Question: I am confused by these following verses in Parasha Noah: G-d descended to see the city and the tower, which the children of men had built. G-d said: “Behold, they are a single people, all having one language, and this is the first thing they do! Now nothing they plan to do will be unattainable for them! Come, let us descend and confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.? Was God jealous of we being single people and one language? Was He afraid of our plans / actions? Why did God not try to deter or warn the people? What was the idea behind confounding the language? Why did God attack the speech which He had bestowed only to man and to no other creature on the planet? Was there no other way of punishing the people after the flood? What was so bad about building a tower of Babel? If God could have shown His power by destroying it, why did God do this miracle of confusing the language of the people? So does it mean to say that Hashem in a way intervened and the people of that generation lost the choice of ‘free will’ as God imposed and put different languages in their mouths. Am I correct? Kindly clarify

Answer:  Here is my understanding of the episode of the Tower of Babel: First, I believe we need to take a step back and examine the episode of the Tower in context of the entire Portion of Noach, in which it appears. Noach is book-ended by two seminal events: The flood and the Tower. Although at first glance, these two events appear unrelated, I believe they are very much related, and inform us about what God desires from a society and ultimately, how we are to behave within society. Let’s take a look at both episodes and understand what tell us about our obligations within society and the world at large: The Torah lets us know why the people at the time of the flood were punished: people did not respect each other. They stole from one another and generally, there was anarchy in the society. Everyone did their own thing without care of concern for another. Clearly, this is not what God wants from the world, and so He had to start over with the flood. That part is, I believe, the easy part. We can completely understand the evil of the generation of the flood.

Now, let’s turn to the episode of the Tower, which is more difficult to understand. Why were the people punished so severely? What did they do wrong? Various Rabbinic sources and commentaries offer suggestions for their crimes (especially idol worship), but at the end of the day, we cannot escape the plain meaning of the verses. The Torah clearly states that the reason God punished the builders of the Tower was because they were “one people, of one language and one speech.” That explanation seems to magnify the question. What’s so bad about that?

That seems like a wonderful thing, doesn’t it. Everyone is on the same page, speaking the same words, thinking the same thing. Isn’t that what God wants from us and society?

The answer is a resounding NO! God does not want us all to think the same thing. That’s not the intent of the creation of the world. We were all created differently, with different thought patterns, with different talents. We are intended to all think the same way, do the same thing, behave the same way. That is not what God wants. God wants us to develop our own talents, our own way of doing things. We each have a different way of related to the world, and ultimately to God.

If we are not developing our own inner self, we are corrupting the design of the universe. The generation of the tower went to the opposite extreme in trying to rectify the sins of the generation of the flood: instead of anarchy, there was complete rigidity and conformity in society. Neither are what God desired for His creation.

What God truly desires is the middle ground between the generation of the flood and the generation of the Tower. We are enjoined to develop our own souls, find our own path to God—no two people are the same.

At the same time, we must respect and appreciate every person’s talents and differences. We cannot live within our own little bubble, expelling other people who are not like us. Its a very difficult balance, and it’s very easy to sway to one extreme or the other.

Now, I believe we can better understand the episode of the tower of the babel. The fact that the generation of the tower all spoke the same way and thought the same was an indication of something very wrong with their society, a very real breakdown in the very fabric and uniqueness of the individual. Not allowing the individual to develop his own way, his own talents and thoughts is an indication of a distortion of the world God desires. This distortion leads to all the evils described by the Rabbinic sources and commentaries. Something has gone awry, something has gone wrong in God’s world. Given the state of the world at the time of the tower, people will not be able to develop their own talents, think their own thoughts, develop their own path to God. This reality would completely subvert the entire purpose of creation. As such, God “had” to intervene to set the world back on track. God “had” to modify the direction of the world so that its original intent could be fulfilled. Therefore, God changed the language of the people so that each individual would now be respected as an individual and allowed to develop on his own, as opposed to forced to think a certain way and behave in a certain way. Confusing speech and language was the only way to allow humanity to develop different thoughts and patterns. This intervention allowed humanity to resume its its mission and purpose of creation.

Although I have not answered each of your questions individually, I believe this explanation does address them.

Be well,
Rabbi Yoel Spotts