Two Minute Torah Podcast

Noach 5768 by Rabbi Elyse Winick

Parashat Noah offers two epic stories of crime and punishment, as God seeks to perfect Divine creation. Each of these stories has iconic status in the Judeo-Christian tradition. We all know that the animals went two by two (actually, the kosher animals went seven by seven) and that the rainbow was a sign from heaven the world would never go dark. Similarly, we know that the next generation tried to ascend to heaven by building a tower into the sky, only to suffer a breakdown in communication when each awoke to babble in a separate language.

The Torah’s backdrop to the story of Migdal Bavel, the Tower of Babel, is that Vayehi kol ha’aretz safah ahat u’d’varim ahadim. Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. That common language is what enabled them to join together to build the megalopolis that was Bavel, with the tower as its crowning achievement. That the Torah uses the word safah rather than lashon to refer to language is intriguing. The Mei HaShiloah, a 19^th century Torah commentator, pointed out that our association with the word lashon is lashon hakodesh, sacred language, most often Hebrew. That the text fails to identify their language as lashon here from the outset is telling. Though the words were the same, deep in their hearts, each was already speaking a different language. Their goals were not as universal as the words they spoke. They had already sacrificed the sanctity of what they had in common in their quest for glory.

For us, this distinction between common language and sacred intent is particularly compelling. We’re so accustomed to communicating with faceless words, we’ve lost touch with the sanctity of human relationship. Mussar, a 19^th century movement with a focus on ethics and morality, suggested that if we actually look, we can see the trace of God’s presence on every face we encounter. When only the words lie between us, no face and not even a voice, it’s so very easy to forget that the trace of God’s presence is on the other side.

The division of language experienced by the builders of Babel was a concrete reflection of their fractured souls. We, however, have the power to rise above linguistic diversity and restore to our discourse the deep sanctity which words alone can never capture.