[Avodah] tower of bavel

[Ilana Sober]

RnLL and RZS point out that Rashi Bereishit 10:25, where he learns that the
dispersion was davka at the end of Peleg's life and Ever was a navi who gave
him a name based on an event that would happen 239 years later.

Note that Radak there says that the dispersion happened when he was born, so
the name was based on current events rather than nevuah. But that doesn't
take into account Rashi's argument that Peleg's younger brother's sons must
have been born before the dispersion.

In any case, it seems to me that there is room for different possible
approaches within pshat, although I certainly take Rashi very seriously.

By the way, I'm not sure Rashi's pshat is so very problematic from a metziut
point of view. We know that the division into different languages was a nes.
And populations can move very quickly. Think about  the kind of population
shifts that happened in the 19th and 20th centuries, both among Jews and in
general. Or the quick spread of European colonists in the Americas in the
17-19 centuries. Governments also can be formed and become well established
within a brief time. Look at both the population and the government of
Israel a few decades after independence. Not to mention other former British
colonies, eastern Europe and the former USSR after the collapse of
communism, etc. It doesn't take that long to draw radically new maps.

- Ilana
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