Babel
In Genesis, we learn that humanity, speaking in one tongue, began building a structure that would reach the heavens. G-d disapproved of the plan, caused people to speak different languages, and dispersed them throughout the world. The Tower of Babel ceased to be built.
Why did G-d disapprove of the structure?
According to one tradition,[1] G-d did not disapprove at first. For over forty years, six hundred thousand people worked together on the tower. It reached so high that it took an entire year to bring materials to the top. The materials, therefore, became very valuable; so valuable, in fact, that the workers began to care more about the bricks and mortar than the people bringing them. If a brick fell and broke, people cried. However, if the same happened to another human being, people looked the other way. G-d decided that when structures trump relationships, structures should cease to exist. So, G-d destroyed the Tower and made it more difficult for people to work together, hoping that, someday, we will learn once again how important we are to one another.
We, the United States, have been building our own Tower of Babel for over two hundred years. People of different nationalities, cultures, races, creeds, religions, and languages have worked together to create a Golden Medina, a safe haven where, in theory, anyone can make a living and everyone can live freely. To this day, immigrants flock to America for a better life; to this day, the sky is the limit for what we, as a nation, should be able to accomplish together for ourselves and others.
The Essay on The Tower Of Babel
The Tower of Babel illustrates mankind making a name for themselves or at least trying. For the fear of being scattered all over the earth, man decides to build a city and a tower. God enforced his command to fill the earth with that of confounding languages. If man could not communicate with each other, man could barely cooperate with each other. "Make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be ...
But, when we care more about stock options than the people stocking our shelves, our Tower begins to crumble.
When we look at low wage workers as people who work for us instead of with us, our Tower begins to crumble.
When we treat service workers like dogs instead of seeing that they have to work like dogs just to make ends meet, our Tower begins to crumble.
And, finally, when we divert hundreds of billions of dollars from the building of our Tower – from our schools, our infrastructure, our health care system – to fight wars that are continuing to decimate Middle Eastern countries, the home of the biblical Tower of Babel, our Tower begins to crumble.
Unfortunately, we do not need G-d to destroy our Tower; we are doing a fine job of it ourselves.
What we need in America, instead, is a little bit of Godliness: an appreciation for all who live, work, and strive in our society, regardless of social status; an understanding that we are all in this together, regardless of who signs our paycheck or what amount can be found on it; a realization that the human commodity is the strongest, structural material we possess, regardless of our countries of origin; and, the hope that we can see in the rich panoply of our societal tapestry the common threads of human decency, desire, and fortitude – of relationships – that make our country the special nation that it is, regardless of how many bricks we have caused to crumble thus far.
We are the builders, and we are the destroyers.
Which will it be?
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[1] See http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=45&letter=B