Individual and Collective Responsibility
Family Edition

The Summary

This is an abridged version of the essay written by Rabbi Sacks in 2011, available here.

The Parsha begins and ends with two great events, the Flood on the one hand, and the Tower of Bavel on the other. On the face of it they have nothing in common. The failings of the generation of the Flood are explicit. “The world was corrupt before God, and the land was filled with violence.” Bavel, by contrast, seems almost idyllic. “The entire earth had one language and a common speech” (Bereishit 11:1). The builders are bent on construction, not destruction. It is far from clear what their sin was. Yet from the Torah’s point of view, Bavel represents another serious wrong turn because immediately thereafter, God summons Abraham to begin an entirely new chapter in the religious story of humankind. It is clear that after Bavel, God concludes that there must be another and different way for humans to live.

Essentially, the Flood tells us what happens to civilisation when individuals rule and there is no collective. Bavel tells us what happens when the collective rules and individuals are sacrificed to it.

From a historical context, the extreme, as seen in Bavel, seems to be reflective of the imperial practice of the neo-Assyrians, who imposed their own language on the peoples they conquered. The neo-Assyrians asserted their supremacy by insisting that their language was the only one to be used by the nations and populations they had defeated. In this reading, Bavel is a critique of imperialism.

The parallel language between the builders of Bavel and Paroh in Egypt - both using “Come, let us... lest” - highlights their shared imperial ambition to subjugate and control populations, suppressing their identities and freedoms. Keeping that in mind, Bereishit 10 describes the division of humanity into seventy nations and seventy languages. Bereishit 11 tells of how one imperial power conquered smaller nations and imposed its language and culture on them, thus directly contradicting God’s wish that humans should respect the integrity of each nation and each individual. When at the end of the Bavel story, God “confuses the language” of the builders, He is not creating a new state of affairs but restoring the old.

Interpreted thus, the story of Bavel is a critique of the power of the collective when it crushes individuality – the individuality of the seventy cultures described in Genesis 10. When the rule of law is used to suppress individuals and their distinctive languages and traditions, this too is wrong. The miracle of monotheism is that the one God in Heaven created diversity on earth, and He asks us (with obvious conditions) to respect that diversity.

So the Flood and the Tower of Bavel, though polar opposites, are linked, and the entire parsha of Noach is a brilliant study in the human condition. There are individualistic cultures and there are collectivist ones, and both fail, the former because they lead to anarchy and violence, the latter because they lead to oppression and tyranny.

After the two great failures of the Flood and Bavel, Avraham was called on to create a new form of social order that would give equal honour to the individual and the collective, personal responsibility and the common good. That remains the special gift of Jews and Judaism to the world.

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A profound theme that, in many ways, sets the stage for the birth of Monotheism is how we must strike the delicate balance between individualism and collectivism. We see this prominently in the stories of the Flood and the Tower of Bavel.

Rabbi Sacks shares that the Flood generation represents the dangers of unchecked individualism - society devolves into chaos and violence when personal desires are prioritised over collective welfare. In contrast, he points out that the Tower of Bavel highlights the perils of extreme collectivism, where individual identity and freedom are sacrificed for the sake of unity and control. Both extremes lead to societal collapse. So God needs to introduce a new model of civilisation through Avraham.

This balance is captured in Rabbi Hillel’s famous teaching: “If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” Judaism’s enduring success lies in harmonising personal responsibility with the common good. The question then, is how can we apply this balance in our own lives and communities today?

Our story begins with two rival villages, built side-by-side. One morning, the strangest thing happened. In the first village every person awoke to find their elbows were gone! This caused a number of difficulties. For one thing, they couldn’t bend their arms to bring food to their mouths. No matter how much food was around, the villagers were still hungry, because they couldn’t feed themselves.

In the neighbouring village, another phenomenon occurred. The people there had elbows but no hands. They could bend their arms all they wanted to, but without hands, they couldn’t use their cutlery, or even pick up what they needed. Like the first village, they had plenty of food but they struggled to eat it.

Things went from bad to worse, until a wise traveller passed by. “Bring the two villages together”, she said. “You can solve each other’s problems.”

Everyone was confused. “How can we help each other when we can’t even help ourselves?” they replied.

But the wise traveller showed them a simple solution. The people from the first village, who had hands but no elbows, could pick up food and feed the people from the second village. In return, the people from the second village could use their elbows to help the people from the first village. They saw that what seemed like a weakness became a strength when they cooperated and used their abilities to help each other.

By working together, the two villages built new tools and gadgets to help too, although they found they preferred all eating together than alone anyway. From then on, they shared meals and supported each other. They found that sometimes we need others to complete what we cannot do alone.

