Come, Let Us Build
- Leann Shamash
- Oct 22
- 2 min read
The Torah gives us two portions which bring us fascinating universal stories, which includes the story of Babel, found in Breishheet 11.
Here we find humanity along with a new invention, bricks. How amazing to be able to build upward? Adding windows and doors and one has protection from the elements, but look, we can always build better! Higher and higher! Such a temptation to do more and more, using our skills.
That very temptation to build bigger and better never leaves. New inventions take us through the course of human history, with so many helping humanity to progress in science, technology and medicine, but each leaves us with the question of future impacts. That is where this blog piece originates; in the unknown impacts of technology then and now.
Wishing you (while writing on my iPhone) a Shabbat Shalom.
Leann
Come, let us build
With bricks, with bitumen
We shall build so high
our tower will caress the clouds
for we are so wise,
our powers to create
so awesome that we shall conquer the moon
reach the stars.
Our hands will touch the heavens.
Come, let us build
With iron, with fire,
using chemicals we have mined
slicing with tools we have fashioned.
We shall fashion weapons,
Weapons that can kill,
Maim, burn, destroy,
for we are so wise,
our power to create
so awesome
that we shall conquer each other
and be mightier than the mighty.
Come, let us build
rare minerals we have mined
and tools we have created
with our minds, so clear
so bright, they defy description.
We shall build machines that compute,
thick with complexity.
They are us,
no,
they are better.
They imagine bigger, taller.
They see worlds we could only imagine.
Computers that write in our voices, but clearer.
Processors that check our mistakes,
building outward, upward.
They hear, they see.
understanding
swiftly,
perfectly,
reaching far beyond the skies,
outward,
Inward,
between the cracks of body amd time.
From generation to generation
the bricks of Babel disappear into the dust
and then they rise again.
Every generation has their Babel.
Louis de Caullery-King Nimrod ordering the construction of the Tower of Babel.
Created in 1650
My inspiration for this blog post:
Matan Podcast Episode 80 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matan-one-on-one-parsha-podcast/id1493702879?i=1000583649231
Other posts from Words Have Wings on Parshat Noach:
https://www.wordshavewings.net/post/one-still-morning One Still Morning
The Window
No Ark For the Extinct
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