28 | JULY 18 • 2024
J
N
T
here is an old
saying that what
makes God laugh
is seeing our plans for the
future. However, if Tanach is
our guide, what makes God
laugh is human
delusions of
grandeur. From
the vantage
point of heaven,
the ultimate
absurdity is
when humans
start thinking of
themselves as godlike.
There are several pointed
examples in the Torah. One
whose full import has only
recently become clear occurs
in the story of the Tower of
Babel. Men gather together
in the plain of Shinar and
decide to build a city and
a tower “that will reach
to heaven.” As it happens,
we have archeological
confirmation of this fact.
Several Mesopotamian
ziggurats, including the
temple of Marduk in
Babylon, have been found
with inscriptions saying that
they reach heaven.
The idea was that tall
buildings — man-made
mountains — allowed
humans to climb to the
dwelling place of the gods
and thus communicate with
them.
The Mesopotamian city
states were among the first
places of civilization, itself
one of the turning points
in the history of human life
on earth. Before the birth
of agriculture, the ancients
lived in fear of nature: of
predators, of other tribes
and bands, and of the
vicissitudes of heat and cold,
drought and flood. Their fate
depended on matters beyond
their control.
Only with the spread of
domesticated animals and
agriculture did people gather
in towns, then cities, then
empires. A tipping point
occurred in the balance
of power between nature
and culture. For the first
time, humans were not
confined to adapting to their
environment. They could
adapt their environment
to suit them. At this point
they — especially the rulers
— began to see themselves
as gods, demigods or people
with the power to influence
the gods.
The most conspicuous
symbol of this was buildings
on a monumental scale:
the ziggurats of Babylon
and other Mesopotamian
cities, and the pyramids
of Egypt. Built on the flat
land of the Tigris-Euphrates
valley and the Nile delta,
they towered over their
surroundings. The great
pyramid of Giza, built even
before the birth of Abraham,
was so monumental that it
remained the tallest man-
made structure on Earth for
4,000 years.
The fact that these were
artificial mountains built by
human hands suggested to
their builders that humans
had acquired godlike powers.
They had constructed a
stairway to heaven. Hence
the significance of the phrase
in the Torah’s account of the
tower, “And the Lord came
down to see the city and the
tower, which the children of
man had built.” This is God
laughing. On Earth, humans
thought they had reached the
sky, but to God the building
was so infinitesimal, so
microscopic that he had to
come down even to see it.
Only with the invention of
flight do we now know how
small the tallest building
looks when you are looking
down from a mere 30,000
feet.
To end their hubris, God
simply “confused their
language.” They no longer
understood one another. The
entire project was turned
into French farce.
We can visualize the scene.
A foreman calls for a brick
and is handed a hammer. He
tells a worker to go right,
and he turns left. The project
foundered in a welter of
incomprehension.
Men thought they could
climb to heaven but, in the
end, they could not even
understand what the person
next to them was saying. The
unfinished tower became
a symbol of the inevitable
failure of vaunting ambition.
The builders achieved what
they sought but not in the
way they intended.
They wanted to “make a
name for themselves” and
they succeeded, but instead
of becoming a byword for
man’s ability to reach the
sky, Babel became babble, an
emblem of confusion. Hubris
became nemesis.
What Makes God Laugh
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH