ונעשה לנו שם , “so that we can make a name for ourselves.” According to the plain meaning of the text, all these people wanted was to settle in one single location on earth in order to stay together. However, they did not find a location other than the valley of Shinor in which to do this. This is why they wanted to build a city and a tower which could accommodate all of them. The purpose of the tower was to serve as a beacon so that people all over the earth would be able to see it and to orient themselves by means of it. They themselves would all live in a single city. This is the reason the Torah quoted them as saying פן נפוץ, “lest we will scatter.” This is why G’d punished them by scattering them to teach them that they had contravened His commandment to fill the earth with their presence (9,1). Isaiah 45,18 pointed out that G’d had made the earth in order for it to be settled by mankind.

From a homiletical point of view the operative clause in our veres are the words “let us make a name for “ourselves.” This is an oblique reference to idolatry. The word שם, “name,” here and the same word in Exodus 23,13 ושם אלוהים אחרים לא תזכירו, “and you must not mention the name of any other deity,” mean the same thing. We also have a Midrashic comment in Midrash Tehillim 1, that the word הבה, introduces an evil thought, an evil intention as it does in Judges 20,7 הבו לכם דבר ועצה הלום, “come up with a plan here and now!”. Furthermore, we have a tradition that the word עיר, “city,” is a reference to a deity as we find in Daniel 4,10 that the words עיר וקדיש refer to a destructive angel (Satan or similar).

I have read in a Midrash on the Ten Commandments that these people proposed to take spades planning to invade heaven to flood it and drain it in order to ensure that another deluge could not originate from that source. They wanted to take large chunks of heaven and to engage in war with the King of the heavens. The Tower had seventy steps in an easterly direction and seventy steps in a westerly direction on its opposite side. G’d descended those seventy steps accompanied by seventy angels and He confused their language and their dialects. Thus far that Midrash. We also read in Bereshit Rabbah 38,6 that these people said: “we do not agree that G’d should have an exclusive right to heaven whereas we have only been assigned earth. Let us make war against Him.” (This Midrash appears in a variety of slightly different versions).

Looking at this story from a rational point of view, the words “and let us make a name for ourselves,” must be understood thus. The people of that generation were very advanced in matters of philosophy and even technology. However, they used their intelligence in a sinful manner. They constructed the city and Tower to protect themselves against a deluge of fire (seeing that G’d had promised not to again bring a deluge of water). This is what the word “war” in the Midrash refers to. They prepared to contend with heavenly forces (such as angels) against the will of the Lord. They tried to isolate and tame the power of fire in order to neutralize its deadly effect so that it could not engulf their city. The author quotes scientists in his generation as attempting similarly to “tame” the power of “fire.” [I presume he speaks about the construction of lightning rods. Ed.] There was another reason which motivated them. They had been witness to the fact that G’d had decreed death on Adam, while they perceived themselves as physically powerful and enjoying a much longer life span than the 120 years G’d appeared to have decreed. They thought that they were all powerful [G’d Himself (verse 6) questioned whether their power should not be curtailed.] They planned to scale heaven while alive and well in order to overcome the impediment to this imposed upon them by their mortality. Their principal aim was to overcome the decree issued against Adam which made all of them mortal also. All of their planning in building the Tower was designed to achieve immortality. The reason G’d had to scatter them was because they planned to nullify His world order.

The Torah has worded its report in such a way that it did not spell out these people’s evil intent in detail. Our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 38,6 elaborate on the words דברים אחדים, saying these words should be read as דברים אחודים, “words which were kept isolated, made inaccessible.” Whereas the Torah revealed the sin of the generation of the deluge, it did not spell out the sin of the generation of the Tower. I have heard it said that there were seventy people engaged in building the Tower. No doubt there was a special reason why seventy, and only seventy people would have been actively engaged in the building of that Tower.

A kabbalistic approach to the meaning of the words “let us make a name for ourselves.” Fundamentally, their sin was the same as that of their forefather Adam who had become guilty of what our sages called קצץ בנטיעות, the heresy practiced by Enosh (4,26). The word הוחל in that verse needs to be translated as “was desecrated.” Here too the words וזה החלם לעשות have to be understood in that same vein, i.e. “and now they committed a desecration.” Another way of understanding the same word is to derive it from ,תחלה “beginning;” in that case the correct translation would be “and this is what they commenced to do!” However, the words must not be detached from their plain meaning. The common denominator between these two explanations is that these people undertook something which, if left unchecked, would result in the end of mankind. This is the deeper meaning of the expression קצץ בנטיעות, “cut off the saplings at their very roots” (figuratively speaking). The reason the Torah uses the word וזה “and this,” is that this word is related to שם i.e. ונעשה לנו שם, “let us make a name for ourselves.” The word שם in this instance is a reference to the highest emanation [the one known in modern kabbalistic literature as כתר. Ed.] They wanted to conquer the highest regions of heaven. They were under the mistaken impression that that emanation is the absolute highest level of “heaven,” i.e. celestial force, which exists. This very mistaken belief undermines the true faith and is equivalent to someone being מקצץ בנטיעות. Considering all this, the Torah had said previously (11,2) ויהי בנסעם מקדם, “it was when they departed from the One called Kedem, i.e. from the Creator who preceded all” (compare Bereshit Rabbah 38,7). The Torah did want us to know that basically, their sin was of the same category as that of the first man. This is why the Torah refers to the people in this paragraph as בני האדם, “Adam’s sons”, to hint that what they did paralleled what Adam had done.

Rabbi Berechyah in Bereshit Rabbah 38,9 asks rhetorically: “how else was the Torah supposed to describe these people if not as בני האדם?” Should the Torah have referred to the as בני חמירא, the “sons of donkeys, or “the sons of camels?” The answer [I think, is in the extra letter ה before the word אדם i.e.] that the Torah stresses that they behaved not just like ordinary human beings but like the first human being, Adam [as opposed to 5,1 where the Torah describes זה ספר תולות אדם, “this is the Book of the generations of man,” without the letter ה in front of the word אדם Ed.] The words בני האדם are a hint that these people were like the first human being and the Torah had indicated that the people of the deluge had sinned by denying that there is something higher than the emanation כתר, which had let to their destruction in the “lower universe.”

We had explained earlier that the attribute of Justice, even when in a dominant role, is always accompanied by some aspect of the attribute of Mercy as represented by שם the Ineffable Name י-ה-ו-ה. In the case of the deluge, the principle of מדה כנגד מדה operated in such a way that as punishment for that generation’s refusal to recognise anything beyond the emanation שם=כתר, they experienced the full impact of the unrelieved attribute of Justice so that even the earth they had lived on was destroyed. The earth had been the creation of the attribute of Justice, i.e. אלוקים. The attribute of Mercy, i.e. השם, had been “co-opted” only at the time when the Torah reported the creation of Adam (2,4) as a functioning human being. Basically, man had tried to separate the role of the attribute of אלוקים from the role of the attribute שם, or י-ה-ו-ה. G’d demonstrated to them that such an attempt if successful spells disaster both for them and for the earth they lived on. They had wanted only “nature,” as represented by the attribute אלוקים. It is quite possible that prior to the deluge such considerations had not had a philosophical basis, had been mostly based on an emotional resentment of authority from an extra-terrestrial force. At this time, it had been developed to a philosophy by highly intelligent people, people who had already learned of the value of co-operation, unity, working towards a common goal. This was why their newly developed approach was so dangerous. [I have taken the liberty to phrase these thoughts in my own way. Ed.] G’d scattered them (i.e. separated them from their unity) all over the globe as retaliation for their attempt to “scatter,” i.e. separate His attributes from one another. Furthermore, they had calculated the precise number of steps needed to ascend to heaven (70) [according to Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, the number reflects 70 miles, a mile per step. Ed.] The number may also allude to the 70 representatives of the 70 nations in the celestial spheres. According to tradition, Nebuchadnezzar (who was also from Babel (though it was renamed Babylon) introduced the golden image of בל into the remnants of the Holy Temple to symbolise that this philosophy had triumphed. (In Jeremiah 51,44 the prophet predicts the eventual humiliation of that idol and that of the people who worshiped it) Daniel 3,1 speaks of a huge golden image Nebuchadnezzar had put up in the valley of Dura in the land of Babylon. This valley may be identical with the valley described in our chapter where the Torah described these people as וימצאו בקעה, “they found a valley.” All of this is part of the aforementioned hints the Torah provided concerning the sins of that generation. My the Lord protect us from committing similar errors.

כי שם בלל ה' שפת כל הארץ ומשם הפיצם ה, “for it was there that G’d confused the language of the whole earth, and from there G’d scattered them.” You should know that wherever the name of G’d (the four-lettered one, even) appears in a reverse order such as here when the respective first letters in the four words 'הארץ ומשם הפיצם ה appear, the Torah means the attribute of Justice. This is just one of the examples of this rule. In every one of the numerous instances where we encounter the use of the four-lettered name of G’d where we would not have expected it, the addition of such a reverse allusion as we have shown here makes it plain that the Torah had the attribute of Justice in mind. I will demonstrate this in detail whenever we shall encounter this phenomenon. Seeing that our passage appeared to refer to the attribute of Mercy when we read such phrases as וירא ה' “G’d saw”, (verse 5) or ויאמר ה’,”G’d said,” (verse 6), names of G’d which suggest that the attribute of Mercy was at work, the Torah had to provide us with an allusion to show that at that time the world was already under the attribute of Justice which had already been poised to strike. This attribute of Justice was now “wrapped” inside a layer of the attribute of Mercy in recognition of the unity which was a dominant feature of mankind’s lifestyle at that time. People loved one another and the Torah reflected this by writing that they spoke one language and had a common purpose.” This is the reason why G’d only scattered them instead of destroying them. The confusing of their languages was an example of the principle of the punishment fitting the crime, מדה כנגד מדה. Their sin consisted of the words they spoke, i.e. ויאמרו הבה נבנה לנו עיר, “they said: ”let us build a city for ourselves, etc.” Seeing they had put the power of speech to improper use, their power of speech now became impaired so that they no longer could understand each other. The descendants of Noach who had numbered seventy at that time, were now divided into seventy nations, each with a distinctive language. You know already that there are seventy “princes,” i.e. representatives in the celestial spheres who represent these seventy nations before the throne of G’d. They correspond to the respective kings or heads of these nations here on earth.

Each one of these seventy celestial “princes” is a part of the nation he represents, unlike Yaakov (Jeremiah 10,16) of whom the prophet said לא כאלה חלק יעקב כי יוצר הכל הוא, “unlike these is the portion of Yaakov, for it is He Who forms all things.” Just as the Jewish people do not need intermediaries before G’d but have direct access to Him, so the Hebrew tongue is superior to all the other languages in the world. It is G’d’s own language and as such it is as superior to other languages as is G’d Himself to any of the agents He has appointed in this world to do His bidding. This is what our sages in Shabbat 12 alluded to when they said: “when someone asks in Aramaic (in his prayer) for whatever he needs, the angels will not assist him (add their pleading on his behalf) as the angels do not understand that language.” This poses a problem as we have already stated that the great planet is more knowledgeable than man, and the angels are certainly more knowledgeable than that great planet; if man knows Aramaic, why does not that angel understand that language? Besides, we have a tradition that both Joseph (Sotah 37) and Mordechai knew all the seventy languages (compare Megillah 13).

The correct explanation of the statement in Shabbat 12 that מלאכי השרת אינן מכירין בלשון ארמי ואינן נזקקין לו is that their knowledge of the Aramaic language is of no help to the people praying in that language as just as these angels do not act as agents for Jews praying in any language other than Hebrew they also do not act as agents for Jews praying in Aramaic. There is, however, no doubt that the angels do understand that language just as they understand every language. It is the duty of the Jews to draw the help from celestial sources by means of the Holy Tongue, Hebrew. Unless they are capable of praying in Hebrew their prayer loses in effectiveness.

אלה תולדות שם, “these are the descendants of Shem.” You do not find the word death, or “the died,” in connection with any of the descendants of Shem who have been enumerated here [except when the Torah reports that Avram’s father Terach died in Charan (verse 32). Ed.] as you find it mentioned when the Torah enumerated the generations between Adam and Noach. It is possible that the reason is that the kingdom of David (the Messiah) will be descended from them, and in due course the Messiah will be the cause of banishing death altogether. [At this point our author once again indulges in speculation about the timing of that event. Seeing that time has passed and the Messiah did not arrive, I have omitted the rest of this passage. Ed.]

וימת הרן על פני תרח אביו בארץ מולדתו באור כשדים, “Haran died during the lifetime of his father Terach in the land of his birth by the fire of the Chaldeans.” From this verse we hear about the great loyalty of Avraham to His G’d and the strength of his belief in Him in that he was prepared to die a martyr’s death rather than betray his belief in G’d. If the Torah had not provided us with a hint of this here, it would have had to spell out the incident in order to explain why Avraham suddenly qualified to be spoken to by G’d directly in 12.1. and was told to move to the land of Canaan. It is just not normal that man should qualify for receiving a direct communication from G’d unless G’d had first told us something about the outstanding characteristic of such a person. We find that G’d did not communicate with Noach (6,13) until the Torah had reported (6,9) that G’d considered him a ”righteous and perfect individual” in his time. Our verse therefore lays the groundwork for G’d preparing to communicate with Avraham. It is a fact that Avraham’s birthplace was not Ur in the land of the Casdim, but that he was born on the west side of the river Euphrates. We have direct confirmation of this in Joshua 24,2 where we are told מעבר הנהר ישבו אבותיכם מעולם, “your ancestors have lived on the far side of the river Euphrates from time immemorial.” The word מעולם in that verse is clear proof of the fact that Avraham was not born in Ur. This is also why he was known as אברם העברי, in 14,13, “Avraham from across the river.” Had he been born in Ur Casdim he should have been known as אברם הכשדי, “Avram from the land of the Chaldaens.” Another proof for our contention is the fact that Nachor, Avraham’s brother is reported as living in Charan, a place well west of the river Euphrates. If we find in verse 31 that Terach took his son Avram and Lot the son of Haran with him as well as Sarai his daughter-in- law on his way from Ur Casdim in order to go to the land of Canaan and that they got as far as Charan, this suggests that Nachor was the only one who remained in Ur Casdim at the time. However, the truth is that Nachor had never left his birthplace in the first place. This is also the reason the Torah writes the word “in the land of his birth” in the middle of the verse instead of at its end. The word מולדתו, “his birthplace,” refers to Aram which was well to the west of the river Euphrates. We find that our sages in Baba Batra 91 mention that Avram was a prisoner for ten years, three of them in a place called Kuta, and seven years in a place called Kardo. According to some scholars the former place is identical with Ur Casdim. Others hold that it was west of the river Euphrates.

You should know that Terach begat his sons Avram and Nachor on the west side of the river Euphrates, the land of his fathers, and that subsequently he migrated to Ur Casdim to join his son Avram where his younger son Haran was born. Nachor had stayed in his birthplace in Charan all that time. The words בארץ מולדתו refer to Haran, who had indeed been born in Ur Casdim.

Maimonides, in his Moreh Nevuchim 3,29, writes that there is a record in Egyptian books about agriculture that Avram was born in a place called Kuta and that he disagreed with all the local people concerning their worshiping the sun. The king therefore imprisoned him where he remained for many years. Some time later the king feared that Avram would cause destruction to his country and that he would sway his subjects into changing their religion so that he decided to expel Avram to the borders of the land of Canaan.Thus far Maimonides. As to the meaning of the word אור in our verse. The word appears in three meanings. 1) valley or depression; 2) fire; 3) mountain. The reason that it may mean valley is based on Isaiah 11,8 מאורת הצפעוני, ”the den of an adder.” The prophet calls the den of that viper מאורה, and a valley is a depression in the earth. Our verse then would mean: “from the valley of the Casdim.” The reason the word may mean “mountain,” is based on Isaiah 24,15 באורים כבוד ה', “for the glory of the Lord is in the mountains,” and the reason the word was used to symbolise mountains was that the Israelites used to light flares on the mountains to inform the people that the new moon had been sighted so that the people who lived far from Jerusalem would observe the next day as New Moon. This is what is meant in Isaiah 24,15 באיי הים שם ה' אלוקי ישראל, “the name of the Lord G’d of Israel is (even) in the islands of the sea.” The prophet urges the people to proclaim the mighty miracles of G’d by honouring G’d with lights, as if the meaning of the words הר כשדים were “fire.” We encounter this word in Isaiah 44,16 חמותי ראיתי אור “I am hot, I can feel the fire (heat).“ It is the opinion of the sages in the Talmud that Nimrod threw Avram into a fiery furnace when he refused to retract his refusal to consider him a deity.” Whatever the true facts, there occurred either a public or a private miracle for Avram while he was in Ur Casdim when 1) the king who had imprisoned him took him out of prison which was situated in either a valley or on a mountain instead of killing him, or, 2) he was miraculously saved from the fiery furnace.

ותהי שרי עקרה, אין לה ולד, “Sarah remained barren, she had no child.” Some women remain childless for many years, appearing to be barren; at the end of a number of years they become pregnant and have children. Our verse informs us that in addition to Sarai being עקרה, “barren,” she was unable to conceive any children by nature, i.e. אין לה ולד. This is why both Avram and Sarai decided to leave their home and to move to the land of Canaan hoping that due to the additional merit of the Holy Land they would be able to have children. Although the words “Terach took his son Avram, etc.” convey the impression that Terach was the prime cause of that move, this is not true. The fact is that the family undertook the whole journey only on account of Avram. We find later on that after Terach died, his grandson Lot joined Avram (12,4; 13,1) who was the enterprising member of the family.

