What Makes God Laugh (Rabbi Sacks on Balak, Covenant & Conversation)
The Office of Rabbi Sacks
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The Importance of God-Lapping
The fact that these were artificial mountains built by human hands suggested to their builders that humans had acquired godlike powers. This is the significance of the phrase in the Torah's account of the flood that the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children had built. On earth, humans thought they'd reached the sky, but god the building was so infinitesimal, so microscopic that he had to come down even to see it. To end their hubris, god simply confused their language. The unfinished tower became a symbol of the inevitable failure of wanting ambition.
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