This week, I met with students from the Nachshon pre-Military academy. One of the students asked me the following question: “Don’t you think that by changing things (such as equality for women, driving to synagogue, or using musical instruments in prayer) and practicing a long-standing tradition differently, you are destroying Judaism?”
I want to answer this question through Parashat Noach, to speak in praise of confusion, and to suggest that, in my view, confusion is the beginning of repair. Hidden at the end of Parashat Noach is the story of the Tower of Babel, which may not be a story about humanity’s failure, but rather about the conditions necessary for its continued existence.
Humanity seeks to be one people, with one language and a shared purpose. God disperses them and confuses their language. Perhaps this is not merely a punishment, but an expression of a profound understanding and a divine conclusion: the world cannot survive when everyone thinks the same way, speaks the same language, and strives toward the same vision. It is precisely our differences, our diversity, and the multiplicity of cultures, opinions, and beliefs that give humanity its vitality.
God does not eliminate evil from the world. At the end of the flood, God understands that “the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth” (Genesis 8:21). In other words, evil is present in humanity from the very beginning. Already in the opening of Genesis, alongside light and goodness, there is chaos and disorder, which, in my view, represent evil. Yet God seeks to bring goodness into the world through human beings. And this goodness can only be realized in a world that contains many voices, encounters between differences, and the possibility of choice.
That is why, immediately after the Tower of Babel, the Torah can tell the story of Abram (Abraham). Out of a divided world filled with many voices emerges the story of a person who will carry the message of one God.
It is not uniformity that will repair the world, but rather the ability of different people to live together and, through their differences, create meaning, responsibility, and hope. Perhaps this is the divine condition for the continuation of creation: not a world in which everyone is alike, but a world in which difference allows goodness to emerge.
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Rabbi Ariella Graetz Bartuv was ordained to the rabbinate at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. She serves as Rabbi of the Ohel Avraham Congregation at the Leo Buck Education Center in Haifa and is also the director of the center's community department. Ariella was born in Israel, is married to Menashe, and they have three children. She is the daughter of the late Rabbi Michael Gratz and Naomi, who were among the founders of the traditional movement in Israel. Ariella defines herself as an Israeli product of liberal and pluralistic Judaism
I want to answer this question through Parashat Noach, to speak in praise of confusion, and to suggest that, in my view, confusion is the beginning of repair. Hidden at the end of Parashat Noach is the story of the Tower of Babel, which may not be a story about humanity’s failure, but rather about the conditions necessary for its continued existence.
Humanity seeks to be one people, with one language and a shared purpose. God disperses them and confuses their language. Perhaps this is not merely a punishment, but an expression of a profound understanding and a divine conclusion: the world cannot survive when everyone thinks the same way, speaks the same language, and strives toward the same vision. It is precisely our differences, our diversity, and the multiplicity of cultures, opinions, and beliefs that give humanity its vitality.
God does not eliminate evil from the world. At the end of the flood, God understands that “the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth” (Genesis 8:21). In other words, evil is present in humanity from the very beginning. Already in the opening of Genesis, alongside light and goodness, there is chaos and disorder, which, in my view, represent evil. Yet God seeks to bring goodness into the world through human beings. And this goodness can only be realized in a world that contains many voices, encounters between differences, and the possibility of choice.
That is why, immediately after the Tower of Babel, the Torah can tell the story of Abram (Abraham). Out of a divided world filled with many voices emerges the story of a person who will carry the message of one God.
It is not uniformity that will repair the world, but rather the ability of different people to live together and, through their differences, create meaning, responsibility, and hope. Perhaps this is the divine condition for the continuation of creation: not a world in which everyone is alike, but a world in which difference allows goodness to emerge.
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Rabbi Ariella Graetz Bartuv was ordained to the rabbinate at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. She serves as Rabbi of the Ohel Avraham Congregation at the Leo Buck Education Center in Haifa and is also the director of the center's community department. Ariella was born in Israel, is married to Menashe, and they have three children. She is the daughter of the late Rabbi Michael Gratz and Naomi, who were among the founders of the traditional movement in Israel. Ariella defines herself as an Israeli product of liberal and pluralistic Judaism