The TOWER of BABEL

The extreme fragmentation of our world, in general, and of science, in particular, should be obvious to all. With the world growing smaller and our interdependence a growing fact of life, the question is, how humanity, in its entirety, is to wake up to reality. And, perhaps, the most interesting aspect of the challenge of finding solution to this apparently intractable problem is that we are ALL, without exception, asleep. We are all involved in the Fall of Man.

Yet I also agree with Einstein's statement to the effect that G-d is subtle but not perverse, suggesting that there is a way out of this global monkey trap and that the solution is deceptively simple. For a proposed, comprehensive solution bridging mundane and transcendent, science and spirituality, see Project Mind: http://www.projectmind.org/

There is an important hidden meaning to the Tower of Babel worth mentioning in this context. It should be recalled that the building of this tower was undertaken by theists in the hope of approaching G-d. The principal sin, here, wasn't one of pride or even ambition. It was a double sin - a betrayal of the purpose of Creation and also a self-betrayal.

The essence of the tower was that its base was grounded in the mundane and its thrust towards the transcendent. Tragically, most believers, even today, favor this spiritual orientation.

When will we learn that facing upwards in supplication and self-effacement is a receptive attitude that is fundamentally self-centered? Moments of desperation aside, to open and surrender ourselves to the greatness above and lose ourselves in the amniotic fluid of divinity is justifiable only as an act of self-purification that, in the larger picture, boils down to spiritual hygiene and preparation for genuinely creative acts of self-consecration to the task for which we were created.

To emulate the Creator, in whose image we are cast, our proper orientation is facing downwards - to that which is inert (relative to us) and requires transformation through our agency as creative channels bridging this world with those above.

The story of the Tower of Babel comes to teach us that the bottom-up orientation that is sometimes termed "minority," and with which religious and spiritual movements tend to remain so obsessed, is a Jonah-like escape from our sacred mission to physically transform this world into an abode of unlimited abundance and perfection worthy of G-d's revealed presence.

To insist that this escape is consistent with a world of lack, separation, strife, illness, illusion and suffering, and that we may remain ignorant of nature's secrets, is an insult to common sense.

It is also a sign that our faith in the limitlessness of G-d, which is our vocation to reveal, is more imagined than real.