November 1, 2024 / 30 Tishrei 5785
“And all the earth was one language, one set of words.” So begins the story of the Tower of Babel. One language (safah ehat) and a shared vocabulary (d’varim ahadim) would seem to be a good and desirable thing. With a uniform tongue and a common word list we – everyone, all the earth (kol ha’aretz) – could/would actually understand one another with ease. The shared set of words, suggests Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak) means to describe that everyone was “of one mind.” “הסכמה אחת היה להם – there was full agreement among them.” Sounds idyllic, perhaps especially in our fragmented time.
Uniformity, however, turns out to be a dangerous and inhumane phenomenon. A remarkable Midrash (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 24) spells out the implications, retelling the Bible’s terse story about the building of Babel’s tower.
“Rabbi Pinhas said: There were no stones there with which to build the city and the tower. What did they do? They baked bricks and burnt them like a builder (would do), until they built it seven mils high, and it had ascents on its east and west. (The laborers) who took up the bricks went up on the eastern (ascent), and those who descended went down on the western (descent). If a man fell and died they paid no heed to him, but if a brick fell they sat down and wept, and said: Woe is us ! when will another one come in its stead?”
Uniformity – of thought, of language, of mind – leads to a devaluing of individuality, of individual lives, of life itself. As my friend and teacher, Rabbi Shai Held, expresses it: “total uniformity is necessarily a sign of totalitarian control – after all, absolute consensus does not happen naturally on any matter, let alone on every matter.”
The flip side, at least in the Midrash’s version of the story, turns out to be difficult, painful, and filled with violence as well. “And they wished to speak one to another in the language of his fellow-countryman, but one did not understand the language of his fellow. What did they do? Every one took his sword, and they fought one another to destroy (each other), and half the world fell there by the sword, and thence the Lord scattered them upon the face of all the earth, as it is said, “So the Lord scattered them abroad on that account, upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:8).”
Are we doomed (or damned) either way? One language a direct path to totalitarianism, multiple tongues a direct path to violent anarchy? A suggestion. The story is here to show us the dangers at the extremes and to invite us to work at promoting and honoring individuality while striving to live, work, and build together despite our differences. Diversity and community. Oneness and individuality. Let’s build that together.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi David
