Chavarah- Jewish Community Learning

A blog of Jewish study and traditions. Notes from classes: Torah Study with Rabbi Marder, Toledot and Shabbaton as well as other details found of interest.

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Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Human Needs: Outside Guidelines and Humility

Finish Chapter Genesis 11:4 - 9 Torah Study with Rabbi Marder

end v5 God "comes down" to investigate - last word = children of Adam

Introduces the concept that the building project is human - and they have limits and humility of Children of Adam

Rashi - Torah didn’t need this phrase (sees humor) Who else built it? (the animals?)
why give this - vene adam - descendants of the first Adam who was ungrateful to God - per garden of Eden - when Adam blamed Eve... and blamed God for giving Eve to him. These descendants of Adam are also ungrateful and are rebelling against God for saving them from the flood. A characteristic of humans

Midrash modern Hasidic interpretation - quotes Rashi - then the characteristics in a person carry over for several generations. Family patterns. This characteristic of Adam followed through the generations to these people. From this if people improve attributes then that will be continued for generations. - a message of “hope’.


v 6 - if one people with one language then this is what they will do... their power will be infinite.

Rashi reads as an interrogative - And now should not all they propose to do be withheld from them? as a question. God not threatened. They are using their benefits, unity, for destructive purposes. God Questions if he should intervene so they don’t get into so much trouble...

v7 let us go down ... (reminder - Rashi ran a yeshiva) God consulted with his ‘bet din’ because of humility.

Confound language - what happens when they no longer understand each other.
One person asks for a brick and another person brings limes instead. Makes the person angry and the situation becomes chaotic. Communication problems cause failure of the tower building project.

Humility - comes up in different ways on this text.

Hasidic commentary:

Creation not finished - God wants humans to use our intelligence to continue creation. Part of plan. BUT generation of Babel - denied God and said they had created it all on their own.

What was the sin of the generation? Traditional thought: They denied God.
Other interpretations were more politically driven.

3 books by Kushner referenced:
  • Who Needs God -
  • How Good Do We Have to Be -
  • Overcoming Life’s Disappointments

Question: What is the Necessity of God?

Leon Kass - prof Univ of Chicago - Trace what had happened to this point. Early chapters outline 4 conditions :
1. Simple Innocence - (Eden)
2. Anarchy - life without law - should know right and wrong - (Cane Abel)
3. Life in Primordial Law - State of Nature - (Noah) - law passed by generations
4. Dispersion of People - each under it’s own law.

God keeps trying new plans.
People realize that the previous methods don’t work. So cannot rule from within. Need help from outside to have laws to live by. Instinct not strong enough. Therefore we need God.

First failing of people of Babel - lack of piety - they begin to believe in their own superiority.
They see no eternal horizon. This is the theme of the story and the danger.

relationship to the High Holy Days:

Gates of Repentance: addresses the same question as Babel

comment before Avenu Malkenu in the Yom Kippur service
- “hundreds of people have done this before” - - - “we are of the generation who had fought to dethrone You” “men and women grow smaller without You” / God...

Refer to the love of God as the love of a parent - regardless of what we do.

Avenu Malkanu -words
Have mercy on us
We are of little merit -


Avenu Malkanu -
the prayer lists all the sins we have done collectively.
Shared act of humility - so if you as an individual didn’t do this sin, someone in the greater congregation probably did - it is acknowledging our flaws as a group.


Humanism is not enough:

People cant make it on own instincts alone, humans keep getting us in trouble - this is why we need Torah, the book of wisdom, to guide us so we have a decent world to live in.

We need a source of wisdom from outside ourselves.

Compare the Christian view presented by Paul - Conscious of sin and the overwhelming feeling of guilt. Jesus lifts the burden of this guilt and the need to always follow the ‘laws’.

Jewish answer - you are capable of making a real mess or of doing good. You can do better with work and following the guideline and ability to ‘do better’. We are capable of good but also we can make big mistakes.

Tshuvah - not repentance - it is going back to true authentic self, the goodness inside us.

Issue of humility: Always two sided in Judaism - the two notes - one “for my sake the world was created” other “we are but dust” - balance these two consciousnesses at all times.

Kushner about humility - acknowledging something larger than self.
Humility - Not self effacement nor false modesty. Not everything in life is about you. Recognizing that you are not responsible to run the world.

Why so hard to accept this? When a child we are the center of the world. As we grow the child learns to leave this concept behind for the satisfaction of sharing with others. Teens who learn to manipulate others around them. And bosses who abuse employees. Terrible spouses who need to win every argument. Humility is the cure for these faults. The essence message: “leave a little to God”

This interpretation is less about needing wisdom and more about recognizing that the world doesn’t exist for you alone.

Commentators reacting to “let us make a name for ourselves” - About the belief that we don’t need anything beyond ourselves.

There is a standard for ‘right and wrong’ that started within religion, but it can be separated from religion.

Connection between humility and the ground. We are the earth - source of humility.

Check R. Marder’s sermon from 9/4/2009 for use of language.

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