Dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Moshe Aaron ben Necha Itta, Binyamin ben Simcha, Chaya Sarah bas Esther Leah, and Sharon bas Shoshana.

We are all, I would comfortably say, familiar with the stories of the greatness of Avraham Avinu. We know that in a culture of avodah zara, Avraham recognized that there could only be one Creator, one singular greater power who needed no intermediaries. When no one seemed to understand, he sought (and succeeded) in building a relationship with Hashem. We know that Avraham destroyed the idols in his father’s idol shop. We know that he didn’t hesitate to take his wife and leave his homeland. We know he arrived in his Promised Land only to find it wracked by famine. And those were just his early years. 

Rarely do we focus on the fact that Avraham’s early years begin in Parshas Noah and that where his genealogy is listed – right after the narrative of the Tower of Babel – is also surprisingly significant. Thinking about genealogy – or, more precisely, the overlapping of the biblical generations – it seems rather perplexing how it could be that while Noah and his sons still lived people could “lose sight,” so to speak, of the Oneness of Hashem. They were still aware of Hashem, but they didn’t understand how to connect with Him. This led to both the avodah zara by which Terach made his money (one might even hypothesize that people over-complicated just talking to Hashem and thus created the distance) and the desire of Nimrod to lead the people to build the tower. 

Migdal Bavel is an interesting narrative in that it is a collective story. No one person is given focus, and the actions are detailed in a plural format. Indeed, some commentaries say that the people joined into the project of building the tower because it was promoted as a project of unity. 

These events happened in the lifetime of Avraham, when he was in his 40s according to Midrashic calculation, although we would only know this from careful study of the genealogy that follows. The question naturally seems to follow: How did Avraham react to this call for all people to come together and build a great city and incredible tower?

According to the Pirkei D’Midrash Eliezer, “Avram, son of Terah, passed by, and saw them building the city and the tower, and he cursed them in the name of his God, as it is said, ‘Swallow up, O Lord, divide their language’ (Ps. 55:10). But they rejected his words, like a stone cast upon the ground…” (24:7). 

Obviously, this curse reflects the storyline of the consequence laid down by Hashem, but the Midrash also highlights the fact that Avraham was already a person of enough consequence to feel it worthwhile to speak up. (It should be noted that other Midrashim/commentaries say he condemned their actions only later, when he heard of it. The Ibn Ezra