Parashat Noah

A Swiss guy visiting Sydney, Australia, pulls up at a bus stop where two locals are waiting. "Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?" he asks. The two Aussies just stare at him. "Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?" he tries. The two continue to stare. "Parlare Italiano?" No response. "Hablan ustedes Espanol?" Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted. The first Aussie turns to the second and says, "Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language." "Why?" says the other. "That guy knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good." I picked up my aunt and uncle from the airport this week before they began their tour on their first visit to Israel. My uncle looked around in amazement, "Everything's written in Hebrew. I can't understand a thing." For him, I think it was a little daunting – a place that was supposed to be his homeland and he felt like such a foreigner. Everyone speaking the same language seems like a good idea actually. That's what the first generations after the flood thought. It is written in Genesis 11 (1-2,4): "Now the entire earth was one language and uniform words. And it came to pass when they traveled from the east, that they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there….And they said to one another, ' Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.'" (Genesis 10:5-7) "And G-d came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built. And the Lord said, "Lo! [They are] one people and they all have one language and this is what they have commenced to do….Come, let us descend and confuse their language, so that one will not understand the language of his companion." Why does G-d do this? The builders of the tower achieved what the West has only been able to dream about – universal understanding, a common language, and harmony. They had a United Nations that actually worked. "The midrash and the commentators offer various explanations of the depravity of the tower builders -- they wanted to battle G-d; they wanted to worship idols, thy wanted to protect themselves from future floods…" and more. However, one midrash admits, "The wrongdoing of this generation is unclear." (Bereshit Rabbah 38:6) The Talmud, however, frames this story, along with that of Noah, in a different way. It is written in Avodah Zarah 9a, "The first two thousand years, until Avraham and the people he influenced in Haran (Bereishit 12:5), were years of tohu (chaos)." Rabbi Matis Weinberg (today) interprets this as teaching us that "all of Parashat Noah is part of an extended Creation narrative. The Torah describes the creation of the world taking place in seven days from creating light and darkness, sun and moon, land and sea, animals that fly, crawl, and graze. And the first human beings. However, perhaps this was not the end of creation. Perhaps G-d was not done. The teaching from the Talmud says: G-d continued creating and shaping the world for generations, perhaps what we could call the "prehistoric period", until the time of Avraham, and then G-d truly "rested." What else needed to be created? According to Weinberg, G-d did not have any ill intent in destroying the tower and dispersing human kind. Rather, in dispersing the people, G-d was completing a next step of creation -- through this story, G-d is creating Diversity. This act is referred to at least five times in the parasha: From these all the earth was scattered (Genesis 9:19) From these the islands of the nations were separated into their lands, each to his own language, to all the families of the nations. (Genesis 10:5) These are the children of Ham according to their families and languages in their lands and in their nations. (Genesis 10:20) These are the families of children of Noach according to their families and languages in their lands and in their nations. (Genesis 10:31) These are the families of the children of Noach and their generations in their nations and from these the nations diverged on Earth after the flood. (Genesis 10:32) The society that congregated all together in the same place and crowded together on one lonely and narrow tower made only of brick, fire, and clay in the midst of G-d's entire beautiful world, "was infinitely deprived….The new world of Noah was meant to live under the multicolored breadth of the rainbow, spanning a scintillatingly multifarious humanity." What would have happened if humans had only stayed in one place and everyone would have stayed the same? Weinberg says, "that stasis would have been the end of Creation." The message of the Tower of Bavel is that G-d wants us to seek out new landscapes, discover G-d's world – the entire world, and bring its beauty into expression in a multitude of ways. We can call this constant act of creation many things, but one word we use is chidush, innovation. In fact, it is written in the Zohar, the 13th century kabbalistic midrash (1:4b), "When new insights in Torah issue from the mouth of a human being, that chidush (innovation) comes and presents itself to the Holy One. The Holy One takes it, and kisses it, Crowning it with seventy crowns." We gather for the sake of unity – belonging to the Jewish people, seeking connection with our tradition, and moments of both joy and meditation. But, we learn to also celebrate our diversity as Israelis, Americans, a new baby, a new soldier, families, friends, and new faces. And, in this way, we create the world anew every day. We gather in order to be unified and to feel a part of the Jewish people, to feel a connection with our tradition and to experience together moments of happiness and meditation. With that, we learn that there is a place in our tradition to celebrate the differences between us – as Israelis, Americans, a new baby, a new soldier, old friends, and new faces. In this way, we create the world anew every day.