Today's Tower of Babel
Today's Tower of Babel

In the interim between the last weekly message and today’s, we witnessed the erasure, obliteration and elimination of 4000 years of Jewish and world history.

UNESCO, after bringing forth "overwhelming" scientific proof and historical evidence, has determined that the Jewish nation has no connection to the Temple Mount. They claim that there never was a Temple - not of King Solomon, not the second Temple of Ezra and not the grandiose Temple of Herod that stood 100 amot tall (equal to the height of a building of 25 stories) and not made of glass and aluminum but of stones the likes of which we can see at the Kotel.

What’s behind all this? Where is Hashem taking the world?

Half-way treatments

Standard treatment for serious bacterial infection is a series of antibiotics. Successful treatment depends on taking a dosage sufficient to kill the bacteria, because just weakening them will permit them to create antibodies which will make the next dose of antibiotics ineffective and the disease much more serious.

This is true with medicine as well as with other areas of human experience. Half-way treatments tend to cause more bloody acts of inhumanity.

The lesson of Babel

We will soon read in the Torah of the episode of Migdal Bavel - The Tower of Babel. At the time, all humanity was concentrated in one area of what is today Iraq, with one common language and a single mutual culture.

Rashi relates that their unanimous plan was to build a tower to reach the abode of Hashem for making war on the Creator. They wished to prevent Him from bringing about another deluge to destroy humanity, as He did at the time of Noach.

This was an incredible engineering feat and even more incredulous motive - but perhaps there is more to the story than what Rashi is telling us?

Hashem thwarted the project's success by developing within the population dissimilar languages and dialects, which by their very nature evolved into different cultures. As a consequence, the confusion that was created caused the dispersion of peoples and cultures - and this has been the source of human history until this very day.

Hashem could have killed off the people of Bavel like antibiotics kill unwanted microbes. However, Hashem merely weakened them so that humanity should create social, religious and political antibodies, because He had a plan which would take thousands of years to unfold.

In our time, we are witnessing a reversal of that human dispersion as the world’s nations with their respective cultures and interests gathered together to create the United Nations as the initial step in eventually creating a “one-world government”. This is the modern Tower of Babel from which the major players conspire to take over Hashem’s role from their center on 42nd Street in N.Y. in controlling all the peoples of the world.

By dispersing the ancients with their various cultures instead of eradicating that immoral and idolatrous generation, Hashem knew that each culture would develop antagonism and hatred towards the other and fight to maintain their own personal interests without regard to morality or godliness. And since the Jewish nation is the personification of morality and godliness, it was only a question of time before the respective nations and cultures would develop antibodies against morality and godliness and unite to create the modern-day Tower of Babel in New York City. The immediate rallying call and declaration of war against Hashem, voiced by UNESCO and that will soon be ratified by other UN committees, is that Hashem’s chosen nation has no connection with the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount and the adjoining Kotel.

How right are Rashi’s prophetic words explaining Migdal Bavel which have come to fruition in these very days!

When I look out on the plaza in front of my home in the Old City of Yerushalayim at the tens of thousands of people on their way to the Temple Mount and the Kotel, it becomes very clear that the four species - lulav, etrog, hadasim and aravot - have more vigor, energy, force, might, strength and permanency than all the decisions, pronouncements and actions of the temporary concentration of peoples who have given themselves the name United Nations.

On the other hand, there might be another very interesting motive behind Hashem’s “pulling of the strings” with regard to UNESCO’s pronouncement that the Jewish nation has no historical or religious connection with the Temple Mount which is also an affront to Christianity.

In order to prove the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, including their religious claims, the Vatican might be forced to exhibit the vessels which were pilfered by the Romans when they destroyed the Temple and brought the vessels to Rome. For centuries, the Vatican has falsely denied that they possess any Temple vessels. Now if this should come about, then the State of Israel would have legal claim to the vessels which could even foster a movement within Israel to rebuild the Temple on Mount Moriah.

Time will tell.

Rabbi Nachman Kahana is an Orthodox Rabbinic Scholar, Rav of Chazon Yechezkel Synagogue – Young Israel of the Old City of Jerusalem, Founder and Director of the Center for Kohanim, and Author of the 15-volume “Mei Menuchot” series on Tosefot, and 3-volume “With All Your Might: The Torah of Eretz Yisrael in the Weekly Parashah”, as well as weekly parasha commentary available where he blogs at http://NachmanKahana.com