What Was Sinful About Building the Tower of Babel?

The Aish Rabbi Replies

Thank you for your incisive question. You are right that on the surface the builders of the Tower did not seem to have any very wicked motives in mind. Yet it is clear that God discerned in them some very negative intentions deserving severe punishment. They were clearly using their unity for some terribly nefarious purpose – although the Torah does not spell out for us precisely what it was.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 109a) explains that the intention of the builders was not just to reach up to Heaven but to invade it – refusing to be relegated to a lower domain than God. They wanted to take God on directly in Heaven – as ridiculous as that sounds to us. In fact, according to the Sages, their leader Nimrod would later throw Abraham into a furnace (from which he was saved) in attempt to stamp out the belief in God he was beginning to disseminate. (See Talmud Hullin 89a, Eiruvin 53a, Bereishis Rabbah 38:13.)

The Talmud divides the builders into three categories:
(a) Those who wanted to reach Heavens to literally fight against God.
(b) Those who wanted to go to Heaven to live - complaining that God has no right to choose the Heavens for Himself.
(c) Those who wanted to ascend to Heaven in order to worship idols. The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 38:6) similarly explains that they were going to place an idol on top of their tower with a sword in its hand as if in battle with God. (In this sense, their Tower resembled the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia (the probable location of the Tower of Babel) – a manmade tower to heaven atop which an imagined deity resided. Perhaps, following the Talmud that the builders actually wanted to ascend to Heaven, they wanted to bring their idol with them in order to give it equal standing with God.)

Another opinion, which appears in the Midrash (ibid.), is that the builders of the Tower wanted to avoid suffering any future worldwide floods. They thought their huge tower could serve as one of a set of pillars supporting the Heavens and keeping them from “shaking” and spilling out so much rain. Apart from their rather primitive understanding of meteorology, clearly such people refused to accept the actual message of the Flood – that it was an act of God punishing the wicked for their sins. They insisted on seeing it as a periodic naturally-occurring event – which they could avoid through taking the proper precautions. And God judged them extremely harshly for this. Indeed, according to the Sages, this occurred in Noah’s lifetime – when the memory of the Flood was not that distant and its lesson should have still reverberated.

In any event, the fact that the builders could not possibly have actually reached Heaven was irrelevant. It was their evil intent which God noted – and judged. In fact, the Talmud also writes that apart from the punishments the builders of the Tower received in this world, none of them received a share in the World to Come (Sanhedrin 107b).

Other commentators take a more literal interpretation of this episode – not that the builders of the Tower literally wanted to rebel against God, but that they wanted to create an extremely powerful empire, granting them fame or world domination – no doubt wanting mankind to pay homage to them rather than God. (See Bechor Shor, Radak, Chizkuni, R. Hirsch.) Alternatively, they wanted to all live together – contrary to God’s plan that they spread out and populate the entire earth (R. Bachya).

You pointed out that the builders of the Tower did appear to have one positive quality in their favor: they all did seem to get along. This is a good point. The Sages note this as well (Bereishis Rabbah 38:6). In fact, they contrast the generation of the Tower to the generation of the Flood which was characterized by lawlessness and robbery (Genesis 6:1-2,11). As a result, unlike the generation of the Flood which was destroyed entirely, the generation of the Tower was merely dispersed. Peace and unity among men, even for bad purpose, is appreciated by God, and that did ameliorate their judgment. They might not have earned a share in the World to Come themselves, but they had many descendants who no doubt did.

This leads us to a final interesting observation made by my teacher Rabbi Yochanan Zweig. The one good quality of that generation was the unity they had between them – which God indeed appreciated. Yet God’s punishment was to alter their languages and separate them – taking away the one good quality they had!

R. Zweig answers that true unity is not achieved when everyone tries to be the same and live under the same roof. Each nation does in fact have a different nature and different set of skills and talents. By separating them and granting each its own unique language, each nation would be able to properly develop its own national identity. Then the nations could live together in true harmony, each preserving its particular nature while contributing its talents to the welfare of all mankind. But had they attempted to all live together as a single unit, no nation would have had the opportunity for healthy self-expression. Each nation would have been subdued before the whole and failed to develop itself. Thus, since God did in fact admire the unity the nations wanted to achieve, He divided them and gave them each their own space and language – enabling them to truly live in peace.