Jason Klau lives in Inwood with his proud parents, Michael and Dianna, and his older brother Daniel.  He attends Baruch Middle School, where he has just started eighth grade, and the Hebrew Tabernacle School for religious studies.  An avid ice hockey player, he plays for the North Park Association in Central Park.  Other interests include the bass guitar, and playing in the up and coming band Morbid Smiley!  This last summer, Jason attended the Harness Youth Foundation Summer Camp, where he learned how to care for horses and participated at a race at Batavia Downs racetrack and won!  Jason would like to dedicate his Bar Mitzvah to his grandparents, Robert and Elsie Klau.

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            This weeks Torah portion deals with the building and the ultimate destruction of the tower of Babel, which took place just a few generations after the destruction of the earth from the great flood. The descendents of Noah populated the earth speaking the same language, and sharing the same culture. They migrated to Babylonia, fulfilling the directive from God to Noah, to “go forth and multiply.” According to Torah scholar, Abravanel, the people at the time lived a peaceful and harmonious life. People were generous and shared everything. The building of the tower brought all of that to an end. Disagreements erupted about how the tower was to be built, who would make the bricks, who would carry them, who would get credit. Most everything that had to do with the tower was argued about.

            Scholars disagree about why the tower of Babel was built. Some say, people wanted to “make a name for them selves” and to be known as the builders of the greatest tower of all. Others say they wanted to build the tower to get in to the heavens. What ever the reason was, it made God very angry and brought about the destruction of the tower. God promised Noah that he would not destroy the earth again, so instead he spread them out through the whole world. God told Noah that as long as rainbows appeared that the earth would be spared.

            In only a few generations, the people had forgotten that same behavior had caused the earth to be destroyed in the first place. Their corrupt ways had returned and God was true to his word, and did not destroy the entire world again, but instead spread everyone out, and gave them different languages and cultures

            Was this a just punishment? What would the world be like today if we were all the same, and shared the same language and religion?  Although many problems in the world have to do with differences in religion, culture, and way of life, it is hard to imagine what our world would be like, if everybody spoke the same languages, believed in the same things, and lived the same way as everyone else. Before the tower, living the same way didn’t work, and it wouldn’t work today either.

            The problems that caused the tower to be built in the first place were human problems. Greed, jealousy, lawlessness, and corruption are all natural human emotions, and instincts. God gave humans the ability to reason, and the ability to choose for themselves. God made nobody perfect, and in these imperfections, he created a diversity of beliefs, emotions, and opinions that in the long run, benefited man kind. 

            In today’s society, there is a lot of diversity, especially here in New York City. You can get food, any where from a greasy Greek diner, to an Italian restaurant. From a take out Chinese food place, to a bagel shop on the corner, and from pub food to hot dogs. It is the fact the god destroyed the tower, and made lots of different cultures in many different places, that has made New York City, and any other place for that matter, the diverse places they are today. So was Gods punishment really a punishment, or was it merely bettering the future for generations to come? I believe it was not a punishment, but giving earth a future for a better and more diverse of a place to live in.