Way back in September, our learners started exploring the text of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel). Over the course of the last three months we really dug into that text and pulled it apart. We looked to the people in the story for examples of some great ways to treat each other and some not-so-great ways to treat each…
Tag: migdal bavel
Peace, Love, and Makom Community
There’s a midrash (commentary) that the people who built the Tower of Babel weren’t punished as harshly as the people who lived during the Flood. Those people were destroyed entirely – totally wiped out. The people who built the tower, though, they stayed alive, but had to spread out and speak lots of languages. Why were the consequences for their…
People First: What do we value?
What’s more valuable: a person or a brick? The answer, according to this week’s text, might surprise you. Do we value people? What actions and choices can we make to show it? This week we explored a midrash (rabbinic exploration of a textual question) that tried to answer the question: what was so bad about the people building the Tower…
Treating Mistakes with Love
According to a midrash (story that elaborates), the incident of the Tower of Babel led angels to argue with God about the worthwhileness of people. Because of the “ruinous” actions of the people in the story, the angels said to God, “Didn’t the first set of angels speak appropriately before you, that human beings are not worthy of having been…
Jumping to Conclusions and Choosing Compassion
What happens when we jump to conclusions and judge a situation before we get all the details? The text of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel) says that God came down to see the tower that the people were building (Genesis 11:5). Rashi wonders why. Didn’t God already know what was going on without coming down to look? Rashi suggests…
Walk and Talk: A New Year Blessing
Tekiiiiyaaaaa! Do you hear the sound of the shofar? We’ve already been hearing it for a week at Makom Community. Rosh Hashanah is coming up this Monday and Tuesday, and we’ve got some special plans at Makom Community to celebrate. We’ll be enjoying some extra sweet apples-and-honey themed snacks as well as some extra sweet projects and activities. In the…
On God and Misunderstandings
What do we know about God? How does the description of God in the story of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel) add to or challenge our pre-existing understanding? Why does God make people unable to understand each other in this story? How did they respond to their misunderstandings? How do we respond to ours? Read on to find out…
Diversity of Culture in a Unified Voice
What are the benefits of different languages? What are the challenges? What’s good and helpful about people all speaking the same language? These were some of our lines of inquiry as we dove into the first verse of the Migdal Bavel (Tower of Babel) story. The story opens by asserting that “The whole earth had one language and one set…
The Ups and Downs of Working Together
Team work! It’s a great thing, right? Sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it goes wrong. The people in the story of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel) get together and decide to build a city with a tower that reaches all the way up to the sky. God comes down to take a look at the tower and is not…