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.
