I began my Friday night d’var Torah in a different way. Here is a box. A box of rainbow colored wooden blocks. Your job is to build a tower, or more than one, as tall as you can, without talking. The building commenced. Alliances were formed. Three towers emerged. Some people were actively engaged. Some just hung around the edges not sure what we were doing. In the end, one tower was the tallest and one collapsed as they desperately tried to make it even bigger.

What did just happen there? We learned about language, about cooperation, about individualism and community, about competition. We learned about the Tower of Babel and some of the implications for today.

The Tower of Babel story is in the third triennial reading. This year. It doesn’t get as much play as Noah and the Ark and the Flood. But maybe they are linked in some important ways.

It seems to me that they are both about repair. Repair of our relationships. With others, with G-d, with the earth.

This weekend at CKI we had Shabbat evening services, Shabbat morning services with a Bar Mitzvah and then Hebrew School with a pet blessing for Shabbat Noah. Lots of energy.

About the Tower of Babel. We learned that G-d came down (from where?) and saw what the people were doing. All the people, all of humanity. They were trying to build a tower as high as the sky. Where? Why? Not clear. Maybe it was a competition. Maybe it was to see what they could see. Maybe it was to attack G-d. The Targum Yerushalmi says that the tower was to be capped off with a statue of a man holding a sword.

In any case, G-d decides that this building project is not good. So “confounds” their language. Now there are 70 languages. Usually, we think the Tower of Babel story is yet another story of G-d losing patience with G-d’s Creation and trying to destroy it. Those “uppity” people, trying to draw too close to G-d. But what if this is really an example of G-d’s desire for diversity? What if this is an argument that we are better together, than apart, but only to a point?

It seems there is a tension in Judaism between universalism and particularlism. Are we the chosen people, and if so chosen for what? To be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation? To be a light to the nations? Again, for what? So that as the prophet promised, “On that day the Lord shall be one and G-d’s name shall be one.”

But back up. Here, in this week’s text, right after G-d promises to never destroy the world again with a flood, right after the sign of the covenant, the rainbow, high in the sky, sign of that covenant, G-d doesn’t like people getting too close. G-d doesn’t want to war with people. G-d doesn’t want to be challenged. And even more…G-d doesn’t want the people to care more about the resources for building this tower than they care for the people building the tower.

How is that? In one of our earliest midrashim it explains that “If a person were to fall and die, no one would notice him; but if even a single brick were to fall, they would sit and cry, “Woe unto us, for when will another brick be brought up in its stead.” (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezar 24)

Winning at any cost caused our play towers to crumble. We still have issues with building safety.

Just this week, two construction workers were seriously injured in Evanston unloading steel beams with a crane. One died at the hospital.

Just this week, the United States faced another hurricane. It is hard to reconcile this powerful storm with G-d’s promise to never destroy the world again by flood. Where is the rainbow we need now?

Are these powerful storms a punishment from G-d? Some theologians would say so. Rather, it seems more likely that we humans have a role in them. As climate change continues to be proven and the waters of the ocean heat up, we get stronger and stronger storms. Also just this week, we learned in a well researched IPCC report of the UN that we have until 2040 to make a real, lasting difference in reversing these effects of climate change. Widely reported in the press, the most fascinating was from Wharton Business School, because of its lasting economic impact. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/climate-change-report-ipcc/

And recently, as recently as me writing these very words, even Trump has concluded that climate change is not a hoax. https://www.apnews.com/029c37e1c3b94f0490e8a84b2bd9f21f

Living near the coast in Massachusetts, every year or so, another house or two perched on an ocean bluff, would fall into the waves below, a victim of rising waters and sand erosion. Who wouldn’t want to build with those beautiful views of an Atlantic sunrise?

