Can We Just Talk?

Noach

Gen. 6:9-11:32

Précis: The story of Noah (Hebrew: Noach) and the Flood appear in this parasha. Noah, called by God, builds the Ark and collects the animals. It rains for forty days and nights. Noah and his family are saved, and afterward leave the Ark, build an altar, and make sacrifices to God. God sets a rainbow as a promise not to destroy mankind again. Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and becomes drunk. An odd incident with sexual overtones takes place with his sons. The story of the Tower of Babel is included in this parasha, and it ends with a genealogy of the ancient peoples of the Bible, concluding with Abram.

Gen. 11:1-9 “All the earth had the same language…and as man migrated from the east they settled in the valley… and they said, ‘let us make bricks….and let us build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered all over the earth.’ Adonai came down and said, ‘If, as one people with single voice this is how they have begun to act, then nothing will be out of their reach. Let us go down and confound their speech.’ Thus, Adonai scattered them across the face of the earth.”

            Our text does not provide a clear rationale for the scattering of the people nor for the loss of a common language. The Sages have proposed a host of explanations for Adonai’s actions: that humanity was wrong to challenge the supremacy of God, that they were presumptuously building a tower to prevent a repeat of the Flood, or that God punished them for failing to understand the reasons for the Flood.

            While the text is ambiguous as to cause, the result is clear and specific: the people’s “speech is impeded.” They lost the ability to communicate with each other and began to speak in their own individual languages, and were spread all over the globe.

            I don’t think that it a great leap from this text to the current status of American politics. It seems we have developed narrower and narrower groups who “speak the same language,” and that we have lost the ability to communicate with each other. People on both ends of the spectrum scratch their heads and say “How can they possibly believe that?” We no longer seem to be able to accept common facts, let alone disparate opinions.

            The destruction of the tower and the confounding of speech meant, for that time and place, the end of civilization. A new civilization would be needed, and 10 generations later, its progenitor, Abram, was born. In our time, the loss of the ability to communicate poses a real threat to our American civilization, which can be averted only by a restoration of civility and mutual communication. May it come in our time, and may it come in time.