Wrong Time for Building Legacies

Reality has just been turned upside down, the waters of the flood have erased all life off the face of the globe, and humanity has to start all over again.

This is not some apocalyptic terror film, but the story of the world after the Great Flood. Noah and his family were the only living people in the world, while every other person who had been living just one year earlier—including their neighbors, friends, enemies and everyone else—was gone.

When the flood gates closed, the waters settled, and the people emerged from the floating box, they quickly went ahead to rebuild civilization, having children, building homes, accumulating wealth, and just getting back to routine.

Why not, they thought, build a huge tower that will reach the sky?Not too long afterwards, they hit upon a wonderful idea. Why not, they thought, build a huge tower that will reach the sky? After all, we have the technology and the manpower! Let us build a legacy for ourselves! Let the future world know about how awesome we were!

The vote was unanimous to build the tower, and the people of Babel set out to make their dream a reality. Things started out smoothly, and they were making headway, when G‑d decided to put a stop to the project. He mixed up their languages, dispersed them all over the world, and turned some of them into apes1 (oh, so we are related . . .).

And you ask, what was the big deal? Why did G‑d react so angrily to such a harmless cause? Where did these visionaries go wrong? Could there be something wrong in wanting to build a legacy?

Yes! There was something very wrong.

Think about it, friends. The world had been destroyed, and now the society needed a lot of help. Children needed schools, places of worship needed to be built, traumas had yet to be settled . . . and all these people could think about was their legacy!

Who has time for building legacies when there is a hungry man next door? Was there nothing more important than building a tower, so that four thousand years later, when a scientist would excavate a site somewhere in Mesopotamia and find remains of a big tower, he or she would write in the history books that this was a strong and advanced nation?

How could they think of a legacy for the future, when the present needed so much help? And, for heaven’s sake, if they desperately desired to make a legacy, then at least they should have made something worthwhile! Why not open the world’s first hospital, make a beautiful house of worship, or build a school? Why, oh why, erect a pointless, unneeded tower?

And that question lingers for all time . . . 2

Footnotes

Midrash cited in Me’am Loez.

Based on a talk of the Rebbe, published in Likkutei Sichot, vol. 3.

By Levi Avtzon

Rabbi Levi Avtzon lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with his wife Chaya and their children. He is senior rabbi at the Linksfield Senderwood Hebrew Congregation.

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13 Comments

Dario October 23, 2014

What are we trying to reach This summary shows an humanity tries to reach (touch) G~d with material things instead of reaching material things with a G~dly things. Reply

Shoshana Jerusalem October 9, 2013

apes Yes, it says that a third of the people were turned into apes. So next time you go to the zoo and you see a monkey who looks like a person, you should know that he probably was! Reply

ruth housman marshfield hills, ma October 21, 2012

to walk away It could be, No story IF we didn't have the bad guys. Life exists in contrast. To walk away OR To walk towards. We do both, and life keeps moving. If nothing happened, if we had no tilting windmills, nothing to discuss, nothing to get passionate about, what would we be doing. So much of our time goes into Tikkun OLAM.

So somehow the world was created with the good guys and the bad guys, and everything in between. As life does occur on a continuum. This does not condone the bad, merely states what IS, and those who work to find meaning, try to achieve balance, and a balanced perspective. Sometimes it's very hard, because the rocks in the road make us hurt too much, and we wonder, and we pray, for an end to such pain. Could it be the very people walking away, are being moved, by the same G_d who brings us forward? This is deep, and hard, in the encounter with G_d and a cosmic story. Reply

Karen chambers Bakersfield, Kern/USA via chabadofbakersfield.com October 20, 2012

Babel Did they really find the remains of the tower in Mesopotomia? I thought the city was lost somewhere.
I could never understand why so many people in the Tora could walk away from G-d. He is such an awesome G-d to serve. I just can't see how some of the lost could walk away from a good G-d that we have.
I enjoy your writings, well written! Reply

ruth housman marshfield hills, ma October 30, 2011

compare I sons People do judge and decide that some professions are more worthy than others, which is truly judgmental. To look at life's diversity of professions, of what people do to earn a living, to also engage in personal joys, is to see we need everyone, and those who pick up the debris at the side of the roads, and who come to garden for those who do not have time, or work in the stores... well, we need them all.