וימת תרח בחרן, “Terach died in Charan.” Up until this verse the whole chapter had listed all the descendants of Shem without once mentioning the word “death.”

Our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 39,7) were very conscious of the fact that the Torah wanted to protect Avram’s image in the eyes of the readers. If Avram had left Charan for the land of Canaan without the Torah revealing that his father had died, the readers would have accused him of abandoning an elderly father in his old age. This is why the Torah reported Terach’s death before telling us that Avram moved to the land of Canaan at the command of G’d although at the time Terach had not died yet, as we know from the age at which Terach died. If the Torah reported Terach’s “death” as if it had occurred prior to Avram’s departure for the land of Canaan, this is only because our sages consider sinners as “dead” even while they walk around on earth (compare Rashi). [The Torah reports Avram as 75 years old (12,4) when he settled in the land of Canaan, whereas his father was seventy years old (11,26) when he fathered him. Seeing that Terach lived to be 205 years old at his death, (11,32), Avram left him when his father still had 60 years left to live. Ed.]. If our sages nonetheless interpret 15,15 ואתה תבא אל אבותיך בשלום, “and you will join your fathers in peace,” as referring to the hereafter, and this seems to include his father Terach among the people whom he would encounter there, this can be explained only by the fact that Avraham’s merits acquired on earth benefited his father posthumously so that G’d awarded Terach a share in the hereafter. While Terach had lived on earth, however, he had been an idolater all his life and had died without repenting. Perhaps this is the reason why the letter ן in the last word of the chapter, i.e. וימת תרח בחרן is reversed, pointing backwards. [both according to Rashi and Rabbi David Kimchi this appears to have been the spelling in their time, although nowadays there is no such inverted letter ן in any of our versions of the Torah. Ed.] The inverted letter ן is seen as an indication of G-d’s anger at Terach and as a message that his share in the hereafter is due entirely to the merit of his son Avraham. It was a case of the fruit “saving” the tree.

Our sages (Vayikra Rabbah 7) may have derived the ruling that the wood from all kinds of trees barring that of the olive tree and the grapevine is fit for feeding the fire on the altar, from the principle that the fruit can save the tree.

Another reason for the inverted letter ן in the word חרן may be that the very inversion symbolises Tohu, chaos. [We have a tradition that the 6.000 years allocated to life on this terrestrial globe is divided into 3 periods each of 2.000 years.] The first 2.000 years are described as Tohu, the next as Torah, the last as the period during which the Messiah prepares to come. A review of the numbers given in the Torah will show that Terach’s death in the year 2083 coincided (roughly) with the period at which Tohu ended. The second period, the one of Torah, began with Avraham’s beneficial activities on earth and especially in the Holy Land.

The Torah contains a number of inverted letters all of which contain a message to us. Similarly, there are good reasons why sometimes a letter is written in larger or smaller than regular script. All such hints are part of the 50 gates of בינה, superior insights, which were revealed to Moses while he was on Mount Sinai. Our sages in Sanhedrin 104 have stated that “whereas a son may confer some of his merit on his father, the reverse is not the case.” They base this on Deut. 32,39 ואין מידי מציל, “there is no rescuer from My hand.” Whereas Avraham’s merits were not able to save his son Ishmael, they were able to confer merit on his father. Yitzchak could not confer of his merit on his son Esau either. Concerning this state of affairs, Solomon said in Proverbs 17,6 עטרת זקנים בני בנים, ותפארת בנים אבותם, “Grandchildren are the crown of their elders, the glory of children are their fathers.” Seeing that it is within the province of the children to confer merit on their fathers, Solomon applied the complimentary “crown,” to them. This is a greater compliment than the term תפארת, “glory,” which he applied to their fathers. When the elders can point to righteous grandchildren they can wear this knowledge with the same pride as a king wears his crown. The parents who are unable to transfer of their merits to the children, are תפארת, a glory in their own right only if their children do measure up to the standards set for them by their fathers. We find a reference to such parents in Esther 9,28 וזכרם לא יסוף מזרעם, “and their remembrance will not perish from their descendants.” The various generations who have been loyal to G’d will ascend hand in hand spiritually. This is what Job 14,7-8 referred to when he said: “there is hope for a tree; if it is cut down it will renew itself, its shoots will not cease, if its roots are old in the earth” As long as the “saplings” are similar to those who have planted them we can apply the blessing of Isaiah 61,3 וקורא להם אילי הצדק מטע ה' להתפאר, “they shall be called ‘the terebinths of victory, planted by the Lord for His glory.’”