer carry on authentic dialogue with one another is not only the most acute symptom of the pathology of our time, it is also that which most urgently makes a demand of us.” 

The solution is bavel, learning to appreciate different kinds of people, ideas, customs, and practices. It can be good for us! S. Y. Agnon, in his short story “Between Two Towns,” wrote: “The good Lord created a vast world, with many people in it whom He scattered wide, giving each place its singular quality and endowing every man with singular wisdom. You leave home and meet people from another place, and your mind is expanded by what you hear.”

Parshat Noach describes a messy world in need of fixing. The first fix was a reboot. In the Tower of Bavel episode, the fix required messing things up a little bit to challenge humanity to learn to live with each other – differences and all.

I close with Genesis:

    This is the world we live in
    And this is the hand we're given
    Use it and let's start trying
    To make our world a place worth living in

Here’s to elevating the confusion.