Parshat Noach
Diving Deeper: Tower of Babel Rap
Most people have heard about Noah and his ark, but they don't know that this Torah portion ends with an interesting short story of the Tower of Babel. Read the summary of the Tower of Babel below. Then, look at the commentaries written by three different students. Write your own commentary. Need inspiration? Listen to the Tower of Babel Rap JJP students wrote!
All the earth had one language and used one set of words. People traveled to the east and found a valley in the Land of Shinar and settled there. People said to their neighbors, "Okay, let us make bricks and burn them hard." Then they said, "Okay, let us build a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let us make a name for ourselves, to keep us from being scattered over the face of the earth." God came down to see the city and the tower that Adam's children were building. God said, "Now they are one people with one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. From now on, they will be able to do whatever they fell like doing. OK, let us go down and babble (mix up) their language so that people will not understand their neighbor's language." So God scattered them from there over the face of the earth and they stopped building the city. That is why the city is called Babel, because God babbled the language of the earth. And from there, God scattered them over the face of the earth [Genesis Chapter 11]
Comment #1: There stories are all the same. Adam and Eve do wrong, and God punishes them. Cain does wrong and God punishes him. People are evil and God punished the world with the flood. This is just another story about punishment. David, age 11
Comment #2: In this story, people start working together an cooperating. Then God breaks them up so that no one can understand anyone else. Today, people complain that different countries don't understand one another. It seems to me that it's God's fault. Ashley, age 10 1/2
Come #3: You read this story and the first question you ask is "What is wrong with building a tower?" You think God was afraid that the tower would reach heaven?" I don't that was the problem. God must have seen something wrong in the way people were working on the tower. They people wanted to make a name for themselves. I think they must have tried to hard to be famous. Zach, age 12
Comment #1: There stories are all the same. Adam and Eve do wrong, and God punishes them. Cain does wrong and God punishes him. People are evil and God punished the world with the flood. This is just another story about punishment. David, age 11
Comment #2: In this story, people start working together an cooperating. Then God breaks them up so that no one can understand anyone else. Today, people complain that different countries don't understand one another. It seems to me that it's God's fault. Ashley, age 10 1/2
Come #3: You read this story and the first question you ask is "What is wrong with building a tower?" You think God was afraid that the tower would reach heaven?" I don't that was the problem. God must have seen something wrong in the way people were working on the tower. They people wanted to make a name for themselves. I think they must have tried to hard to be famous. Zach, age 12