“They said, ‘Come let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach the sky. Let us make ourselves a name, so that we will not scatter all over the face of the earth.’”
The generation that built the Tower of Babel made themselves a name. Not every generation “merits” to have a unique name. They are one of only three generations described in the Bible’s 64 generations that is known by a unique name: The generation of the Dispersion. Since they have a name, it is a sure sign that like a soul that has a name, they will be a recurring phenomenon. Especially since the Arizal says that they are destined to be reincarnated. Even today, as we will explain, there is a phenomenon of the generation of the Dispersion.
There are two other generations that have a unique name. One is the generation of the Flood, and so two of the three generations that were named appear in parashat Noach. The third such generation is the generation that came out of Egypt; they are known as the generation of the Wilderness. Their story starts at the beginning of the Book of Exodus and continues all the way to the Torah’s end.
These three generations reappear throughout history. They are also linked to one another and there is some form of reincarnation between them. Apart from these three, there is no other generation in the Bible that has a unique name describing the people. All other generations are known as the generation of “so and so,” the great sage or leader of the generation.
But since these are the three archetypal generations: the Flood, the Dispersion, and the Wilderness, we could analyze all of history through them. Every generation in history corresponds to one of them and the order is usually the same: from the Generation of the Flood to the Generation of the Dispersion, to the Generation of the Wilderness.
The Three Generations and the Intellectual Faculties
The Generation of the Wilderness is also known as “the Generation of Knowledge,” so obviously they reflect the sefirah of knowledge (da’at), as the Arizal notes. They were a generation that received the Torah, that constructed the Tabernacle, but also the generation that tested God 10 times. They were the generation of Moses who is known as the “knowledge” or “consciousness” of all of Israel.
It follows then that if the third generation in the Torah’s account corresponds to the sefirah of knowledge, then the first two—the generation of the Flood and the Generation of the Dispersion—correspond to the other two intellectual faculties: wisdom and understanding, respectively. The connection between the Flood and wisdom is straightforward because water is a symbol for wisdom.
But we would like to concentrate on the connection between the Generation of the Dispersion and the sefirah of understanding. To typify the character of this generation, we can ask, If we were to start a program of study in the Dispersal in an academic setting, in which department would we put it? The answer is clearly in the linguistics department. That is how the story begins, “The whole world was one language and one common cause.” God identifies the issue with their having had a single language. For this reason, their punishment was to be dispersed by being divided into 70 different languages.
Today we know with some certainty that language is in the left lobe of our brains, and it is the lobe associated with the sefirah of understanding. This is the main faculty happening in the left lobe. In contradistinction, some scientists argue that animals, because they lack developed language, are almost entirely right-lobe creatures. They have two lobes, but they center on the right lobe. Language and particularly speech is man’s special trait. It is what sets us apart from all other creatures, and the “breath of life” that God breathed into us is our ability to speak.
Thus, the Generation of the Dispersion blemished their faculty of speech and language, i.e., their sefirah of understanding. Because it was blemished, their understanding split into myriad languages, just as the Zohar says that understanding is the source of judgments, meaning it has an inclination to divide and split. As an intellectual faculty, understanding is tasked with conceiving of details and particulars. Still, the unity their understanding had, which allowed them to cooperate, broke apart, “so that one person could no longer hear [or understand] the other’s language.”
Left and Right Brain Lobes
Since the sin of the Generation of the Dispersion was in the brain’s left lobe, then we need to understand what the sin of the Generation of the Flood did to the brain’s right lobe. The right brain is associated with intuition. One of the differences between the lobes discussed by scientists is that the left brain is responsible for habits and establishing daily routine actions. But if there is a sudden event that requires our attention, some novel occurrence, something that might threaten our wellbeing, it is the right brain that deals with it.
To use the words of Kabbalah and Chasidut, the right brain is responsible for renewal and the left brain for reinforcement. Renewal and reinforcement are topics we speak of often. Every day we are called upon to reinforce our commitment to our recurring tasks—to keep up with our daily learning regimen, to pray on time, etc. To remain steadfast in our ways is done through the left lobe. If our routine is compromised, it is because the left lobe has been marred.
Normally, new stimuli or events that enter our sphere of consciousness present a threat to us because they force us to renew. The explanation is that animals are mostly right-lobe oriented because they need to constantly cope with new threats. To survive by fighting a threat or to survive by fleeing it, requires the right lobe. These are a few important principles regarding the right and left lobe of our brains.
The Rectified Generation of the Flood
Another point: The generations mentioned in the Torah are not perfect; they sinned and blemished their mission in life. However, these same generations appear again in the days of the Mashiach. Earlier we asked whether our own generation is the Generation of the Flood, the Generation of the Dispersion, or the Generation of the Wilderness, however, it seems we are all three and we will witness the rectification of all three.
The future, positive iteration of the Generation of the Flood is described in the Zohar as the generation about which it says, “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God, just as the waters cover the ocean.” This will be a generation with a figurative flood of supernal Divine wisdom and a surge of lower mundane wisdom; the wisdom of the Torah and the wisdom of science will converge together. The Zohar predicted that this flood of wisdom will begin in the year 1840, when all the fountains of the great abyss will burst forth, specifically the lower mundane wisdoms that fuel science and technology. Even earlier, the windows of heaven also opened, and the supernal wisdom of the Torah’s inner dimension has been revealed, especially since the Ba’al Shem Tov, the pinnacle of the study of the soul of the soul of the Torah, all the wisdom of the secret and Kabbalah. To this day, we are still in the midst of the Generation of the flood.
The Positive Generation of the Dispersion
What can be the positive iteration of the Generation of the Dispersion? What will they endeavor to do? The original souls of that generation wanted to build a city and a tower that reaches the heavens. The sages say they wanted to reach the heavens to wage war with God.
What does building a city and a tower mean today? There's a famous talk, one of the early talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, which explains the Generation of the Flood not as the positive generation of the flood of wisdom, but as the generation that perished in the Holocaust, the flood of the last generation. In that talk, the Rebbe laid the foundation for what we are discussing now, namely that immediately after the generation of the flood came the positive Generation of the Dispersion that needs to focus on building.
We need to build the Jewish people anew and to build the Land of Israel (not only spiritually, but also physically, building cities, roads, and settlements). The Rebbe focused on the construction of many yeshivot—holy construction. The Rebbe said that if one engages in positive construction, that itself rectifies the Generation of the Dispersion.
(Excerpted from a class given on Tishrei 27, 5772)
