Noach: The memorial at Shinar

Rav Johnny's original thoughts on the weekly parsha

We often think of the story of the Mabul (Flood) and the story of Migdal Bavel (The Tower of Bavel) as being two independent stories which happen to both be in Parshat Noach. However, a closer look at these narratives leads us to the conclusion that they are very much interrelated, and that Midgal Bavel is a response to the aftermath of the Mabul.

To begin, it is worthwhile noting that the Torah informs us of a seemingly random piece of information relating to the location of Migdal Bavel,  which is that: ‘it came to pass, in their migrating from the east, that they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there’ (Bereishit 11:2).

Noting this, Rashi quotes the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 38:7) which explains that the people ‘travelled from the east to find a place that could hold them all’ and that they found such a location in Shinar. What this means is that the people sought to live close together. In fact, this detail is already implied in Bereishit 11:4 when we read how the people declared: ‘let us build us a city and a tower…lest we be scattered across the face of the whole earth’. Still, what is not entirely clear is why the people were so fearful of being scattered, and why they are so insistent on dwelling in a location where they can all live together.

To answer this question, we must return to the location of the tower because our Sages teach us that Shinar was significant for a further reason. As we mentioned, Shinar was located in a deep valley, and we are told (see Shabbat 113b; Bereishit Rabbah 37:4, Yerushalmi Brachot 4:1, Rashi to Bereishit 6:17) that Shinar was where ‘all the bodies of those who died in the flood eventually came to rest.’ What this means is that the location where Migdal Bavel was built was, in fact, a mass grave containing the remains of all those who died in the Mabul.

With this in mind, rather than Migdal Bavel merely being a tower that was built to reach heaven, it was - in fact - a giant memorial to those who died in the flood.

But if this is so, why was it important for all the people to live together in that location? To answer this question, I would like to make brief reference of the ‘shurah’ – which are the rows of people between which mourners walk after the funeral of a close relative.

When someone has lost a close relative, they are palpably conscious of the void that has now been created in their life. This is why, immediately after the burial, we form rows of people which surround the mourner and thereby reassure them that they are not alone.

In the same spirit, all those involved in the building of Migdal Bavel saw themselves as survivors of a global trauma occurring just over 300 years beforehand, and they felt that the close presence of others would not only protect them, but would also offer them comfort.

But here is where we encounter a problem. By this point the lifespan of humanity had significantly decreased, and none of those who built the tower was an actual survivor - or even a second-generation survivor - of the flood.

A fundamental principle in Judaism is that there needs to be limits on how much we mourn (see Moed Katan 27b based on Yirmiyah 22:10), and it would seem that the problem of those who built the tower was that they were still grieving an event which occurred before any of them were even born. Given this irrational paralysis, the people were unprepared to move from this place or to fulfil their mission of inhabiting and filling the world, and instead, they wished to stay together while memorializing an event that took place three centuries beforehand.

Having explained all this, we can now understand why the story of Migdal Bavel ends by telling us that ‘and from there’, meaning both geographically but also emotionally, and how ‘God scattered them over the face of the whole earth’ (Bereishit 11:9).

God was forced to move them away from Shinar and from speaking about the past. But why? So they could live in the present, for the sake of their future. 

Shabbat Shalom!

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