Noach: the Dispersion

סידור אשכנז, ימי חול, תפילת שחרית, הכנה לתפילה, ברכות התורה א׳

(א) בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּ֒שָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה:

Siddur Ashkenaz, Weekday, Shacharit, Preparatory Prayers, Torah Blessings 1

(1) Blessed are You, Adonoy our God, King of the Universe, Who sanctified¹The observance and fulfillment of His commandments makes a person holy. us with His commandments and commanded us to be engrossed in the words of Torah.

בראשית י״א:א׳-ט׳

וַֽיְהִ֥י כָל־הָאָ֖רֶץ שָׂפָ֣ה אֶחָ֑ת וּדְבָרִ֖ים אֲחָדִֽים׃ וַֽיְהִ֖י בְּנָסְעָ֣ם מִקֶּ֑דֶם וַֽיִּמְצְא֥וּ בִקְעָ֛ה בְּאֶ֥רֶץ שִׁנְעָ֖ר וַיֵּ֥שְׁבוּ שָֽׁם׃ וַיֹּאמְר֞וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵ֗הוּ הָ֚בָה נִלְבְּנָ֣ה לְבֵנִ֔ים וְנִשְׂרְפָ֖ה לִשְׂרֵפָ֑ה וַתְּהִ֨י לָהֶ֤ם הַלְּבֵנָה֙ לְאָ֔בֶן וְהַ֣חֵמָ֔ר הָיָ֥ה לָהֶ֖ם לַחֹֽמֶר׃ וַיֹּאמְר֞וּ הָ֣בָה ׀ נִבְנֶה־לָּ֣נוּ עִ֗יר וּמִגְדָּל֙ וְרֹאשׁ֣וֹ בַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וְנַֽעֲשֶׂה־לָּ֖נוּ שֵׁ֑ם פֶּן־נָפ֖וּץ עַל־פְּנֵ֥י כָל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ וַיֵּ֣רֶד יְהוָ֔ה לִרְאֹ֥ת אֶת־הָעִ֖יר וְאֶת־הַמִּגְדָּ֑ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּנ֖וּ בְּנֵ֥י הָאָדָֽם׃ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהוָ֗ה הֵ֣ן עַ֤ם אֶחָד֙ וְשָׂפָ֤ה אַחַת֙ לְכֻלָּ֔ם וְזֶ֖ה הַחִלָּ֣ם לַעֲשׂ֑וֹת וְעַתָּה֙ לֹֽא־יִבָּצֵ֣ר מֵהֶ֔ם כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָזְמ֖וּ לַֽעֲשֽׂוֹת׃ הָ֚בָה נֵֽרְדָ֔ה וְנָבְלָ֥ה שָׁ֖ם שְׂפָתָ֑ם אֲשֶׁר֙ לֹ֣א יִשְׁמְע֔וּ אִ֖ישׁ שְׂפַ֥ת רֵעֵֽהוּ׃ וַיָּ֨פֶץ יְהוָ֥ה אֹתָ֛ם מִשָּׁ֖ם עַל־פְּנֵ֣י כָל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַֽיַּחְדְּל֖וּ לִבְנֹ֥ת הָעִֽיר׃ עַל־כֵּ֞ן קָרָ֤א שְׁמָהּ֙ בָּבֶ֔ל כִּי־שָׁ֛ם בָּלַ֥ל יְהוָ֖ה שְׂפַ֣ת כָּל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וּמִשָּׁם֙ הֱפִיצָ֣ם יְהוָ֔ה עַל־פְּנֵ֖י כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ (פ)

Genesis 11:1-9

Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them hard.”—Brick served them as stone, and bitumen served them as mortar.— And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.” Hashem came down to look at the city and tower that man had built, and Hashem said, “If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.” Thus Hashem scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there Hashem confounded the speech of the whole earth; and from there Hashem scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

