Parshas Noach

"The entire earth had one language with uniform words. They said, come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top shall reach the sky..." (Genesis 11:1,4)

The power of speech that G-d gave man is so great that, just like G-d Himself, through speech, man literally has the ability to change the course of the universe as is indicated by the following verses: "And he [Joshua] said before the eyes of Israel, Sun, stand still upon Givon; and you Moon, in the valley Ayalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people [the Jews] had avenged themselves upon their enemies." (Joshua 10:12-13) G-d gave us this awesome power so that we can experience and understand a little bit more about G-d and how He operates. Through the power of speech, all of the Hebrew letters that are contained in every physical item in the universe can be manipulated thus affecting the status of each physical item, just like changing the letters of a computer program change the outcome of the program. The Ba'al Ha'Tanya teaches: the Hebrew word for a thing contains its life force. For example, the Hebrew word for stone, ehven, contains the life force of every stone in the world. The same principle can be applied to everything in creation. (Tanya: Shaar HaYichud VeHeEmunah 1 (77a))

The Maggid of Mezerich (The Baal Shem Tov's chief disciple) adds that words impact in other ways. All the words that we speak draw spiritual power from the heavenly chamber of speech. Similarly, thoughts draw from the heavenly chamber of thought. When we speak in purity, we attach our thoughts to the heavenly chamber of speech. Thus, we unite the chamber of speech with the chamber of thought, causing good in the world. Conversely, when we speak evil, we bring about evil in the world. It is written, "Choose clever language." (Job 15:5) This verse comes to teach us that we should accustom ourselves to having good thoughts and speaking good words which will connect us to and cause us to draw front the heavenly realm of G-d's love and compassion, making our lives more pleasant. One who has evil thoughts and speech connects himself to the world of harshness, drawing to himself the harsh energies of G-d's judgments, making his life harsh and difficult. (Maggid D'varav Le Yaakov 42:29)

Rabbi Nachman taught not to ever let a word of evil leave your lips, even as a joke. The words themselves can do great damage and can later compel you to fulfill them, even if they were uttered orly in jest. It is written that King Jehu said: "Ahab served the Baal (the name of an idol) a little, but Jehu will serve him much." (2 Kings 10:18) He made this statement only to trick the Baal worshipers, as is explicitly mentioned in the very next verse - he had absolutely no intention of committing idolatry. However, the words that he uttered were his downfall - he later actually committed idolatry. From this episode, the Talmud derives the lesson that, "A covenant is made with the lips." (Talmud: Sanhedrin 102a, Moed Katan 18a)

The shape, color and texture of every physical item in the world reflects its spiritual properties and power. The brain, which is mostly white, is the organ through which we can merge and unite our souls with G-d or distance ourselves from Him. The brain's color indicates that it has the potential to purify the soul "white as snow", enabling it to be merged with G-d. The generation that died in the flood rebelled against G-d through blatant sexual immorality. Rabbi Nachman teaches that semen, the color of which is white, originates in the brain, indicating that each drop of semen contains part of the physical and spiritual aspects of the brain. Therefore, by having illicit sexual encounters such as homosexual and adulterous relations, bestiality, etc. the people of the veneration of the flood caused parts of their souls and brains to become connected to the forces of evil. This enabled them to draw upon the powers of evil and to run the world as they saw fit to the exclusion of G-d's wishes, resulting in tremendous spiritual and physical damage to the world. The verse says, "All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth." (Gen. 6:12) This verse refers to the perverted sexual relations of every sort that were perpetrated by the generation of the flood which caused them to sever their ties with G-d and with life itself, resulting in the global destruction caused by the flood.

Several generations after the flood, when the world had become repopulated, man rebelled against G-d once again. The people thought that if they could draw forth G-d's spiritual power and connect it to the forces of evil nourishing those forces, it would give them powers that were similar to G-d's, thus allowing them to live independent of Him. The generation of the flood attempted to do this very thing by polluting their minds and the spiritual power contained in the mind through sexual sin. The generation that built the tower of Babel attempted this through a different physical medium - through polluting their speech, the building blocks of all of creation. They polluted their speech with arrogant and blasphemous words against G-d. [It is very difficult for us, living in these times, to conceive of people who saw and knew how to manipulate the very spiritual essence of physical acts such as sexuality and speech. The people of biblical times were all kabbalists of the highest order, on the sides of both holiness and evil. The most ordinary person perceived the cosmos on a level that even the most spiritually advanced people in our times cannot begin to fathom. Modern "intelligentsia" interprets these actions and awarenesses as foolishness and mere superstition. Their scoffing, however, is in reality a display of ignorance and clouded perception. That which we label ancient superstition was actually based upon a knowledge of the use of evil spiritual powers rooted in the same advanced intelligence which produced technological feats which cannot yet be matched by our hi-tech society.] To strengthen their rebellion, they built the famous tower comprised of thousands of bricks. Until this episode in history, every person spoke only Hebrew. The word for brick in Hebrew is lavain which is derived from the same root as the Hebrew word for white, lavan. Through their intentions, they were trying to inject evil into the letters containing the spiritual essence of the bricks, lavain. The evil would then spill over into the spiritual essence of the color white lavan, through their common root letters, until everything in the physical universe connected to the color white would become polluted, especially the white of each person's brain. If everyone's brains became polluted, the spiritual energies from G-d that nourish them would then be transferred to and empower the forces of evil. Thus, the people would have access to a corrupted side of G-d's power, empowering them to live independent of G-d.

Since Hebrew is the language with which the world was created, it has greater capability than any other language to be used to manipulate the spiritual and physical universe. Thus a lack of Hebrew knowledge would prevent all evil people from ever again unifying themselves in an attempt to spiritually pollute the universe or rebel against G-d in such a fashion.

Elijah the prophet rebuked the Baal Shem Toy as follows: "Here you toil arduously to concentrate on G-d's holy names that are hidden in the verses of the book of Psalms, while Aharon Shlomo, your inn keeper, and Zlate Rivka, his wife, do not even know the significance of the mystic names formed by the verses they constantly recite: "Blessed be He forever.", and "Blessed be His holy name". Their precious words of praise shake the core of the heavenly realms with more impact than many utterances of much greater men." Elijah went on to describe the pleasure in heaven that results when men, women, and children praise G-d, especially when the praise is repeated often and comes from simple people. With their simple words of praise, coming from pure faith and a complete heart, they bind themselves to G-d. When the Baal Shem heard this, he decided to adopt a special way of serving G-d by urging all Jews - men, women, and children - to say the praises of G-d in their own simple way. He would always make a special effort to ask people about their health, their children and their livelihood, causing them to respond with different praises to G-d, each one in their own way. (Sifrei Chabad)

Volume 3, Issue 2