[Avodah] The incident at Bavel (was "who is going to Gehenim")

[Eliyahu Grossman]

On a related note, I posted at:

http://www.kosherjudaism.com/page.jpg

A page from Seder HaQorot B'Tanach, which shows the ages and the generations
who lived before and through the Tower of Bavel incident (refer to the
horizontal dotted line going across the page closer to the bottom). The
book, by Eliezer Shulman is great, hand-written (well, originally), while he
was in prison for quite some time (gave him something important to do!) with
just a few books. (Sorry about the scan quality, but the page is bigger than
my scanner!)

There is also an English edition at
http://www.amazon.com/Sequence-Events-Old-Testament/dp/9650502688

But the Hebrew version is way less than $80 USA!

Shabbat Shalom
Eliyahu Grossman
Efrat, Israel

-----Original Message-----
From: Eliyahu Grossman [mailto:Eliyahu at KosherJudaism.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 8:41 AM
Subject: RE: who is going to Gehenim

Actually, Berashit 11:1 does says that "kol". That the entire (kol) earth
was of a single purpose (united in a common goal) and that THEY migrated and
THEY found and THEY settled and THEY said. So it's like a mass migration
before they get wacked. Ok, one could separate "kol", but one can also
retain it. 

And so, I suppose, those that interpret this as an evil act would certainly
want to exclude Avraham (and Noach and his sons too!), while those who do
not see it as anything but a righteous act, a people united in one purpose,
don't have that kind of problem with it. And of those who see it as an evil
act, you end up having to discard "kol", or put it aside to just mean
"initially" (insertion), and then you can have the cute midrash of little
Avraham breaking his father's idols and skipping out on the project, or you
can discard that midrash and accept the one where he is far older and the
time of the tower is over where he discovers.

They all work, depending on what you are trying to teach. I can go along
with any of them - Although I do have a problem with Pharaoh being the king
of Ninveh and doing tsh'uvah, but hey, it could have happened! ;) 

I wasn't familiar with Yonah Rabbah - thanks for that.

Eliyahu Grossman