רש"י על בראשית י״א:ט׳:א׳

ומשם הפיצם. לִמֵּד שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא; וְכִי אֵיזוֹ קָשָׁה, שֶׁל דּוֹר הַמַּבּוּל אוֹ שֶׁל דּוֹר הַפַּלָּגָה? אֵלּוּ לֹא פָשְׁטוּ יָד בָּעִקָּר וְאֵלּוּ פָשְׁטוּ יָד בָּעִקָּר לְהִלָּחֵם בּוֹ, וְאֵלּוּ נִשְׁטְפוּ וְאֵלּוּ לֹא נֶאֱבְדוּ מִן הָעוֹלָם? אֶלָּא שֶׁדּוֹר הַמַּבּוּל הָיוּ גַּזְלָנִים וְהָיְתָה מְרִיבָה בֵינֵיהֶם, לְכָךְ נֶאֱבְדוּ; וְאֵלּוּ הָיוּ נוֹהֲגִים אַהֲבָה וְרֵעוּת בֵּינֵיהֶם, שֶׁנֶּ' שָׂפָה אֶחָת וּדְבָרִים אֲחָדִים, לָמַדְתָּ שֶׁשָּׂנְאוּי הַמַּחֲלֹקֶת וְגָדוֹל הַשָּׁלֹום:

Rashi on Genesis 11:9:1

ומשם הפיצם AND FROM THENCE DID Hashem SCATTER THEM —This teaches that they have no portion in the world to come (Sanhedrin 107b). Which sin was greater: that of the generation of the Flood or that of the generation of the Dispersion? The former did not stretch forth their hands against God; the latter did stretch forth their hands against God to war against him (surely, then, the sin of the generation of the Dispersion was greater) and yet the former (the generation of the Flood) were drowned and these did not perish from the world! But the reason is that the generation of the Flood were violent robbers and there was strife among them, and therefore they were destroyed; but these conducted themselves in love and friendship, as it is said, “They were one people and had one language”. — You may learn from this how hateful to God is strife and how great is peace (Genesis Rabbah 38:6).

סנהדרין ק״ט א:ד׳-ה׳

דור הפלגה אין להם חלק לעולם הבא וכו': מאי עבוד אמרי דבי רבי שילא נבנה מגדל ונעלה לרקיע ונכה אותו בקרדומות כדי שיזובו מימיו מחכו עלה במערבא א"כ ליבנו אחד בטורא (אלא) א"ר ירמיה בר אלעזר נחלקו לג' כיתות אחת אומרת נעלה ונשב שם ואחת אומרת נעלה ונעבוד עבודת כוכבים ואחת אומרת נעלה ונעשה מלחמה זו שאומרת נעלה ונשב שם הפיצם ה' וזו שאומרת נעלה ונעשה מלחמה נעשו קופים ורוחות ושידים ולילין וזו שאומרת נעלה ונעבוד עבודת כוכבים (בראשית יא, ט) כי שם בלל ה' שפת כל הארץ

Sanhedrin 109a:4-5

§ The mishna teaches that the members of the generation of the dispersion have no share in the World-to-Come. The Gemara asks: What sin did they perform? Their sin is not explicitly delineated in the Torah. The school of Rabbi Sheila say that the builders of the Tower of Babel said: We will build a tower and ascend to heaven, and we will strike it with axes so that its waters will flow. They laughed at this explanation in the West, Eretz Yisrael, and asked: If that was their objective, let them build a tower on a mountain; why did they build it specifically in a valley (see Genesis 11:2)? Rather, Rabbi Yirmeya bar Elazar says: They divided into three factions; one said: Let us ascend to the top of the tower and dwell there. And one said: Let us ascend to the top of the tower and engage in idol worship. And one said: Let us ascend to the top of the tower and wage war. With regard to that faction that said: Let us ascend to the top of the tower and dwell there, God dispersed them. And that faction that said: Let us ascend to the top of the tower and wage war, became apes, and spirits, and demons, and female demons. And with regard to that faction that said: Let us ascend to the top of the tower and engage in idol wor-ship, it is written: “Because there the Lord confounded the language of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9).

פרקי דרבי אליעזר כ״ד:ו׳

רבי פנחס אומר לא היו שם אבנים לבנות את העיר ואת המגדל מה היו עושין היו מלבנים לבנים ושורפין אותן כיוצר חרש עד שבנו אותו גבוה שבעים מיל ומעלות היו לו ממזרחו וממערבו אלו שהיו מעלין את הלבנים היו עולים ממזרחו ואלו שהיו יורדין היו יורדין ממערבו ואם נפל אדם ומת לא שמי' את לבם עליו ואם נפלה לבנה אחת היו יושבין ובוכין ואומרין אוי לנו אימתי תעלה אחרת תחתיה.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 24:6

Rabbi Phineas said: There were no stones there where-with to build the city and the tower. What did they do? They baked bricks and burnt them like a builder (would do), until they built it seven mils high, and it had ascents on its east and west. (The labourers) who took up the bricks went up on the eastern (ascent), and those who descended went down on the western (descent). If a man fell and died they paid no heed to him, but if a brick fell they || sat down and wept, and said: Woe is us ! when will another one come in its stead?

