Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Midrash מִדְרָשׁ
What are our priorities?
A midrash tells us that the bricks the people made for the מִגְדַּל בָּבֶל (migdal Bavel, tower of Bavel) were more important to them than human life.
וְאִם נָפַל אָדָם וָמֵת לֹא שָׂמִים אֶת לִבָּם עָלָיו. וְאִם נָפְלָה לְבֵנָה אַחַת הָיוּ יוֹשְׁבִין וּבוֹכִין וְאוֹמְרִין: אוֹי לָנוּ אֵימָתַי תַּעֲלֶה אַחֶרֶת תַּחְתֶּיהָ.
If a person fell and died while working, no one paid any attention. But if a brick fell and broke, the people sat down and cried: “Alas! When will another come and take its place?!”
- What’s surprising in this story about the builders’ behavior?
- Between people and bricks, what can be replaced and what can’t? What’s irreplaceable in your life?
- What lesson is this midrash trying to teach us?
The Baal HaTurim (800 years ago) suggests there might be a hint in the pesukim to explain why the midrash connects the bricks to people dying. He notices that the bricks are considered “לְאָבֶן (le-aven, as stones)” (Bereishit 11:3). That word only appears one other time in the entire Tanakh, where it’s talking about someone’s heart becoming like stone, meaning that person died (Shmuel Alef 25:37).
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