Noach 5786 - Unity of the Wicked is Dangerous

One of the um difficult parishes and sort of cryptic in this week's parisha is with the um Dora pluga the uh the uh people that tried to get together in bubble make one nation one confederation and then were um who spread them out and so on. On the surface of it, it sounds as if it was a type of a punishment of sorts. It's very very very hard to understand what dav is after all um doing things with unified uh union of uh mankind seems to be a very very positive virtue. We talk about unity and so on. So we have a hard time really understanding what it's about. So Duran in Drushes in the first Drush of his talks about this and he explains. So he says like this the um even though tell us various plots that they had in mind various aaris that they were engaged in he doesn't feel that this is what Nikaran says and he has different proofs and so on. So he approaches it differently and and the kazal give a certain context. He explains as follows that having unity is extraordinarily powerful. It is very powerful. And therefore if people who are not inherently good people engage in become unified then it becomes extraordinarily dangerous. And let's take two of the points that he makes over here two of of the of the ideas that he is um that he explains what are the potential dangers. So basically the is saying it's not as if they did something they sinned specifically but having them become um a unified uh nation a unified people despite the fact that they were not good people is in itself um an extraordinary potential potential for danger. And let's dwell on two of the points that he makes why or how. One is that when you have um everyone imagine everyone worships the same avodara that creates a very very powerful impact. It means that it's universal. If it's universal, it becomes almost equivalent to um to being axiatic. Everyone believes that this pestle is a everyone believes this religion, the religion, the other religion. So that everyone believes um is something which would become a a very very dangerous uh ideology. For instance, today if somebody will come and and and say he'll he'll try to prove X or Y or Z different religions, but we tell them there are hundreds of millions of people that believe something else and something else and something else. So obviously it's not something that is obvious. If most there is no religion that encompasses most of the world. So most of the world does not feel that this is obvious this obvious. So the idea that something is obvious and in and expressed by the fact that everyone buys into it that's something that it does not exist and will not exist. The same thing is true. We actually saw once in a barbanell who speaks about the philosophers of philosophers who are very very bright people and people thought a lot and they came out with conclusions that were anti- Torah not Torah certainly anti- Torah but when we say to ourselves but no two philosophers ever really held the same philosophy. So that tells us that 99.9% are certainly 100% wrong and why would I think that the other one is would that particular one is right. So that is the first problem that could have arisen from unity and kadesh who um made sure they did not become one. The second one is as regards Kusrail. Kusrail are are people that are always persecuted and so on. History has it that whenever one religion, one country driven by a certain religion turns against the Jews, another one opens up and accepts them. I would like to point out one of the most incredible um nissim or hashkah if you wish that in Jewish history is that a few years before the expulsion from Spain something happened in Eastern Europe. The Muslims the Ottoman Empire won control of Turkey and the Balkans. It drove out the western uh section of the the church and all those countries became ruled by Muslim rulers who favored the Jews because the the practical reason Jews were doing business so on and also they felt a kinship because the Christians were against the Jews against them. So they sort of were nice and then when the Muslims persecuted us, the Christians took sin and and so on back and forth. So if all of the countries had been united, we would be absolutely lost. Um there's we we couldn't do anything. There's a famous for he says that it there never was a unity of one that came out against us. They could never unify and therefore that saved us. We were always able to run from the other. And if you check Jewish history, it's always was happening. um one one side turned against us and the you know the enemy of my enemy is my friend and we became um welcomed in whatever it is had they all been together and Ran points out Aroma himself had to run away from had to run away you know from from from being tossed into the fire from Nimrod to the fire And if there was no other country or enemy country whatever it is there's no way he could run. So um so the run is making the following point. Unity is not a positive a virtue in its own right. a unity. What unity does is it creates um an entity that is an order higher than the details. So when you have different specific different individual items points that's one thing when they come together as a group it creates uh an entity that's of a higher order than any one particular one. So just like for instance an army can fight a lot better than a thousand um individuals who who are fighting that's why an army a small army can control the mob much better because the army is together and they're all you know run with the same with the command. So unity itself is not positive or virtue. It is an extraordinarily powerful expression and therefore it really depends on who's being unified. If sadikim are unified then the good they accomplish is extraordinary. And that's why a person lives in a society where everybody's sharing ter mitzvah and it's a lot of it's you know the is similar and so on it has a very powerful effect. So the first area in which unity can be either extremely positive or extremely negative is in terms of the core beliefs and ideas and so on. A world that would be over and be unified where every single person worshiped a sheep that that would become a very very difficult challenge for a min. But one person worships a sheep, one person worships a jackal, one person worships a lion and so on. Then okay. The second area is um kal looking for refuge over all of the centuries has been persecuted. Having a country that's willing to that is at at loggerheads with the country that's persecuting us is very positive. It means we have refuge, we have help, whatever it is that we need because you know my enemy's enemy. So the the the and like historically we've always gone to a country that welcomed us when the other country turned against us. So it itself is not a positive or negative value. It's a reality. It it creates something that is ex a lot more powerful than any um prat than any one individual any one unit. When it's good when the people in to come together are good expressing a an ideal and a value that's good. there's no limit to good they can do if they are um if the people are bad people. So what what Durant says is Hashem didn't do a particular aa particular sin which made them um which made them deserve a punishment of this type of pathog. It's just that he saw that they were not good people and in their heart there was a lot of not good allowing them to become a single entity a single nation would bring out the worst them and that's why Keshu stepped in and he made sure that they never became one. So both in terms of um having different interests, competing interests and two the fact they didn't have the same language meant they did not have the same ideals, the same values, same aurora. They it was so we look around as a but every aurora is different other and therefore it does not present that type of challenge.