Bears and adventures

Do you remember the children’s song about the bear that went over the mountain? It is rather a silly little rhyme talking about the bear going over the mountain, so all he can see is another side of the same mountain. Kind of a simple, predictable answer, what else could have been there? What can you expect? After all, if we assume that bears are intelligent creatures, they should know that.

You might ask me how it connects to the story of the flood, Noah, and ultimately, making a decision to build the tower of Babel? The answer is rather simple – what did the people expect to happen? What was the ultimate goal? They wanted to get to the tower as high as possible. Why? This is the question that needs to be examined further.

On one hand, if one thinks about the great flood in a similar way to the house with the leaking roof, it makes sense to think that building something really tall to support the roof is a good way to prevent the flood. It was the fear that was driving them. The question to ask is, what is the origin of the fear? Were they fearful of the Almighty trying to keep his commandments or fearful of nature? The answer is complicated. We can see a clear description of them acknowledging the power of the Almighty, referred to in the text as His ability to scatter people around the world, yet thinking that they can control Him. They thought that they could limit His ability to control the rainfall and the weather.

Now, an even more complicated question pops into my mind. Knowing all well that we as humans can never control our Father, our King, we still will try to appeal to His attribute of Compassion. The best way to do it is through positive impact action. Did the people of the generation believe that the building of the tower was a positive action required? Admittedly, we have no clear idea how to answer this; however, we can reasonably expect that there were a number of people caught in the lies and propaganda of Nimrod and his team.

This is my attempt in trying to find an excuse for the poor choices made; however, we have to be clear that this was not the only message available to them. Remember Shem? He was a righteous man who helped his father out of a difficult and rather questionable situation. He lived for a total of 600 years, with 502 years after the flood. Shem did not participate in Nimrod’s project and even had an academy established. We are talking about Shem as the righteous king in the area of modern Jerusalem. So there was an alternative.

On the other hand, there was Nimrod and his government. Nimrod was not a straightforward positive character who had great power to catch things. We have previously discussed that it was much more than just the power of the skilled hunter, but it extended to the power of catching people’s imagination with speech. So let us be clear – Nimrod had an agenda, and he played on people’s fears to achieve it. His agenda was a challenge to Heaven, trying to show that he could control everything he could put his mind to.

Just one more thought before we continue to explore the story, and it is very much connected to our time. In our everyday lives, we are flooded with information. Depending on our personal preferences, we will listen to one side or another of the conversation. Who are we listening to? Nimrod or Shem? In my personal opinion, we have a pure truth in the 5 Books of Moses. This is our red line. Everything else is coming from human sources, so we have to be careful in understanding the agenda of people providing information to us.

Back to the story, we might ask ourselves about the size of the tower. We cannot see them straightforwardly from the text. Maybe this is the reason the project of building the tower does not have any physical description as such. We know it was planned to be a very tall one, but how tall? Since nothing is new under the sun, this question is far from a new one, too. There are a lot of references to the story; however, the minimum estimated height was about 91 meters, which is the same as the Statue of Liberty. If you are impressed by this one, let me tell you that there is an opinion of the tower getting as high as 2.5 km (16 miles), which would make it the highest tower ever built by people.

This sounds like an amazing architectural accomplishment. Without any modern-day advances in the building industry, without any safety, we can only imagine the number of lives lost in pursuing the idea. As building continued regardless of the price, we see that the value of workers’ lives was not very high, unlike the value of bricks.

Let us just say, this is one of many lessons. What does it have to do with bears and adventures? Well, we read afterwards that the Almighty descended to the city….. Why? He knows everything, sees everything. So why descend to the city and see?

The answer is simple and complicated at the same time. The Almighty does not need to do it; we need it. How? Because we are very limited creations and we need time to realise things and hopefully admit our mistakes, allowing some space in our lives for The Almighty to enter it. In other words, He gives us a chance to repent as well as teach the human judges how to behave in any given situation. No judgement should be given until all the evidence is analysed and understood.

Thus, something very predictable can be much more than just another side of the mountain or another building on earth. All we have to do is open our eyes, our hearts and our minds. The reality will shine if we turn towards the source of the ultimate truth.