Post by Jen on Nov 2, 2008 5:38:52 GMT -5
This week's Torah portion is Noach, running from Genesis 6:9-11:32... when I say "this week", I mean the week that just passed... I missed posting before Shabbos because I've been a little busy lately.
Anywho, for those of you who aren't Jewish, if you've guessed that Noach = Noah, you get a prize! If you are Jewish and you got it right... well, that really only proves that you didn't sleep through Hebrew school. I jest. Anywho, moving on.
My first thought whenever I read this portion is usually something like, "Wow... how awful must people have been to piss God off enough to wipe out all of humanity... and not just humanity, but the animals too!" My next thought is usually something to do with the fact that Noah is supposed to be the most righteous man in all the earth, yet the first thing he does when the flood waters finally recede is to get himself raging drunk. Serioiusly dude? I would have thought the whole wiping-every-living-being-from-the-face-of-the-earth thing would have made you shy away from immediate heinous debauchery. Ahhh, humanity!
I swear, I'm getting to something intellectual, but I thought I would have some fun first to try to wake up whatever audience I might have. That's right kids! You, too, can have fun with the Bible! Just ask me how!
Alright, alright, time for something a bit deeper. So, pinch yourself, take a sip of your coffee and let's find something to look a bit more closely at.
I thought about doing a comparison of the Noah story to the story of Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh Epic, but that seems to annoy people more than it interests them... besides, it's been done exhaustively. (Seriously, just Google Noah and Utnapishtim if you're interested. You can never have too much ancient Mesopotamian literature under your belt!)
Anyway, instead of focusing on the Noah story, I'd like to look closer to the end of the parashah for the story of the Tower of Babel. It seems like such an odd thing, randomly inserted into the text with no transition or explanation. It's only a few lines squunched in between an exhausting geneology.
1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4 They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."
5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.
One interesting thing about this story is that it seems to be an etiology for the existence of different languages in the world. For someone who interprets the Bible literally, up to this point there would have been only one language... and now, suddenly, a myriad of them are brought forth.
However, there has to be more to this story. For starters, an simple etiology doesn't really give me much I can use in my life today. And we always want Torah to be relevant to our daily lives because it's a living entity. On a slightly deeper level, this could be a story of what we have the power to do when we all work together. But then, why does this make God angry? If these people are working together in what seems to be a peaceful manner, why should that be a threat? So many times today I wish we could all work together. The people were working together to build a tower reaching into the skies (note that the Hebrew word שמים literally means "skies" and not the concept of an otherworldly Heaven as we think of today. But what's wrong with building a tall building?
Let's look specifically at Exodus 11:1. The NASB (New American Standard Bible... not usually what I use, but it's what's handy at the moment) translation reads this way, "Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words." In any free society, there will naturally be differences of thought and opinion among members of that society. People have different points of view and experiences to draw from in making decisions and forming opinions. However, in this verse the whole earth was using the same words! Not just that, but they somehow came to the conclusion that building a structure would bind them all together. God's lesson from this point of view is one which teaches us the value of community and of diversity.
We cannot simply mimic one another and build artificial connections in brick and mortar. We cannot expect a community in which there are no differing opinions (whether because of censorship or because of apathy and blindly following those in power) to be a strong and vibrant community! A certain degree of tension and differing thought within a society is necessary to provide the impetus for that society to continue to grow and develop. Societies which cease to learn, grow, and develop become stagnant and eventually disappear. We must continually learn and think and test our understanding of the things around us in order to appreciate them. We must learn to communicate and truly understand one another, not simply through parroting the thoughts of others, but by truly taking the time to understand their reasonings and how they arrive at their viewpoints. There is an extreme danger in blindly following others... when we do not take responsibility for having our own thoughts and actions, we too easily fall into the trap of losing our own sense of morality. The people in this story had already begun to lose a vital connection. They were building a tower in the hopes that it would bind them together. Unfortunately, the power of community cannot be found in any physical edifice. No matter how sturdy the walls are, any society held together only by the brick and mortar of its buildings is foundationally weak. These buildings have no significance and no power unless the ties between the people within them are stronger than the mortar holding the bricks together. In separating the people and scattering them throughout the earth, God creates a stronger bond between the members of the new, smaller communities. From this point forward, they must work to understand one another because they are no longer able to blindly repeat the same words they hear from others. So, not only are the smaller communities strengthened and pulled together because of their sameness, but the groups of communities are strengthened and pulled together because of their differences and because of the added level of effort needed to establish and maintain those connections.
We are to find as much power in our similarities as we do in our differences. We are to build true and lasting relationships with other people, and not rely on artificial outer trappings to bind us together. It isn't the church or the synagogue or the mosque or the meeting house or any other building that's important. What's important are the people and the community we find within.
