Sermon summary:
In the Tower of Babel story, God takes Babylonia and turns it into Yugoslavia, balkanizing it into enemy tribes with different languages and competing agendas. At the Tower of Babel, God invents war.
God does not take the sins of Babel lightly, refusing to pronounce the sentence on the perpetrators until witnessing the damage first hand. Gen. 11:5 Vayered Adonai lirot et ha’ir. “And Adonai comes down to see the city.” Midrash Tanhuma asks why. And the response? To teach us not to judge until we have surveyed a crime scene with our own eyes.
Ah, what a perfect lesson for this week! Even God would not pass judgment at the Tower of Babel as quickly as the New York Times, AP and BBC passed judgment on Israel after the unfortunate explosion at that hospital in Gaza.
Even God needed to acknowledge that the babble of mixed up communications and conflicting technologies all needed to be sorted out before meting out consequences.
So this Midrash is telling us that we have to see the damage with our own eyes before we take action, otherwise risking the unintended consequences of setting the stage for an uncontrollable conflagration – and sure enough, the entire Middle East blew up because of the spreading of this modern day blood libel.
Finally, this Torah portion also demonstrates that words matter and the truth is fragile. Noah is instructed: U’vata el ha’tevah atah u’vanekha v’ishtekha. “Enter the ark, with your sons and your wife.” (Gen. 6:18).
The Hasidic master Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, stated the deeper intent of the verse, noting that the word tayva means both ark and word.
Just as the ark floats precariously on the waters of the flood, so do our words, and so does truth. If anyone should know this, it’s the professionals whose very task is the find the right words and to make sure they are right.
Because the N.Y. Times and others did not, a chance for President Biden to meet face to face with Israel’s neighbors was squandered. People may die because of that huge rush to judgment. It is quite possible that people already have.
We pray that God reverse the curse of Babel. Before it is too late.
Lessons from Noah, Babel and Gaza