stillsmallvoice
October 28th 2003, 11:45 AM
Hi all1
This coming Saturday we (Jews all over the world, see <http://www.jewfaq.org/readings.htm>) will read Genesis 6:9-11:32. This reading includes the account of the Tower of Babel. Genesis 11:1-3 tells us:
"And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar."
I quote from the late Prof. Nehama Leibovitz's "Studies in Genesis" (<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9995376849/qid=1067351134/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0799127-5943022?v=glance&s=books#product-details>):
_____
"Benno Jacob in his commentary to Genesis points out that the Torah demonstrates to us in this verse how technical advances freed man from the fetters of his natural environment, enabled him to overcome natural difficulties. Through his inventive genius, man manages even in a lowland region, in a plain where there is no natural building material such as stone, to create artificially the brick made from the clay which is available in the valley, and turn it into a good strong building material through burning.
(...)
But demoralization sets in very quickly. This technical mastery gives rise to overweening pride and self-confidence. Does it say there, "Let us build for ourselves a house as refuge from the rain"? Or "Let us build for ourselves cities for our little ones and folds for our flocks"? On the contrary, the achievements of human skill are transformed from being a means, to an end in themselves. Man who has the power to reach these technical heights soon imagines that he is all-powerful. What does the Torah record? "And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" Gigantic buildings, pyramids, marble monuments, impressive squares have always served as the means by which a great dictator has wished to perpetuate and aggrandize his name, likening himself to a god, overcoming through them his feelings of inferiority and through them trying to transcend the inescapable fact of his mortality.
The purpose of these awe-inspiring monuments erected by the technical skill of man is to make man forget his insignificance and transientness, delude him with their greatness and "immortality," in short make for himself a name. The transformation of technical skill from a means to an end, from serving human needs to becoming a purpose and aim itself for its author, is vividly portrayed in the Midrash [i.e. a rabbinical tradition or homily designed to teach a moral lesson]:
"The bricks were hauled up from one side, the descent was on the other. If a man fell down and died, no attention was paid to him, but if a brick fell down, they would sit and weep and say 'Woe is us! When will another be hauled up in its place?"
The late Prof. Umberto Cassuto in his commentary to Genesis entitled 'From Noah to Abraham' points out that no story or literary parallel similar to that of the Tower of Babel recorded in Genesis 11, is to be found in the whole of ancient Babylonian and Near East literature, as far as is known to modern research: 'But this lack of parallels to the biblical account is no cause for surprise. It was impossible for such parallels to be found among neighboring peoples since the narrative essentially represents a protest against the outlook and ideas of these people...The whole theme is diametrically opposed...and we have here a kind of satire on what appeared to be a thing of beauty in the eyes of the Babylonians.'
(...).
Beginning with Genesis 11:5, we are shown how God frustrates their designs, the turning of the tables on the rebels being mirrored in the very wording of the text...11th century Rabbi Tobias b. Eliezer notes: "They said, 'Come, let us build us a city...' And God said: 'Come, let us go down, and there confound...' They said: 'lest we be scattered abroad...' God 'scattered them abroad'."
The story of the building of the Tower of Babel has a timeless application. Not only in ancient times and in one particular generation has man striven to build a tower with its top in heaven, but in every age whenever technical achievements reach new heights of perfection we witness a repetition of that which is depicted in the Midrash: ' If a man fell down and died, no attention was paid to him, but if a brick fell down, they would sit and weep and say 'Woe is us! When will another be hauled up in its place?'
(...).
Only when there will be an end of idolatry, that is, man's pride which takes advantage of the wisdom implanted in him by God in order to turn himself into a deity and worship the work of his own hands (see Isaiah 2:8, "...every one worships the work of his own hands, that which his own fingers have made"), only when all his greatness, glory and strength have been brought low, only then shall we reach the day when according to the Prophet Zephaniah (3:9), in alluding to the story of the Babel of tongues, when no man understood the speech of his neighbor - "For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent."