Anywho, for those of you who aren't Jewish, if you've guessed that Noach = Noah, you get a prize! If you are Jewish and you got it right... well, that really only proves that you didn't sleep through Hebrew school. I jest. Anywho, moving on.
My first thought whenever I read this portion is usually something like, "Wow... how awful must people have been to piss God off enough to wipe out all of humanity... and not just humanity, but the animals too!" My next thought is usually something to do with the fact that Noah is supposed to be the most righteous man in all the earth, yet the first thing he does when the flood waters finally recede is to get himself raging drunk. Serioiusly dude? I would have thought the whole wiping-every-living-being-from-the-face-of-the-earth thing would have made you shy away from immediate heinous debauchery. Ahhh, humanity!
I swear, I'm getting to something intellectual, but I thought I would have some fun first to try to wake up whatever audience I might have. That's right kids! You, too, can have fun with the Bible! Just ask me how!
Alright, alright, time for something a bit deeper. So, pinch yourself, take a sip of your coffee and let's find something to look a bit more closely at.
I thought about doing a comparison of the Noah story to the story of Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh Epic, but that seems to annoy people more than it interests them... besides, it's been done exhaustively. (Seriously, just Google Noah and Utnapishtim if you're interested. You can never have too much ancient Mesopotamian literature under your belt!)
Anyway, instead of focusing on the Noah story, I'd like to look closer to the end of the parashah for the story of the Tower of Babel. It seems like such an odd thing, randomly inserted into the text with no transition or explanation. It's only a few lines squunched in between an exhausting geneology.
1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4 They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."
5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.
One interesting thing about this story is that it seems to be an etiology for the existence of different languages in the world. For someone who interprets the Bible literally, up to this point there would have been only one language... and now, suddenly, a myriad of them are brought forth.
However, there has to be more to this story. For starters, an simple etiology doesn't really give me much I can use in my life today. And we always want Torah to be relevant to our daily lives because it's a living entity. On a slightly deeper level, this could be a story of what we have the power to do when we all work together. But then, why does this make God angry? If these people are working together in what seems to be a peaceful manner, why should that be a threat? So many times today I wish we could all work together. The people were working together to build a tower reaching into the skies (note that the Hebrew word שמים literally means "skies" and not the concept of an otherworldly Heaven as we think of today. But what's wrong with building a tall building?
Let's look specifically at Exodus 11:1. The NASB (New American Standard Bible... not usually what I use, but it's what's handy at the moment) translation reads this way, "Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words." In any free society, there will naturally be differences of thought and opinion among members of that society. People have different points of view and experiences to draw from in making decisions and forming opinions. However, in this verse the whole earth was using the same words! Not just that, but they somehow came to the conclusion that building a structure would bind them all together. God's lesson from this point of view is one which teaches us the value of community and of diversity.
We cannot simply mimic one another and build artificial connections in brick and mortar. We cannot expect a community in which there are no differing opinions (whether because of censorship or because of apathy and blindly following those in power) to be a strong and vibrant community! A certain degree of tension and differing thought within a society is necessary to provide the impetus for that society to continue to grow and develop. Societies which cease to learn, grow, and develop become stagnant and eventually disappear. We must continually learn and think and test our understanding of the things around us in order to appreciate them. We must learn to communicate and truly understand one another, not simply through parroting the thoughts of others, but by truly taking the time to understand their reasonings and how they arrive at their viewpoints. There is an extreme danger in blindly following others... when we do not take responsibility for having our own thoughts and actions, we too easily fall into the trap of losing our own sense of morality. The people in this story had already begun to lose a vital connection. They were building a tower in the hopes that it would bind them together. Unfortunately, the power of community cannot be found in any physical edifice. No matter how sturdy the walls are, any society held together only by the brick and mortar of its buildings is foundationally weak. These buildings have no significance and no power unless the ties between the people within them are stronger than the mortar holding the bricks together. In separating the people and scattering them throughout the earth, God creates a stronger bond between the members of the new, smaller communities. From this point forward, they must work to understand one another because they are no longer able to blindly repeat the same words they hear from others. So, not only are the smaller communities strengthened and pulled together because of their sameness, but the groups of communities are strengthened and pulled together because of their differences and because of the added level of effort needed to establish and maintain those connections.
We are to find as much power in our similarities as we do in our differences. We are to build true and lasting relationships with other people, and not rely on artificial outer trappings to bind us together. It isn't the church or the synagogue or the mosque or the meeting house or any other building that's important. What's important are the people and the community we find within.