The building of the Tower of Babel, the oppression of workers doing the building, now as then, and the need to build our cities so close to the water’s edge. All revolve around one issue. Hubris. Pride cometh before a fall. The fall of a tower. The fall of steel beams. The fall of beautiful oceanside housing. Recognizing our pride demands us to repair our relationships. With G-d. With each other. With the earth. We were not put here to “subdue” the earth as some translations say, but to partner with G-d to be caretakers of the earth.

In our story today, G-d comes down (from where?) and looks and sees what the people are doing, and with the consultation of the heavenly courts, decides to confound the arrogance of “oneness” and divide the world into seventy languages. Language becomes a babel, a confusion. It is where the word Babylon comes from.

The rabbinic sage Ibn Ezra (1089-1167) says that the phrase “one people” means “one religion”. As Rabbi Huberman taught, “He worried that one set of beliefs could lead to extremism and zealotry. And so, in part, to prevent a monolithic humanity from believing it was more omnipotent than God, diversity was woven into the very fabric of creation.”

That diversity is important. In building a tower. In building a community. In building CKI where we even have a plank in our vision statement that says we embrace diversity. And on the football field. There are plenty of examples—not often enough of the team that allows someone to play with them who is differently abled. Those are the stories that make the news. They tug at our heart strings.

But it takes everyone pulling together—whatever language they speak, whatever opinions they have, whatever abilities they have to make you successful. There is a popular saying that there is no I in Team. That is part of what we learn here. If ego gets in the way, the tower falls. This portion is about balance. Between sun and rain, between right and wrong, between universalism and particularism, between the community and the individual. What G-d is demanding is that we be part of the team—in order to receive that covenant of G-d’s peace and friendship.

Our Bar Mitzvah student taught us powerfully, that this Briti Shalom, “My Covenant of Peace” comes when we have friends, when we are part of a community, when we are not lonely. That’s when we achieve friendship and peace. He taught us that while Noah put all the animals on the ark to care for them, part of our covenant today is to take care of all of the earth, because the earth is the ark. Both of those teachings were new and he got to speak as one of the speakers at the high holidays about covenant.

Last week we learned a powerful genealogy from Adam to Noah. Noah was a righteous man in his generation. This portion gives us the genealogy from Noah to Abraham who was a righteous man. Our Bar Mitzvah family on both his father’s side and his mother’s side are descendants of priests, cohanim. Some laugh at that distinction today because how do we know. And in truth we don’t. However, the Torah teaches us that we, as Jews, are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to be a light to the nations. In that way we are all priests today. It was then my honor to give him the priestly benediction, the prayer reserved for the priests, that one day he too may pass down to his descendants and the rest of us. “May G-d bless you and keep you. May G-d’s light shine upon you (and smile at you!) May G-d lift G-d’s face to you and grant you peace, (that covenant of friendship and peace) now and forever.” It was a holy moment.

On Sunday our blessings for Shabbat Noach continued as families brought their pets for a pet blessing. We had five dogs and a stuffed dog. One person made special homemade dog treats. We laughed at the antics of the animals and sang the old camp song, “The Lord said to Noah” with gusto. A quick reminder that the covenant that G-d has with us extends to our animals too. We are reminded to feed our animals before ourselves and to let our animals rest on Shabbat.

Shabbat Noach. Lots to learn. What a great weekend.

 

Rainbow

A drop of dew
Of rain
A crystal
Clinging to the dying thistle
Sun shining through it
Like a diamond sparkling
Bright, white light
Colors projecting on the wet grass
A rainbow appears.

Raindrops in the sky
Dark storm clouds behind
Lit by the
Sun shining through it
Piercing the clouds
Refracting the light
A rainbow appears.

Reminding us
Shining through a drop
Shining through rain
Sign of G-d’s love
Sign of G-d’s covenant
A covenant of peace
Of wholeness
A covenant of friendship

A rainbow demands

Look!
Through the raindrop
Through the dew

See!
The beauty
The pain

Act!
Join Me
Join others

Remember!
You are loved.
You are not alone.

Zocher et habrit!
Remember the covenant.