Rosh Chodesh/Parshat Noach

Bereshit 6:9-11:32

By Charles A. Kroloff, Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

This is Noah's chronicle. Noah was a righteous man; in his generation, he was above reproach: Noah walked with God. - Genesis 6:9

Do you believe in second chances? According to the Torah, God does.

After the earth became corrupt and God determined "to wipe them (all flesh) off the earth" (Genesis 6:13), God gave Noah a heads up and told him to become maritime savvy and build an ark so that his family and the animals could start over.

After the flood, God established a covenant with the earth and every living creature (9:13-17).

It appeared, at least for the moment, the worst was over. The Torah lists the progeny of Noah who constitute a genealogical listing of the nations that were known to the Israelites at that time. Our parashah emphasizes that the nations were unified with one language.

But then things started to fall apart. The settlers of Shinar, an area of Babylonia that is northern Iraq today, undertook a building project.

They declared "Come, let us build a city with a tower that reaches the sky (v'rosho vashamayim)" (11:4). The tower may have resembled the ziggurats the Mesopotamians erected in their flood plains, towers that mimicked natural mountains.

Towers, in and of themselves, are not necessarily bad. But these were not simply towers built for some utilitarian or aesthetic purpose. These towers were motivated by an overweening, giant-size ambition. Their goal, declared the builders, was to "make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over all the earth!" (11:4). The midrash suggests that the builders intended nothing less than to ascend to heaven, set up idols as high as they could reach, and wage war with God.

They engaged in labor practices that would make Idi Amin squirm. And how did they treat the workers who built the tower? The midrash suggests that if a brick fell the builders were distraught. But if a human being fell, they hardly noticed. They were so focused on building that they would not allow a pregnant woman who was making bricks to stop in order to give birth. When the newborn arrived, they would place the baby in a sheet and tie it around her body while she continued to labor at her task (Louis Ginzburg, The Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzburg, [Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1954, Vol. 1, p. 179).

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