What were the people of the Tower of Babel trying to do? What was so bad about it? Why did they deserve the punishment they received?
A glance at the Torah will show you that the exact crime they committed is not clearly explained. The various commentators offer countless approaches to understand it. I saw an interesting explanation in the Ma'or Va'Shemesh, which offers some thought provoking points. Rather than offering you a translation of his words, I am adapting it and shaping it a bit. He bears no responsibility for what I am writing here if I err.
Avraham Avinu came to teach the world about monotheism, about the unity of One God. Nimrod, the leading proponent of paganism in his time realized that this threatened the hegemony of the pagan gods. He realized the need to combat Avraham's efforts, and to do so he worked to unite all the known people to form a bulwark against Avraham.
There is something ironic about this. The message of One God is in and of itself a message of unity. Ultimately it is only through the understanding that there is one god that man can, and will, come to unity. The pagan message of multiple gods is one that naturally leads itself to disunity and fraction, as there was infighting amongst those gods themselves. Nimrod was using what should have been the tool of Avraham, against Avraham.
He took his people into the tower. I wonder if he was doing that to keep them in, or to keep others out. I see it as sort of a Berlin Wall, striving to keep out the ideas of an Avraham.
God destroyed it as they were using the forces of unity for disunity.It was doomed to failure from the start as it was predicated on an invalid premise.
This should, however, lead those of us who do believe in monotheism to think about our own unity and disunity. Surely unity is where we belong and we should direct our efforts to that end.
A glance at the Torah will show you that the exact crime they committed is not clearly explained. The various commentators offer countless approaches to understand it. I saw an interesting explanation in the Ma'or Va'Shemesh, which offers some thought provoking points. Rather than offering you a translation of his words, I am adapting it and shaping it a bit. He bears no responsibility for what I am writing here if I err.
Avraham Avinu came to teach the world about monotheism, about the unity of One God. Nimrod, the leading proponent of paganism in his time realized that this threatened the hegemony of the pagan gods. He realized the need to combat Avraham's efforts, and to do so he worked to unite all the known people to form a bulwark against Avraham.
There is something ironic about this. The message of One God is in and of itself a message of unity. Ultimately it is only through the understanding that there is one god that man can, and will, come to unity. The pagan message of multiple gods is one that naturally leads itself to disunity and fraction, as there was infighting amongst those gods themselves. Nimrod was using what should have been the tool of Avraham, against Avraham.
He took his people into the tower. I wonder if he was doing that to keep them in, or to keep others out. I see it as sort of a Berlin Wall, striving to keep out the ideas of an Avraham.
God destroyed it as they were using the forces of unity for disunity.It was doomed to failure from the start as it was predicated on an invalid premise.
This should, however, lead those of us who do believe in monotheism to think about our own unity and disunity. Surely unity is where we belong and we should direct our efforts to that end.
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