ספורנו על בראשית י״א:ה׳:א׳

וירד ה' לראות הנה ל' הירידה לראות יאמר על האל ית' כשאין הענין אז ראוי לעונש אלא מפני הקלקול הנמשך אליו בסוף הענין כבן סורר ומורה שאמרו ירדה תורה לסוף דעתו. וכן היה ענין סדום שכתב בו ארדה נא ואראה. כי אמנם לא היה רשעם אז יותר משאר העו''ג כדי לענשם בעולם הזה זולתי בענין האכזריות נגד עניי עם שהיה נמשך ממנו קלקול גמור בסוף כאמרו הנה זה הי' עון סדום אחותך ויד עני ואביון לא החזיקה וכן היה עונש ישראל בהגלותם כאמרו אראה מה אחריתם:

Sforno on Genesis 11:5:1

וירד ה' לראות, The Torah uses the expression “G’d descended to see, etc.,” only when the sins committed by the people concerned were not yet ripe for severe punishment but would become so if left unchecked. Retribution which results from G’d “descending,” must be viewed as a kind of preventive medicine, designed to avoid the need for more drastic action at a later stage. One well known example of G’d’s preventive retribution is the בן סורר ומורה, a thirteen year old who stole a little meat and wine from his parents, and whose punishment is execution if the parents brought him to court as an unmanageable teenager (Deut. 21,18, see Rashi, and Sanhedrin 72 on this). In the case of Sodom, where G’d is also reported as “descending,” (Genesis 18,21) this also occurred at a time when their sin had not yet been greater than that of other surrounding nations, so that only these cities had to be singled out for punishment at that time. What distinguished the Sodomites was only the cruelty with which they committed the same kind of sins as those committed by other nations. This would eventually have led to such a corrupt world that the need for G’d to intervene on a global rather than a local basis, would have become unavoidable. Ezekiel 16,49 also describes the sin of the Sodomites in such terms when he wrote הנה זה היה עון סדום אחותך...ויד עני ואביון לא החזיקה”This was the sin of Sodom your sister…..but the hand of the poor and the needy she did not support.” Similarly, the punishment of the Israelites when they were exiled was brought forward out of concern that something worse might become their fate if G’d did not intervene at that time and exile them so that He would not eventually have to punish them even more harshly. (Deut 32,20) “I can see what would be their ultimate end.”

ספורנו על בראשית י״א:ו׳:א׳

הן עם אחד כי אמנם הבטול המפר עצות ומניא מחשבות הוא המחלוקת הקורה אם לסבת הדתות ואם לסבת הלשונות. והנה אלה היו עם אחד בענין הדת כי היו כלם מסכימים בדעת אנשי הצא''בה ועם זה היה כלם מסכימים בלשון:

Sforno on Genesis 11:6:1

הן עם אחד, the only way I can stop them from carrying out their unanimously approved plan is to sow the seeds of discord between them. The instrument of bringing this about is to confuse their language. Basically, people’s disagreements are either religious, (philosophical) in nature, or they result from misunderstanding what they mean when they speak. These people had been of one mind in matters of religion, seeing that they had all agreed with the mistaken idolatrous philosophy shared by mankind at that time. In spite of such apparently good reasons for disagreeing with one another, they did not misunderstand each other.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, "Noah", from http://www.rabbishefagold.com/noah/
THE PORTION OF NOAH BLESSES US WITH YET ANOTHER RAINBOW: the story of the tower of Babel. The tower of our arrogant singular purpose topples and we are given the rainbow of diversity in its place. As we seek to touch the Unity (prompted by a hunger for mastery or control), we are answered with multiplicity. We are sent on the rainbow journey to acknowledge every shade of experience, to recognize the whole spectrum of what it means to be human. We are blessed with complex beauty, confounding paradox, and the opportunity to know and enjoy all the separate colors that together form the magnificent white Light of the One.