GOOD MORNING! As I mentioned last week, our Torah is a living document that, when carefully examined, has extraordinary lessons that are incredibly relevant to our present day lives. This week’s Torah reading teaches us a remarkable lesson about how to create a lasting sense of shalom – peace.

I am not referring to the kind of peace that Vassily Nebenzia (Russia’s permanent envoy to the UN) says that Russia is seeking. We all know that Vladimir Putin wants peace – a piece of Crimea, a piece of Donetsk, a piece of Luhansk, a piece of Kherson, etc.

I am reminded of a joke: A Russian man demonstrated in Red Square by yelling that Vladimir Putin is mentally unstable, evil, and destroying Russia. He was immediately arrested and taken to trial. He was found guilty and sentence to twenty-five years of hard labor in Siberia: one year for disturbing the peace and twenty-four years for unauthorized release of classified information.

In this week's Torah reading we find two major events that dramatically altered the course of world history: 1) The Flood and 2) The Dispersion.

The Torah portion opens with God’s disappointment with the state of the world; mankind had become thoroughly corrupt and the world was filled with crime. God informs Noah that He is planning on bringing a flood that will destroy all the living creatures on earth: “The end of all flesh has come before me. The world is filled with (man’s) crime, I will therefore destroy them with the earth” (Genesis 6:13).

At the very end of this week’s Torah portion (11:1), the Torah relates the story of Migdal Bavel –  the Tower of Babel. In brief, the different nations of the world became united with a single language and purpose: to build a tower to enter the heavens in order to launch an attack on the Almighty.

The Torah relates that the Almighty, after descending to examine the situation, decided “to confuse their languages and scatter them across the face of the earth” (Genesis 11:9). This becomes known as “The Dispersion.” According to our sages it is from this event that the different nations of the world emerged, each with a separate language and culture.

The great Biblical commentator known as Rashi contrasts the sins of the generation that lived in the time of Noah (which resulted in their deaths in the ensuing flood), with the misdeeds of the generation of the Tower of Babel (which resulted in their dispersion).

Rashi explains that the generation of the flood was doomed to extermination because there was stealing and hostility between them. Even though the generation of the tower committed a seemingly much more heinous sin – choosing to wage a war on the Almighty – their punishment (being scattered) was a lot less severe.

Yet Rashi is bothered by the disparity of the punishments and he comes to a rather extraordinary conclusion. He notes that the people of the generation of the flood were hostile to one another, while during the period of the Tower of Babel it was a time of unity and brotherhood (albeit they were bonded by waging a war on God).

That, explains Rashi, is the difference in the severity of the punishments. The Almighty does not tolerate a corrupt world that has open hostility and crime between its inhabitants, thus the generation of the flood deserved utter annihilation. The people of the Tower of Babel may have been waging a war on God, but they all got along and were united in brotherhood, so He didn’t destroy them. Rashi concludes; “one can learn from here that conflict is hateful and peace is paramount.”

Still, as my brilliant father points out, this conclusion needs further clarification: If the sole reason for sparing the generation of the Tower of Babel was because of their unity and brotherhood, then why did God remove their one redeeming quality by “mixing their languages and scattering them across the face of the earth” – it seems like a counterproductive punishment!

Even more troubling, by dispersing them and forcing them to try and communicate in different languages, their coalition would inevitably dissolve and lead to conflict and dissension. Why did God punish them by taking away their one redeeming quality (i.e. their unity and brotherhood)?

In order to understand this, we must re-examine and perhaps even redefine what shalom – peaceful coexistence – truly means. We often talk about “shalom bayit” – marital harmony, or trying to create shalom between people who are feuding. Many, perhaps even most people, believe that merely getting others to coexist peacefully is the key to creating a lasting shalom. But this is, at best, an incomplete approach to achieving a true harmony.

Practically all relationship discord, whether matrimonial, familial, communal, or workplace, stems from one’s feeling that they are being marginalized. Generally, this is because there is a lack of definition regarding individual roles and personal contributions to the overall relationship. Inevitably, each party, in order to “find” themselves and their value, begins to fight for control of the alliance.

Therefore, the key component to creating shalom is having an individual recognize what is unique about himself and what he alone contributes to the relationship. In other words, when a person feels good about himself and secure in the knowledge that he has something special to contribute, then he won’t feel threatened by other people andor their accomplishments. More importantly, once he is secure, he can begin to appreciate what another person might add to a given situation.

(Obviously, this is only effective with rational people who can perceive that a working relationship is in their own self-interest. Megalomaniacal individuals who wish to swallow up everyone and everything else (e.g. Vladimir Putin) cannot be reasoned with. In fact, they will do things that are actively against their own interests to try and achieve their warped goals. Putin, blinded by perceived wrongs and personal avarice, managed to breathe life into his archenemy NATO – an organization that had been functionally irrelevant until his invasion of Ukraine.)

This concept of shalom is precisely what the Almighty did for the generation of the dispersion. Originally, their purpose was a unifying factor, but ultimately it would have likely dissolved into interpersonal conflict once the original purpose was either achieved or otherwise became irrelevant.

By scattering the people across the world, the Almighty actually gave them a lasting chance at true shalom by giving all the different people of the generation their own space and language.

These two elements are the keys to giving a nation its own definition: 1) a particular type of geography leads to the development of certain defined skill sets, and 2) different languages to express the individual uniqueness of those nationalities.

Once each nation is satisfied and comfortable with its identity, it then becomes possible to appreciate other nations and their unique contributions. In this way, the different nations can begin to see how they need one another. Some lands grow abundant produce, while other have oil or gold mines; some nations have expert craftsman and create tools, while others foster innovation and scientific discovery – each land, its people and its exports, is vital to the functionality of the others.

Furthermore, when the people recognize the unique capabilities and contributions of their nation, they experience personal satisfaction, even pride, and the other nations of the world no longer feel like a threat. In fact, they recognize their former “competition” as necessary allies in order to achieve goals for the greater good. This is the very definition of shalom; completing each other to create a greater whole. This is true in our world, in our community, and in our homes.

Noah, Genesis 6:9 – 11:32

Noah is the story of one righteous man in an evil generation. The Almighty commands Noah to build the ark on a hill far from the water. He built it over a period of 120 years. People deride Noah and ask him, “Why are you building a boat on a hill?” Noah explains that there will be a flood if people do not correct their ways. We see from this the patience of the Almighty for people to correct their ways and the genius of arousing people’s curiosity so that they will ask a question and, hopefully, hear the answer.

The generation does not do teshuva – returning from their evil ways – and God brings a flood for 40 days. They leave the ark 365 days later when the earth has once again become habitable. The Almighty makes a covenant and makes the rainbow the sign of the covenant that He will never destroy all of life again by water (hence, James Baldwin’s book, The Fire Next Time). When one sees a rainbow it is an omen to do teshuva – to recognize the mistakes you are making in life, regret them, correct them/make restitution, and ask for forgiveness from anyone you have wronged as well as from the Almighty.

Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and then occurs the mysterious incident in the tent after which Noah curses his grandson Canaan. The Torah portion concludes with the story of the Tower of Babel and then a genealogy from Noah’s son, Shem, to Abram (Abraham).