_____
Be well!
ssv :hi:
This coming Saturday we (Jews all over the world, see <http://www.jewfaq.org/readings.htm>) will read Genesis 6:9-11:32. This reading includes the account of the Tower of Babel. Genesis 11:1-3 tells us:
"And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar."
I quote from the late Prof. Nehama Leibovitz's "Studies in Genesis" (<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9995376849/qid=1067351134/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0799127-5943022?v=glance&s=books#product-details>):
_____
"Benno Jacob in his commentary to Genesis points out that the Torah demonstrates to us in this verse how technical advances freed man from the fetters of his natural environment, enabled him to overcome natural difficulties. Through his inventive genius, man manages even in a lowland region, in a plain where there is no natural building material such as stone, to create artificially the brick made from the clay which is available in the valley, and turn it into a good strong building material through burning.
(...)
But demoralization sets in very quickly. This technical mastery gives rise to overweening pride and self-confidence. Does it say there, "Let us build for ourselves a house as refuge from the rain"? Or "Let us build for ourselves cities for our little ones and folds for our flocks"? On the contrary, the achievements of human skill are transformed from being a means, to an end in themselves. Man who has the power to reach these technical heights soon imagines that he is all-powerful. What does the Torah record? "And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" Gigantic buildings, pyramids, marble monuments, impressive squares have always served as the means by which a great dictator has wished to perpetuate and aggrandize his name, likening himself to a god, overcoming through them his feelings of inferiority and through them trying to transcend the inescapable fact of his mortality.
The purpose of these awe-inspiring monuments erected by the technical skill of man is to make man forget his insignificance and transientness, delude him with their greatness and "immortality," in short make for himself a name. The transformation of technical skill from a means to an end, from serving human needs to becoming a purpose and aim itself for its author, is vividly portrayed in the Midrash [i.e. a rabbinical tradition or homily designed to teach a moral lesson]:
"The bricks were hauled up from one side, the descent was on the other. If a man fell down and died, no attention was paid to him, but if a brick fell down, they would sit and weep and say 'Woe is us! When will another be hauled up in its place?"
The late Prof. Umberto Cassuto in his commentary to Genesis entitled 'From Noah to Abraham' points out that no story or literary parallel similar to that of the Tower of Babel recorded in Genesis 11, is to be found in the whole of ancient Babylonian and Near East literature, as far as is known to modern research: 'But this lack of parallels to the biblical account is no cause for surprise. It was impossible for such parallels to be found among neighboring peoples since the narrative essentially represents a protest against the outlook and ideas of these people...The whole theme is diametrically opposed...and we have here a kind of satire on what appeared to be a thing of beauty in the eyes of the Babylonians.'
(...).
Beginning with Genesis 11:5, we are shown how God frustrates their designs, the turning of the tables on the rebels being mirrored in the very wording of the text...11th century Rabbi Tobias b. Eliezer notes: "They said, 'Come, let us build us a city...' And God said: 'Come, let us go down, and there confound...' They said: 'lest we be scattered abroad...' God 'scattered them abroad'."
The story of the building of the Tower of Babel has a timeless application. Not only in ancient times and in one particular generation has man striven to build a tower with its top in heaven, but in every age whenever technical achievements reach new heights of perfection we witness a repetition of that which is depicted in the Midrash: ' If a man fell down and died, no attention was paid to him, but if a brick fell down, they would sit and weep and say 'Woe is us! When will another be hauled up in its place?'
(...).
Only when there will be an end of idolatry, that is, man's pride which takes advantage of the wisdom implanted in him by God in order to turn himself into a deity and worship the work of his own hands (see Isaiah 2:8, "...every one worships the work of his own hands, that which his own fingers have made"), only when all his greatness, glory and strength have been brought low, only then shall we reach the day when according to the Prophet Zephaniah (3:9), in alluding to the story of the Babel of tongues, when no man understood the speech of his neighbor - "For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent."
_____
Be well!
ssv :hi: