The first time I heard the story of the Tower of Babel was at my Jewish day school. I was told the generation decided to come together to build a tower so high it would reach into Heaven so they could wage war with God and kill Him. Even during my pre-school days the story seemed a bit silly. Build a tower to try to kill the Almighty Creator of the World? With sticks and swords and stones? Really? How stupid could these people be? 

When we look back at older generations we have a tendency to judge them as ignorant, backwards thinking, and unenlightened. I mean for thousands of years people thought the orb in the sky was a god to sacrifice children to. Women were considered property or were burned alive for fear of witchcraft. Slavery, leeches and blood letting. And let’s not forget the pet rock.

However Judaism understands that the mankind in the ancient world was far more sophisticated than what we might think. Though they might not have understood physical science and technology, on a spiritual level they towered over generations that would follow. Towered over spiritually… pun intended!

If this generation were simply building a gigantic tower, clearly they would never have reached the spiritual plane of Heaven. I mean they built it in a valley, for Pete’s sake. Even if they were engineering masters, they’d still only end up in space and well… die. Yet Torah says that God had to intercede and stop them otherwise they would have been successful. So clearly, their mission, though morally wrong, would have been effective. So what was the generation of the Tower trying to do exactly, and why was God’s solution to “break up their language’?

Let’s clarify some things about the story. 

When the story begins it says “the whole world had one language and was united in a common cause.” The Talmud teaches that the one language was lashon hakodesh, a.k.a. the holy language a.k.a. Hebrew. Language is a funny thing. It grows, it changes. Bad means good, shrimps is now an accepted pluralization, and some words can become so horrible that uttering them if you’re the wrong race will get you banned from television. The fluidity of language is all based on the society that uses it. The words themselves are arbitrary. 

That’s not the case with Hebrew. God said “Let there be light.” He used lashon hakodesh to create our physical reality. Because of that Hebrew has special properties. The names of things in Hebrew aren’t arbitrary but instead evoke the essence. A dog in Hebrew is kelev which literally means like heart. If you are fluent in Hebrew and understand how the words break down, you can become a master of tremendous wisdom just by contemplating names. 

Since mankind is made in God’s image, the Neffesh HaChayim says this means that mankind shares God’s ability to create. During ancient times, God entrusted mankind with that power via  speech with lashon hakodesh. We were partners with Him in finishing creation and had a tremendous tool by which to accomplish it. Think of it like a video game. The user interface has your character running, jumping, driving, and collecting coins. However, if you played the game not with a controller, but by going into the thousands of lines of code and started editing the game using C++, you could do so much more than just drive around collecting coins. You could remake the game as you see fit. That’s roughly the kind of power humanity possessed when everyone spoke lashon hakodesh. 

Now, if the player decided to use their coding knowledge not to play the game but to block the moderator, sure the moderator could probably fix the code and block the user. But what if everyone playing the game at the same time started to do the same thing? They might just hijack the whole system. This is what essentially was happening with the Tower of Babel. 

We can see hints to this if we look a little deeper. “They were united in a common cause” The Hebrew is devarim achadim which can more accurately be translated as “matters of Oneness.” They were involved in the spiritual science of how God works. So when they say, “Let us make for ourselves a name…” they’re not looking to become famous. The holiest Name of Hashem (aka the Shem HaMeforash) is the most powerful thing in existence. Moses uttered it to kill the Egyptian taskmaster. Supposedly the Golem was brought to life by writing the Shem HaMeforash on paper and putting it in its mouth. King Solomon used it to command spiritual forces to build the Temple. And God himself used the Shem HaMeforash to create the universe. So when the generation of the Tower wanted to make a name for themselves, they were attempting to become the moderators of creation.

So God chose to remove “collaborator” status and shut off root access by taking away lashon hakodesh from humanity. Well… not all of humanity. The whole world was united in this endeavor except Avraham (then still Avram) and a few others. The Midrash says that the tower was built when Avraham was 48 years old. When he was approached to join the effort he said “You forsook Hashem who is The Tower and chose instead to substitute a tower made of bricks!” Because Avram had the courage to stand up against the whole world for what he knew was true, the language of the Jewish people is still lashon hakodesh today. 

There’s no question that language is what separates humanity from everything else on the planet. Sure, parrots repeat words and whales, dolphins and a few other creatures possess language abilities. But nothing else builds ideas in any sort of evolutionary process. There are no words of Shakespeare in the animal kingdom (unless you can get 1000 monkeys on 1000 typewriters.) Just as human society towers over the animal kingdom intellectually, lashon hakodesh towers over other languages spiritually. As powerful as the majority of humanity can be, when even one person stands up using their voice for what is right, in the end they will win. Because that is holy. In fact holiness in Hebrew is kadosh, which in its root means “separated.” And the language of holiness still has that sacred power if it is used for the purpose of partnering with God to finish creation.