Last night I went to a Torah study lead by a friend of mine. It’s all part of a new approach to lay-leadership in my congregation. Together, 7 Jews, none of whom are clergy, got together and went through Noach, this weeks parsha. Our leader chose to focus on the Tower of Babel, instead of Noah and his ark. I’m so glad he did so!
The entire story of Babel is only 9 verses long. I was struck by that. Considering my relative lack of Torah knowledge, I happen to know this 9 verse story within the vastness of the Torah. How strange? However, I really struggled with understanding it last night. This verse in particular, struck me:
[4] And they said, “Come let us build us a city and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.
What a strange idea, to build something tall and formidable in order to stay in one place. A gal in our group brought up the point that we do this a lot in our culture. We unify groups by coming together to create something. It was a biblical team-building exercise, who’s alleged purpose was to keep the group together. But God wasn’t so crazy on the idea, and chose to punish the builders with the very result they were trying to avoid: scattering.
Now I don’t think it was coincidence that the Babel story comes after the flood. Humankind had witnessed destruction of their world, and they were scared. They had seen the world flooded and chaos reign. It seems reasonable them, that the fear of impending destruction would lead them to exert their energy building something to make them feel safe.
The issue is that the tower had absolutely no purpose in rebuilding the world. These ancient people tried to fix something that was never broken, instead of taking a beat and finding gratitude in their current stability.5f5
I really relate to this idea. And apparently I’m not alone. I know I over-quote the great Brene Brown, but there’s an entire chapter in her book The Gifts of Imperfection that discusses this belief of scarcity. She writes:
We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and we hate that there are no guarantees. We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less (82).
BINGO. We’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the bottom to fall out. For everything we have to be gone. This fear leads us to downplay our joy and gratitude of what we have now in the hopes of shielding ourselves from this self-imagined downfall. We’ve all been disappointed, let down, and failed to succeed. Since we’ve all experienced this, we lose that child-like wonder at what is and instead focus on what could/will/has to happen. The inevitable disappointment guides so many of us through our decision making: I wont invite [ ] over to dinner because they’re probably say no. I wont join that softball team because I’ll probably be bad. I won’t take that walk, because if I’m not doing something “constructive” than I’m wasting my time. I better get prettier, smarter, better, because I’m only good from far away, up close I am flawed and unlovable.
We’re all terrified of embracing what we do have and claiming it and enjoying it because we truly believe that the moment we really enjoy it…it will disappear.
I think that’s what these people of Shinar experienced. It was all too good to be true, so they built something else while they had the chance.
Today is the sabbath and I think there’s a reason we are meant to slow down, cease work, dine with our families. It’s so that we can take that fateful leap into the known. Instead of perseverating on the what if, maybe we can all take a beat. Enjoy. Don’t worry about what’s next. Ask that friend to dinner. Enjoy what you have. Explore your gratitude, because right now, what you have is enough.
And You Shall Love 