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Words have great power
Torah Study
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Noah/Genesis 6:9 - 11:32
What's fascinating about the portion of Noah is that it begins with one disaster, the flood that nearly destroys the world's population - except for Noah's family - and ends with another disaster, the Tower of Babel, which destroys the world's single language. If we examine Noah's Ark on a symbolic level, we see that these two landmark disasters in human history are intimately connected.
God commands Noah to build an ark (in Hebrew, a teva). Noah is not told to build a ship (sfinah or oniah in Hebrew), but rather a teva. As the Zohar teaches, teva is primarily translated as "word."
In effect, Noah escapes from a violent, lawless world (and the flood) into an "ark" or a "word" where God's directions prevail.
Toward the end of our portion, we again confront the importance of words: "Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words" (Genesis 11:1). On the surface this seems like the dream of the Esperanto Society. What could be better for the world than one language?
However, unity for the sake of fascist materialism, unity to "make a name for ourselves" (Genesis 11:4) and build bastille bulwarks, unity which shuts out human sensitivity, is nothing more than destructive totalitarianism, which is the very antithesis of God's design.
The building of the Tower of Babel involves no patience for diversity of ideology or discrepancy of thought. And so God punished them. They had never really listened to each other anyway; so now, with a polyglot of languages, they could not understand each other at all or conduct the most minimal conversation. They were destroyed by the very words which they had used - not as a means of sensitive communication, but rather as an instrument of materialism.
The human being is nothing but a creature of language. If not for the ability of speech, the human would be merely an animal on two legs. The ability to communicate, to socialize, to share language with other creatures, defines our humanity. It then follows that if we become deprived of language or the ability to communicate, we shall be reduced to animals.
This is why solitary confinement is such a powerful instrument of torture. Prisoners go mad when all human contact is taken away. One of the great strengths of Natan Sharansky turns out to have been his ability to survive, and even thrive, through the long years of solitary confinement to which he was subject within the Soviet prison. Gifted with a power to concentrate, he was able to create a world through books, chess games, inner dialogues, and his tiny book of Psalms. His body was in solitary, but the world of words and ideas of his mind left him enough room to maintain dignity as a human being.
The Zohar claims that Moses was a repair (tikkun), or necessary improvement over Noah. The teva-ark only saved Noah and his family. The goal is to produce not only a teva-word, but a Torah-book, in order to save all of humanity.
Noah saves himself in the teva, and when Moses' mother and sister wish to save him from Pharaoh's evil decree, they place the infant inside a teva (ark of bulrushes), which floats down the Nile.
But there is one major difference between Noah and Moses. When God declared his plan to destroy the world and to save only Noah, Noah built the teva. After the Israelites worshipped the golden calf, when the Almighty was ready to destroy the nation and start anew with Moses, the prophet of Egypt cried out: "Erase me from the record which you have written (but save the nation)" (Exodus 32:32).
The letters of the words "erase me" (mkhny, mem, chet, nun, yud), the Zohar tells us, can be rearranged to spell out "the waters of Noah" (mai Noah). In effect, Moses is saying to God: "I am not like Noah. I cannot countenance my safe journey when humanity is drowning. Destroy me, but save the people!"
Noah constructs a teva-word; Moses transmits a Torah-book, a book that spells out the name of God, a book that ultimately will bring peace and redemption to the entire human civilization.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Efrat, Israel.
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