If you鈥檙e paying attention to the upcoming movie line-up, you鈥檒l know that is opening in theatres on March 28th. From the movie-trailer I can see that this isn鈥檛 going to be a light-hearted childhood story with the animals going two-by-two into the ark. I get the sense that we鈥檙e going to see a dark and gritty depiction of why G-d wanted to wipe out all living things and start again with a select group of humans and animals.
I鈥檓 looking forward to seeing this movie; and, if it鈥檚 a success I hope they follow-up it up with a movie version of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:4-9), which follows shortly after the story of Noah and the flood narrative (Genesis 6鈥�9). These stories are read together every year in synagogues around the world in the Torah portion Parsha Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32).
Although it is only 5 short verses, the results of the Tower of Babel changed the course of humanity. In summary, after the flood the descendants of Noah formed seventy nations. They all spoke the same language and they all had a common purpose. They decided to build a tower that would reach into the heavens.
In Judaism, we believe our purpose is Tikkun Olam, literally to repair or heal the world. When the people set about to build the tower, they were not focusing their activities in the right direction and suffered the consequences.
In Genesis 6-9 we read:
And the Lord said,鈥� " Come, let us descend and confuse their language, so that one will not understand the language of his companion." And the Lord scattered them from there upon the face of the entire earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore, He named it Babel, for there the Lord confused the language of the entire earth, and from there the Lord scattered them upon the face of the entire earth. ()
As a child, I learned that this was the reason we have so many languages all around the world; and, I imagined what it would be like to be talking with someone and suddenly be unable to understand them because they would be speaking gibberish.
But as an adult, I had an epiphany while I was in a business meeting watching a group of very intelligent people trying to solve a problem. Everyone was speaking English, but no one seemed to understand each other...and the interpretation of the Lord confused the language took on a whole new level of meaning for me.
I started to see that it鈥檚 natural for people to misunderstand each other, and no matter how hard we try or how skilled we are at communicating, we are still going to give and receive mixed messages鈥ecause, the ability to completely understand each other was taken away from us long, long ago. 聽
With this awareness, it can become easier for us to ignore theyetzer hara that thrives on misunderstandings and urges us to think the worst of people. When we argue with a friend, family member or coworker, we can mentally take a step back and think, 鈥淭his is just babel-how can I explain myself so that the other person can understand my intentions?鈥�
With this awareness, that our misunderstandings are inevitable, that they stem from babel, we can actively seek ways to improve our communications and minimize misunderstandings which will allow us to work together to repair and heal the world.
For more insights into the reasons why the people built the Tower of Babel, see the following article on Chabad.org.
This post is a follow-up to the March 16, 2014 Faith Forum article .
Fiona Prince聽is Communications & Behavioural Consultant in Victoria, BC. She volunteers for Chabad 91原创 Island, teaching children and adults how to read Hebrew.
You can read more articles from our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking
