spirit
torah portion
Unity In Communication
$75 Subscriptions
to Celebrate Our
75th Year!
W
Call to Subscribe: 248-351-5120
Starring
DEBORAH COX
Deborah Cox is not scheduled to perform at the Sat. matinee & Sun. evening performances
BroadwayInDetroit.com,
WLFNHWPDVWHUFRPER[RI¼FH*URXSV
*URXSV#%URDGZD\,Q'HWURLWFRPRU 30-DQ
36
October 19 • 2017
jn
7KH%RG\JXDUG 8. /WG'HVLJQHGE\'HZ\QWHUV
This offer is only valid during the month of October.
hat is the connection
between Adam’s existen-
tial state of aloneness
and the tragic social isolation that
results from the Tower of Babel,
when one universal language is
replaced by 70 languages, leading to
bedlam, confusion and dispersion?
Let us return to the story of cre-
ation and God’s declaration: “It
is not good for man to be alone. I
will make a help-opposite for him.”
(Genesis 2:18).”
God divided a creature
but social. People wanted
into two so that each half
to create a great name by
would seek completion
building great towers, not for
in the other. Had Eve not
the sake of Heaven, but for
emerged from Adam’s own
the sake of materialism; the
flesh to begin with, they
new god became splendid
could never have become
achievements with mortar
one flesh again.
and brick. As they reached
One of the goals of a
greater physical heights, they
Rabbi Shlomo
human being is to become Riskin
forgot the human, interper-
one flesh with another
sonal value of a friend, a wife,
human being, and this,
a life’s partner. According to
the truest of partnerships,
the Midrash, when a person
can only be achieved with
fell off the Tower, work con-
someone who is really part of your-
tinued; but if a brick crashed to the
self, only with someone to whom
ground, people mourned.
you cleave intellectually and emo-
Thus the total breakdown of lan-
tionally. If a relationship suffers from guage fits the crime of people who
a lack of concern and commitment,
may be physically alive, but whose
then sexuality suffers as well.
tongues and hearts are locked
The first global catastrophe, the
— people who are no longer com-
flood, struck when the world reject-
municating with each other. It was
ed the ideal relationship between
no longer possible for two people
man and woman. Rape, pillage and
to become one flesh and one bone,
unbridled lust became the norm.
to stand naked without shame.
Only one family on Earth, Noah’s,
Existential loneliness engulfed the
remained righteous. Now, with the
world and intercommunication was
Tower of Babel, whatever values
forgotten. The powerful idea of one
Noah attempted to transmit to
language became a vague memory.
future generations were forgotten.
The Tower of Babel ended an era
What exactly happened when one in the history of mankind, and the
language became 70 is difficult to
social destruction it left behind
understand. Yet, metaphorically, one could only be fixed by Abraham. His
language means people understand
message of a God of compassion
each other. With their existential
who wishes to unite the world in
and social loneliness kept at bay,
love and morality is still waiting to
they become one in love and in
be heard. •
progeny.
The Tower of Babel represents a
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah
Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.
new stage of depravity, not sexual,
Parshat Noach:
Genesis 6:9-11:32;
Isaiah 66:1-24.
(Shabbat Rosh
Chodesh)