Behind Closed Doors Are Secrets Deeply Held

Behind Closed Doors Are Secrets Deeply Held

D’var Torah for Parashat Noach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The story of the Tower of Babel comes almost as an afterthought to the story of Noah and the Flood.  In a long portion comprising nearly six chapters (Genesis 6:9—11:21), the story of the unfinished tower doesn’t come until chapter 11.  Its characters are faceless and nameless; there is no central hero.  Moreover, the sin of the builders of the Tower of Babel is much more difficult to understand than that of either Noah or his generation.

Scholars of the Bible as literature might even add that the story of Babel is a later addition, and that it is a not-so-sly critique of the Babylonian Empire (whose dominance had just been overturned by the Persians).

Yet there are also many similarities between the two stories—enough to justify them both being included this one portion.  Both involve the building of a great structure:  Noah’s ark has the dimensions of a football field; the Tower of Babel was to be part of a larger city.  The tower itself, probably a ziggurat, was meant to be with its “top in the heavens.” 

In both stories, God “sees” what happens down below on earth, and in both, God intervenes. 

Yet the stories are not parallel; nor does the Tower story come to offer commentary on Noah.  That becomes clear when we look at the sins of humanity in the Noah story.  The portion plainly describes the wrongdoings of Noah’s generation as violence and bloodshed.  Noah himself is also criticized.  He fails to stand up to God or question God’s overzealous punishment—the complete destruction of all life—in fact, the undoing of all Creation.  In the story of Tower of Babel, on the other hand, the wrongdoing of the people is much less clear.  Whatever it is that they do, however, seems to stem from their speaking only one language. 

So what’s wrong with that?

Early rabbinic commentary (first century) explains that the Tower of Babel represents an act of defiance against God.

Other sources tell that, as the work of building the tower progressed, people lost their humanity and became heartless to one another.  They acted without mercy or compassion to the weak and ill; they did not let women in labor leave their work; and, when a valuable stone fell from the top of the tower and killed a workman on the ground, they bewailed not the loss of life, but rather the work that hoisting the stone all the way up to the top again entailed.

And yet one more interpretation:  that the “one language and one speech” that all human beings spoke then doesn’t refer to an actual idiom or dialect, but rather is symbolic of a single way of looking at the world.  Lacking the perspective and objectivity of different thinking, this “one language and one speech” (11:1) could prove crushing to imagination and creativity.  It would be contrary to God’s intentions for humanity, the complete opposite of free will.  The Tower of Babel thus represents not only an act of insolence toward God, but also a tyrannical and cynical effort to crush the human spirit.

The downfall of tyranny is in its very effort to impose a single way of looking at things.

A clue to the reason why both these stories are part of this portion is in the central feature of both:  The building—the construction—of some huge structure, some edifice meant to save humanity (in fact, all life) from destruction.  The Ark and the Tower represent humanity’s need to preserve something—anything!—from the death and annihilation that seemed to overtake everything else that existed.

Both structures were begun out of baser motives—selfishness in Noah’s case; arrogance in the case of the Babylonians.  But they don’t end up in the same place, and that’s because of the lesson that Noah learns, a lesson that the Babylonians failed to learn.

Told to save himself, his wife, three sons and their wives, and a few select pairs of all animal, bird and insect, Noah doesn’t protest.  He does exactly as God had told him to.  One wonders if he would have acted with the same composure if he were told to abandon his family along with the rest of humanity, to let his sons drown with everyone else in the world.

Yet, during the period that he has to endure holed up inside the Ark (sealed in by God, with no control mechanism to steer or stay the boat), Noah learns a valuable lesson.  He discovers compassion.  When he does finally open the window (how symbolic!), he gazes with desperate hope for the dove that he had sent out.  When it arrives, storm-tossed, frightened and exhausted, Noah reaches out and, with great compassion, draws the bird back inside, to the warm, dry protection of his beating heart.

Not so the builders of the Tower of Babel.  They wept when the stone fell—not for the life lost, but for the effort wasted.  Their hearts remained stony, cold, impenetrable. 

It is a lesson that will be repeated often through the Torah, because it is so worthy.  Later on, Pharaoh’s heart will be similarly “hardened,” when he fails to feel the suffering of his slaves.  Moses, on the other hand, will be chosen to lead the Israelites to freedom and the Promised Land because he does feel their pain.  Compassion is the key to the human heart.  A closed heart is a dark one.  It belongs to one who does not love, who is lonely and who will be lost.  A heart that is open and receptive, on the other hand, has no dark secrets; it is inviting and loving.  It is a true shelter.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman