Dispersion is the answer!

DISPERSION IS THE ANSWER 

Article from Shmuel Veffer, Galillee Green

As we approach the Israeli and American elections, the desperate Iranian Regime has increased their threats to affect the outcome. They know that their only hope is if Trump and Netanyahu lose power.

Alternative candidates (in Israel and the USA)  in their minds, represent a return to policies of "containment" and "appeasement" which will keep the IRGC and Ayatollah's in power.

So, Iran keeps boasting of "major surprises" and Hamas still dreams of the next "al aqsa flood."

THE TOWER WAS NEVER THE PROBLEM

This past Shabbat, we read about the story of Noah and his generations flood. But tucked in toward the end of the weekly reading is a short story of the Tower of Babel.

In Genesis 11 the generation of the Dispersion gathered in the valley of Shinar and said:

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered across the face of the whole earth.”

They feared being dispersed. They wanted one people, one language, one place.

On the surface that sounds almost reasonable. After the Flood, the earth was large and resources were limited. Cities can concentrate people and reduce the wars that break out between regions.

Our sage, Kli Yakar looks at their words and says the building itself was not their sin. If they had stopped at the city and the tower, they might have achieved a measure of peace. What condemned them was the extra phrase: “and let us make a name for ourselves.”

That sentence revealed everything. They were not gathering to serve the Creator. They were gathering to elevate themselves. Each man wanted his own name to rise higher than his neighbor’s. Wealth, honor, appetite, and fame became the real goals. Once that happens, unity turns poisonous.

Our Sages taught in Sanhedrin 71b that the gathering of the wicked is bad for them and bad for the world; their scattering is good for them and good for the world. For the righteous the opposite is true.

The Kli Yakar explains why. Wicked people have no single purpose. One wants riches, another honor, another pleasure, another simply to be “high above the high.” When they live together those conflicting appetites produce jealousy, rivalry, and eventually “the sword of each man against his brother.” They also plot against everyone outside their circle. Scatter them and both they and the world are safer.

Righteous people, by contrast, share one goal: to make God’s Name great. Their unity produces “great peace for those who love Your Torah.”

The builders of Babel chose the first path. They wanted power in their own hands and a name that would outlast them. God therefore confused their language and scattered them. The dispersion was not cruelty. It was the only way to stop a project whose success would have put human glory in the place of Divine glory.

IRAN AND THE FIRSTBORN

Look at the Islamic Republic. From the first days of Khomeini in 1976, the regime has sought to export its revolution, to make its name great across the Muslim world, and to erase what it calls the “Zionist cancer.”

Supreme leaders have called Israel a cancerous tumor that must be removed, a “small Satan,” and an illegitimate entity that will not exist in another generation. They have built proxies, missiles, and a nuclear program for that purpose.

They are not content to live as one nation among others. They want their name to stand above the nations. In the process they target God’s "firstborn son." The Torah says of Israel, “My firstborn son is Israel” (Exodus 4:22). Anyone who sets out to destroy the firstborn is not primarily attacking the son. He is attacking the Father who called that son His own.

The regime’s internal unity around this mission is exactly the gathering the Kli Yakar warns against. As long as they can act as one, they can plot evil against others and against the people God chose. The Torah’s solution is the same one applied at Babel: disperse them. Break their capacity to gather as a single revolutionary power. Only then does the world become safer, and only then is the Name of the Holy One left standing where it belongs.

AL-AQSA FLOOD

Hamas named its massacre Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Its leaders have said openly that the goal was to return the Palestinian issue to the center of the world’s agenda, to stop normalization, and ultimately to remove the Jewish state from the land.

Documents and statements recovered since October 7 show the religious framing: the promise of the second time, the liberation of Al-Aqsa, the destruction of the “Zionist entity.” Hostages who returned have reported captors telling them there will be a second, third, and fourth October 7 until no Jews remain.

They gathered in Gaza with one language of hatred and one purpose: to make their name great as the force that finished what earlier enemies began. The tunnels, the rockets, the coordinated invasion, the deliberate slaughter of families and festival-goers, all required concentration of power.

Dispersion is the only lasting answer. Dismantle the army, the governing structure, and the ability to act again as one. Anything less leaves the same gathering of the wicked intact.

WHOSE NAME?

The builders of Babel wanted their own name. Abraham was promised, “I will make your name great” (Genesis 12:2). The difference is the source. One name is seized by human hands. The other is given by the One who owns all power.

Our enemies today still choose the first path. They unite to elevate themselves and to strike at the firstborn. The Torah already taught us what must be done. Scatter the wicked so that they cannot finish what they began. Gather the righteous around the single mission of making God’s Name great.

May the Almighty continue to protect our soldiers and our people, and grant wisdome to our leaders. And may He speedily scatter every regime and every terror army that still dreams of writing its own name across the heavens.