These comparisons as mentioned above, by anonymous, are insidious and lead to problems such as a terrible erosion of self-esteem. We need to see everyone as valuable, and as doing a necessary job in a most complex society. Recognition of the other is very important. Creativity itself can reside anywhere, and one of the most creative people I know is my hair dresser. She's also the best therapist, and her sunny kind disposition makes having one's hair cut a joy.

We tend to place a value on some kinds of learning and doing over others, let it be, kindness and love wherever expressed. Reply

Anonymous w October 28, 2011

good point ... why oh why And i am always left wondering, why Noah is unfavourably compared to Abraham.

Why oh why do we need this comparison ? Human nature, loshon hora, a failure to see these two men in a proper context. But every year, up comes the comparison, a passion to denigrate.

My son is a world famous doctor. What is your son ? Reply

ruth housman marshfield hills, ma October 26, 2011

Babel When we speak of Babel today we speak of it in terms of a cacophony of words that do not make sense. There is in this Magazine an article on the Bible Code. Is there a Bible Code? Meaning depending on how one reads the letters, there could be inserted within the text of Torah, a story, new insights, names, something hidden which comes to light. This will be elucidated. Luce for light.

I feel we are "ABEL" to do many things with words, and that being whirred too, there is something of magic about language, and certainly the Hebrew letters, a Heady Brew.
Resh for head.

Perhaps even, in the words B'reshit, within, is a clue. I think it could be VAV, a palindrome, for six, six letters, containing AV, for Father. In the words of T.S. Eliot, his Four Quartets, the end circles beautifully back to the beginning.

The other day I heard a man being interviewed on NPR, who is a genius with palindromes. To follow a straight line: VAV.
To draw down the light. The Lulav. Sukkot. Simchas Torah. Reply

Bonnie October 26, 2011

Jason Schwadel Good going, there fella.

No, it was not the hungry who decided to build the tower. Opens up a few doors...does it not? Reply

mh Brooklyn, NY October 26, 2011

To anonymous in Jerusalem: There may have been a 250 year break between the flood and the tower. However, in those 250 years, the people did nothing worth marking for eternity, nothing to record in the Torah. Their first major project was the tower and it wasn't a holy or healthy one.
And it's very true about our building efforts and the rebbe's vision post the holocaust flood. Reply

tante Malkie Brooklyn, New York October 25, 2011

dor hafllaga millions of dollars are being spent for space exploration while people are dying of diseases that do not have a cure yet-deja vu. Well put as usual and thank you for the naches Reply

ruth housman marshfield hills, ma October 25, 2011

Babel It could be all of these things, and also more, because G_d is a Master Storyteller, and now the languages that were dispersed are coming together. I write about this. It could be the Storyteller knew, what we do not, and that soul lessons will be taught along the way, but the end of this story, before the sequel, of course, would be a new truth, a re examining of all stories, in a new light, because, there are powerful metaphoric connects running up and down all Creation. To read the same book years later, is to experience it differently. The Book of Life is a Book of Wonders.

Reply

Anonymous Jerusalem October 25, 2011

Not too long after? Without getting into the details, there are about 250 years between the flood and the building of the tower. Seems like a lengthy span of time.
Only after reading the Rebbe's original sichah did I understand that he was using this analysis to say something to the generation after our present-day "mabul"--the holocaust. The Rebbe was urging that building for the cause of erecting monuments is not enough, but should go hand in hand with deeper purpose, and according to the sichah that is places of learning.
I don't know if you can find a reference that would show that the Rebbe would approve of adding hospitals to the list. Reply

Jason Schwadel Indian harbourr beach, Fl October 24, 2011

Timely Your article brings up the question of who made the decision to build the tower. Did the hungry man decide? Probably not. Your argument speaks loudly to the present day. Reply

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