United we fall

Our Torah portion this week opens with the famous story of Noah, but I want to focus on the end of the parshah and the equally famous story of Migdal Bavel. What was it about the Tower of Babel that annoyed G-d so much? What’s the problem with a bunch of folks building a skyscraper? From the Burj Khalifa to the Shard and the Empire State Building, tall buildings are major tourist attractions. They take years to design and plan, more years to build, and they become icons for a city.

The generation of the flood set to work to “build a city with a tower to reach the sky”. It’s clear that they didn’t lack vision or efficiency – they were productive and effective at getting the job done.

I imagine the builders of the city as a powerful colony of ants swarming over the tower, passing brick to brick, not pausing for a minute in their labour until the task was complete. They were “of one language, and the same set of words (Gen 11:1)”. It’s the dream of every corporate executive – hive mind, united as one in purpose and plan.

Just think what we could achieve today if the whole world were “of one language and the same set of words”. We would be infinitely connected, no need for translation, infinitely powerful. As John Lennon sang,

“Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too.”

The generation of the tower, united as one, knows its power. It realises what its capable of, it aims to “make a name” for itself. And it does this even at the cost of what’s most important.

One midrash (Midrash ha-Gadol 11:3) gives us a disturbing insight into the priorities: “As the tower grew in height, it took one year to get bricks from the base to the upper stories. Thus, bricks became more precious than human life. When a brick slipped and fell, the people wept, but when a person fell and died, no one paid attention.” (Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 24). For the builders of Bavel, the dream of seeing their tower made real had become more important than the people they were building it for.

And here lies the warning for our generation and our time. Being united, being “one”, isn’t always best. More efficient, yes, greater control yes, but at what cost? What falls away in the face of the overpowering sameness of one language, one religion, one people?

Like the builders of Bavel, we live in a time of great progress and achievement and with it great possibility for good – ease of living, medical breakthroughs, alleviation of poverty, and more. But as we reach for these heights, we have to beware that we don’t neglect what’s most necessary to sustain them – values, ethics, and good governance. And the ability to be different, to think differently. And that that is a strength.

“Ex unitate vires” was the motto of the old South Africa. We know what that “unity” cost us in moral currency. Pascal (17th century, who invented the calculator and great big chunks of maths to terrify matriculants – good luck to them all by the way) once said “unity which doesn’t depend on plurality is tyranny, plurality which isn’t reduced to unity is confusion.”

Bavel is a compelling warning to us to get that balance right.