Parshas Noach (5779)
True stories? C’mon, Rabbi, you don’t really expect us to believe that silly Bible story (mentioned at the end of this week’s Torah portion, Parshas Noach) about these guys who come together in one place with the aim of building a tower so high that they can reach Heaven and take over the world!
And how about the Biblical tale about Noah’s Ark and the Flood? Are we really to take these fanciful stories that we first heard way back in Hebrew School seriously, as if they were G-d’s truth?
The answer, of course, is a big fat yes. Yes we are to take these true Bible stories very seriously and to study them and to hear their message and how they connect to our own lives.
The problem is not with the stories – they are not silly at all, G-d forbid. In fact, these seemingly trivial Bible stories have been read and studied in depth over the centuries and millennia by some of the wisest men to have ever walked the planet.
The problem is with us. You see, many of us were first exposed to these Bible stories in kindergarten, but, tragically, we are still reading them today on the same level that we first heard them. So it’s no wonder that we think that they’re silly.
That’s not the way G-d wants us to learn His Torah. Rather, each new year when we repeat the Torah portion and its many stories over again, we will hopefully have grown from the previous year and will be able to understand and appreciate these stories on a higher and more mature level.
This approach to studying the Torah as we repeat it and all its stories each year, is reflected in the Hebrew word for ‘year’, shanah. Shanah is related to shoneh(repeat) and shinui (change). This means that each new shanah, even as we are shoneh the Torah, there is still a shinui, because we ourselves will have changed, and can now understand the Torah on a deeper level.
By way of illustration, let’s use the Bible story of the Tower of Babel that we mentioned previously (see Genesis 11:1-9).
Obviously, as little children, we were told a story about these men who attempt to build a tower to reach Heaven and take over the world.
But that is silly – because you can’t reach Heaven with a tower, no matter how high you try to build it – and they knew that too.
When we get older and more mature, we begin to appreciate and understand that this story has to with idolatry and some sort of rebellion against G-d. As the Talmud teaches in Sanhedrin 109a: “The entire generation of the Dispersion (all the men who attempted to build the Tower of Babel and unite against G-d and who were ultimately dispersed by G-d) all had idolatry in mindâ€.
There are other more “rational†explanations offered by the various Bible commentators as to what the builders of the Tower of Babel had in mind. Here are a few of them:
1) Rabbeinu Bachye (1255-1340) writes in his commentary to the Bible that the builders of the Tower of Babel were scared that G-d might attack them with fire just as He had previously destroyed the world with water in the great Flood. So they attempted to build a tower which would serve as some kind of primitive “lightning rod†that would “attract†the fire away from them and protect them in case such an attack occurred.
2) Rabbi Yehonasan Eyebeschutz (1690 – 1764) offers a novel explanation of what this Tower of Babel was all about. He writes in his Bible commentary Tiferes Yehonasan that they built this tall tower in an attempt to rise above the earth’s atmosphere and its gravitational pull. This way they could then “float†in a spaceship all the way to the Moon where they would then be safe from another Flood!
3) Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (1816 – 1893), commonly known by the acronym Netziv, writes in his Bible commentary Ha’amek Davar that the builders of the Tower of Babel wanted to create an Orwellian state in which “Big Brother†would sit in the high tower and watch over everything that was being done below.
4) Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437–1508) explains that the intent of the builders of the Tower was that people should all live together in cities and that civilization should be developed using all of the world’s natural resources. This was not what G-d had in mind for the earth’s inhabitants. He had intended for people to farm the land in an agrarian society, living a more peaceful and tranquil existence – and without all the problems that usually come with cities and the development of civilization.
These are just a few of the many interesting explanations that are offered by the various commentators as to the intent of the builders of the Tower of Babel.
The main point is to show that this true Bible story – as all the others mentioned in the Bible – has more depth than you might have thought otherwise.
I would like to make a humble suggestion. Click on the website Torah.org https://torah.org/parsha/
I am 100% certain that you will soon see the remarkable depth and wisdom in each and every Bible story. Happy Reading!
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=534