Ohr HaChaim Yomi: Yitzhak Levi’s weekly question and answer on Parashat Noach, drawing on the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar.
Question: Toward the end of Parashat Noach, we read about the generation that built the Tower of Bavel. These people decided to build an enormous tower reaching toward the heavens.
Their intentions? Let’s just say they weren’t exactly building a new Beit Hamikdash.
And yet, right before Hashem intervenes, He says something extraordinary: ” ם ָּלֻכְל תַחַא הָפָׂשְו דָחֶא םַע ןֵה” “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language.” Hashem continues: “ת ֹוׂשֲעַל ּומְזָי רֶׁשֲא לֹּכ םֶהֵמ רֵצָּבִי־אֹל הָּתַעְו” “Now nothing they plan to accomplish will be beyond their reach.” (Bereisheet 11:6)
Wait a minute. These people are rebelling against Hashem, and He’s acknowledging how powerful they are?! What’s going on here?
The Answer: Unity Is an Extraordinary Power
Rashi explains that this generation possessed two tremendous advantages: They were one people. And they spoke one language. They had something most societies can only dream of.
Unity. Cooperation. A shared purpose. And because of that, they were capable of accomplishing extraordinary things.
There was just one little problem. They were united for entirely the wrong reasons.
Hashem wasn’t endorsing their mission. But the Torah was revealing just how powerful unity can be.
Reality Check
Let’s be honest. Getting two Jews to agree on where to eat dinner is already a miracle.
One wants meat. One wants dairy. The third says the hashgacha isn’t good enough. And somehow, everyone’s still hungry.
Now imagine an entire nation agreeing on one project! No arguments. No competing committees. No one insisting that his grandfather’s minhag was to build the tower three feet taller.
Just one people working together. The potential was enormous.
Unfortunately, the direction was completely wrong.
The Deeper Lesson: Unity Doesn’t Mean Uniformity
And here’s where I think this becomes particularly meaningful for us. Look at the Jewish people today. Ashkenazim. Sephardim. Yemenites. Different customs. Different melodies. Different pronunciations.
Put three Jews in a room and you’ll probably get four opinions. But beneath all those differences?
One Torah. One Hashem. One people.
We don’t need to dress alike. We don’t need to pronounce every Hebrew word the same way. We don’t even need to agree on every minhag.
Because true Jewish unity isn’t about everyone being identical. It’s about everyone recognizing that we’re serving the same Hashem.
Modern Application: Imagine What We Could Accomplish
Think about how much energy we sometimes spend arguing over differences.
My shul. Your shul. My community. Your community. My minhag. Your minhag.
Now imagine directing even a fraction of that energy toward helping one another. More Torah learning. More chesed. More support for struggling families. More Ahavat Yisrael.
The generation of Bavel demonstrated what people could accomplish when they worked together.
Imagine what the Jewish people could accomplish if we applied that same unity toward serving Hashem.
Final Thought
The generation of Bavel had unity. But they lacked the proper purpose. And Hashem scattered them.
The lesson isn’t that unity alone makes something righteous. It’s that unity is an extraordinary gift, and what we choose to do with it matters.
Because whether you’re Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Yemenite, or anything in between… We may have different customs. We may have different traditions. And we certainly have different opinions about whose cholent is better.
But at the end of the day: We have one Torah. We serve one Hashem. And we are one people.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Tower of Bavel is this: If a generation united against Hashem could accomplish so much, imagine what a generation united in the service of Hashem could accomplish.