Genesis 11:7

הָ֚בָה נֵֽרְדָ֔ה וְנָבְלָ֥ה שָׁ֖ם שְׂפָתָ֑ם אֲשֶׁר֙ לֹ֣א יִשְׁמְע֔וּ אִ֖ישׁ שְׂפַ֥ת רֵעֵֽהוּ׃

Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.

It’s often said that we have forgotten how to talk with one another. For the building of the tower of babel, that is precisely the issue. In order to stop humanity from building a tower to heaven, God didn’t simply knock the tower down with an earthquake. God confounded their speech so they could no longer understand each other. In this way they would be hampered from working together, and would stop building. The Midrash adds another layer to this story. One person would ask for a brick and receive plaster, and on and on and never receive the thing they actually needed. This would continue to happen and so frustrate everyone involved until they started attacking each other. 

In a similar way we have forgotten how to talk with each other and are warned by this story of the consequences. Our politics, our sense of right and wrong, our language itself has become increasingly polarized to the point where communication has become increasingly more difficult. Compromise and philosophical discussion with those who we disagree with has been replaced by animosity. We can blame the polarizing effects of social media and mass media, but in the end we have to take responsibility. 

If I say brick and you hear plaster, we have a choice. Either we continue to work out our communication until we understand each other, or we get frustrated to the point of anger. We learn from this tower that being able to talk to each other is not just key to working together. Putting in the hard work to talk with those who we can’t fully understand is the backbone of a peaceful society.iples in every situation—being authentic no matter where we are or who we are with. While different roles may highlight different facets of who we are, our work during these holy days is to ensure we don’t lose sight of our core identity, to gather the scattered parts of our lives and bring them back to the center.