My son is a puckish, curious person. He is rambunctious, loves to run and play.
And while he is still too young to ask questions about life’s curiosities, he is constantly making observations about everything he sees.
He likes to point out that the fan goes round and round, he likes to name the various colors of the flowers on our walks and I know that one day he will ask a question like why is the sky blue or the grass green?
When this inevitably happens, I will have a few choices. I can either explain to him that the experience of perceiving color is the product of a process through which white light comes into contact with a pigmented object and said object absorbs every color except the color we see, which is then reflected onto the rods and cones in the retina of our eyes.
Or I could say something like all light is a rainbow waiting to happen.
Etiologies are our process of explaining how things came to be. Etiology is a part of the historical human experience! Observing phenomena and doing our very best to explain and make sense of them.
Throughout our sacred texts there are countless examples of such etiological explanations like: Why does the snake have no legs? Why is childbirth painful? Why do humans have to tend and till the fields?
The explanation of the origin of things to a child, or anybody for that matter, is essential to the formation of a worldview. What we are told and who tells it to us informs what we believe, how we perceive the world, and perhaps how we interact with others who may have world views different from our own.
In this week’s parasha, we see an etiological story that is abundantly relevant for this moment in history.
Our ancestors, in an attempt to explain a world full of disagreement, tribalism, and an overwhelming inability to communicate, tell the story of the Tower of Babel:
Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. And they said, “Come, let’s build a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.”
God came down to look at the city and tower that humanity had built, and said, “If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach.
Let us, then, go down and confound their speech, so that they shall not understand one another.”
The story of the Tower of Babel begins with the assumption that, at some point… this, our chaotic reality was not always so chaotic… That at some point, everyone on earth spoke the same language and worked together to build a tower and a name for themselves.
The idealism inherent in all of humanity speaking with one voice and working together is such a marvelous and beautiful idea.
Imagine! A utopian reality where people effortlessly understood one another. No need for clarifying questions or miscommunications! No guesswork in understanding the intended message; no subtext to interpret...
But God, seemingly threatened by human unity, confounds our capacity for communication, highlighting the fact that communication and collaboration are the bedrock of collective action and human achievement.
Precisely because of the immense power in unimpeded communication, the Tower of Babel now serves as the symbol for the opposite: for a fractured and frustrated humanity, unable to communicate with each other.
In fact, Ibn Ezra wrote that, “different philosophies create jealousy and hatred among people. The same is true with regard to different languages.” In other words, miscommunication and difference in philosophy breeds the malcontent that we, as well as our ancestors, observe throughout humanity.
In this way, Tower of Babel highlights two crucial commentaries on the human experience. The story first highlights what humanity is capable of in total, cooperative unity.
Second, the story speaks to humanity’s persistent tribalistic chaos.
In other words, the Tower serves to elucidate by contrast what supposedly was with the reality we all know. While such contrast is a commonality with so many etiologies, I believe we might view the Tower of Babel with redemptive possibility.
I submit that the Tower of Babel is our tradition’s way of using reverse psychology to urge humanity into collaboration, to urge us to try and find the language to work together again.
In some ways, we can blame God for our eons' long struggle to communicate, but we can only blame ourselves for our inability to listen.
A mashal…In my sixth grade Judaic studies class, there are 20 sixth graders in my class. 10 tell me they believe the world was created in six days and the other ten tell me they believe in evolution.
Across their diametrically opposed beliefs, that is to say their different languages of history, something miraculous happened.
They also reported that they believe that their counterparts have come to their beliefs with sincerity and emotional honesty. That their counterparts’ have as much integrity in their beliefs as their own.
In other words, despite different vocabularies of belief, however problematic or misguided those beliefs are, my students have proven their ability to listen to each other and honor the seemingly unbridgeable gap between creationism and evolution.
But what about this seemingly pivotal moment in human history? What about the things that matter in an existential sort of way?
How can we begin to trust that the people with whom we disagree, sometimes vehemently, have come to their belief with sincerity and emotional honesty.
What can we do to position ourselves to listen to those with whom we disagree when society feels like it is falling apart at the seams?
With rampant blame and a news cycle dominated by vitriol, how can we garner the positive and potent potential of human communication?
What I am trying to say is… I am in pain as I observe what appears to be the edification of polarization in this country.
I am worried that there are unbridgeable gaps between social and political philosophies.
I am worried that the democratic experiment may well soon come to an end.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and hopeless and I am afraid that the loudest, most prevalent voices we hear echoing from sea to shining sea don’t represent the vast majority of Americans.
But the thing that gives me hope is my deep-seated belief that nothing is impossible, that things can get better.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, extensive research and data from the global Non Profit organization “More in Common” shows that the way in which the political poles perceive each other is not as accurate as we might think.
The fact is, that the vast majority of Americans have a false perception of how polarized America really is.
In many ways, we have managed to convince ourselves that we know what those with whom we disagree are thinking. That we can make sweeping generalizations about swaths of people based on who they voted for.
In fact, More in Common found that while two-thirds of Americans self-define as either democrat or republican, both Republicans and Democrats believed that extremists constitute over 55% of the opposing group.
The reality is that, the research found that in reality, political extremists only constitute a total of 30% of Americans! A crystal clear example of when reality does not match perception.
To me, this news is a huge relief!
If 30% of America’s population are political extremists, this means that 70% of Americans are not.
This means that 70% of Americans have come to their opinions earnestly and with as much emotional honesty as you or me.
What is even more shocking is that, when asked about topics like immigration and our nation’s borders, racism and xenophobia, whether sexism exists, or whether gun control needs more attention, whether Donald Trump is a flawed person, and whether or not climate change is a problem facing America and the world, Republicans and Democrats differed in opinion, on a scale of 1-100, by an average of only 19%.
The fact is, we are not so polarized. The fact is our own biases, our own tribalism, our own absence of shared language creates a barrier between us and them.
Imagine what the Tower of Babel might look like for America? What would it look like for Americans to rediscover a shared democratic language? To ignore the noise and really start to listen to each other.
The fact is that we have an important choice to make. We can choose to engage with those who will never learn to speak a common, civil language, who insist on extremism and reactivism, or…
We can get to work reaching out to those with opinions that are different from our own, building relationships with people who see the world differently than we do, and finding the common language, the common ground that assuredly exists.
In this way, being open to views other than our own is counter cultural.
I think that if we understand the Tower of Babel not as an etiology of why we are where we are, but rather a call to action towards a cooperative ideal, we might realize that our only path forward is to listen to each other, to strive to communicate with each other, and find kavod in the most all encompassing sense of the word.
It is my sincere hope and prayer that our hearts, ears and minds remain open to the voices that are not our own.
Ken Y'hi Ratzon
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