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The Haftara Cycle is a new project which will explore the weekly Haftara through the lens of Rabbi Sacks’ writings and ideas. This series has been developed by Sacks Scholar Rabbi Barry Kleinberg, who is also a Teaching Fellow at the London School of Jewish Studies.

When Rosh Chodesh (the new month) falls on Shabbat, we always read a special Haftara from the Book of Isaiah (66:1-24). 

Rosh Chodesh always begins when there is a new moon cycle. This Haftara was selected to be read on Shabbat Rosh Chodesh due to its penultimate line which refers to both the New Moon and Shabbat: “Then it will come to pass that, to satisfy the New Moon on every New Moon, and to satisfy the Shabbat on every Shabbat all flesh will come to prostrate themselves before Me, said God” (Isaiah 66:23).  

This week Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan falls on Shabbat, and we will therefore spend some time exploring this special Rosh Chodesh Haftara, as well as the Haftara that is usually read together with the Parsha of Noach. 

Isaiah 66:1-66:2

Isaiah chapter 66 is the final chapter of the Book of Isaiah. It contrasts the fates of the righteous and the wicked while emphasising God’s power and judgment. 

The chapter begins with a declaration of God’s transcendence, rejecting hollow sacrifices and superficial worship, and stressing that God desires humility and sincerity. It prophesies the coming of God’s judgment, where the rebellious and those who engage in idolatry will be punished. Conversely, it states that the faithful will witness the glory of God’s new creation. 

At the end of the chapter we read of a vision of peace for Jerusalem, a final judgment on the enemies of God, and the establishment of a new heaven and a new earth where God’s people will endure forever.

Isaiah 54:1 – 55:5 (Ashkenazi)
Isaiah 54:1 – 54:10 (Sefardi)

As was the case with last week’s Haftara, this week’s Haftara is from the later part of the book of Isaiah.  

This passage includes words of support and encouragement to the Jewish people exiled in Babylonia. It also foresees the everlasting return of the of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

As the vision goes, King David’s covenant will be renewed and none of Israel’s enemies will ultimately be able to overcome her.

There are two main links between this week’s Parsha and Haftara. The first is linguistic.

“For this is as the waters of Noach to Me; as I have promised that the waters of Noach shall not cover the earth again, so have I promised that I shall not be angry at you...” (Is. 54:9). The Zohar (Vayikra 14b) notes that this is a strange phrase as in the Parsha itself, the phrase used is “the waters of the Flood”. Then the Zohar compares Noach’s actions to those of Moshe. In Parshat Noach, the decree against the world appears to be finalised, beyond Noach’s ability to change God’s mind. However, Moshe was successful in pleading the case for the Jewish people even after God had told him that they would be destroyed. Indeed, if Noach’s actions after the Flood could result in a covenant by God never to destroy the world again, imagine the success he might have had before the Flood. This is the message of the Haftara. The reference to “waters of Noach” here hints to us that Noach could have prevented the Flood, if he had but had the courage to try!

As Rabbi Sacks wrote, “Faith is the courage to take a risk for the sake of God or the Jewish people; to begin a journey... knowing that there will be hazards along the way, but knowing also that God is with us, giving us strength, if we align our will with His.”

Our second link is a thematic one. It is the promise of an eternal covenant. Just as the Parsha contains a promise never to destroy the world again, so to the Haftara promises that after Israel is redeemed there will never again be another exile. “As I have promised that the waters of Noach shall not cover the earth again, so have I promised that I shall not be angry at you nor rebuke you...”    

Just as Noach was rebuked for not preventing the Flood, so too the Jewish people were rebuked for having brought about the exile. The positive notes of both the Parsha and the Haftara are the promise that these disasters (destruction of the world and exile of the Jewish people) will never happen again.

Rabbi Sacks taught that after the Flood God “does something very special ... He makes two covenants.” The universal covenant with Noach we read about this week, and from next week we will learn about the more particular second covenant, which He makes with Avraham and his descendants.

Last week we introduced the book of Isaiah in general terms. To understand the books of the prophets it is important to set them within their historical context.

Isaiah is the first book of the Later Prophets (Neviim Acharonim). While the books of the Early Prophets (Neviim Rishonim), focus heavily on the history of the Jewish people from the time of Joshua until the Babylonian exile, the Later Prophets focus on the actual prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the twelve “minor” prophets. Accordingly, the Later Prophets are much more esoteric, full of symbolism and allegory, and much harder to understand! 

Most books of the Neviim contain the prophets’ own prophecies, written down once they had completed the active part of their careers. Isaiah, however, was assassinated. Since he died abruptly, he was unable to write down his own prophecies. They were thus recorded by different students, so there are some stylistic differences in the book.