Babel Tower of Jewish Encyclopedia

7/27/2019 Babel Tower of Jewish Encyclopedia

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395 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA Baha Meiji'aBabel, Towerofis not according to agreement, he has to pay.As the hirer("soker")has the same liabilityastheshomer sakar, some laws relating to the soker areincluded in chap. vi. From the paid trustee theMishnah passes over (inchap,vii.) to the workman{" po'el") in general,and regulatestheworking time,the food, and also the rights of the workman topartake of the fruit of thefiel orvineyardwhileworking there (Deut. xxiii. 25, 26).

Shoel ("borrower," chap. viii. 1-3): He is liableto pay for every kind ofloss,including loss throughaccident, except"if the lender is withBorrowing1 him" (Ex. xxii. 14);that is,accordingand to the traditional interpretation, if theHiring. lenderwaslikewise at work with him,for payment or without payment.Soker ("hirer," chap. viii. 6): The laws of sokerliaving been given in chap, vi., as far as movableproperty is concerned, sections 6-9 of chap. viii. and1-10 of chap. ix. treat of the soker of immovableproperty; of the relations between the tenant of ahouse and his landlord, between the farmer of a fieldand its owner. Among thelawsthat regulate theserelations are the following: If the tenant takes ahouse for a year, and the year happens to be a leap-year, the tenant occupies the house thirteen monthsfor the same price. The tenant can not be turnedout in the winter betweenTabernacles andPassover,unless notice be given one month before the beginning of the winter. In largo towns and for shops,one year's notice is required.Sections 11and 12 of chap, ix., taking up againthe subject of hiring, regulate the various terms forpaying the due wages (based on Lev. xix. 13, andDeut. xxiv. 14, 15). The last section of chap. ix.definesthe righ ts of the creditor in accordance withDeut, xxiv.0and 10-13.The concluding chapter (x.) regulatestherelationsbetween joint owners and neighbors, in dwellingsand in fields. The last case mentioned is especiallyinteresting as showing a highly developed state ofagricultural jurisdiction in the Mishnaic days.The Tosefta has many valuable additions to theMishnah. It is divided into eleven chapters, whichcorrespond to the ten chapters of the Mishnah in thefollowing way: Chaps, i.-ii. corre-Tosefta spond to chaps,i.-ii. of the Mishnah;an d chap. iii. tochaps, iii.-iv. of theMish-Gemara. nah; chaps, iv.-vi. to chap. v. of theMishnah; chap. vii.which begins"he whohires workmen"("po'alin") instead of "hewho hires artisans" (" umanin ") to Mishnah vi.1;and chap. viii. correspond to chaps, vi.-viii. of theMishnah; chaps, ix.-x. to chap. xi.; chap. xi. tochap. x. of the Mishnah.The Gemara,in explaining the laws of the Mishnah, discusses a variety of kindred problems, especially the Babylonian Gemara; the Palestinian beingvery meager in this respect. Rab Zera,comingfromBabylonia to Palestine, is said to have fasted a hundred times within a certain period of time, prayingthat he might forget the Babylonian Gemara, andfullygrasp the teachings of Rabbi Johanan, the Palestinian master(B. 31.85a). According to Rashi, therabbis of Palestinewerenot ofacontentious disposition, and settled difficulties without much discussion

(compare p.386: " Areyou from Pumbedita, wherethey make an elephant pass throu gh the eye of aneedle?").Of the haggadic passages the following are noteworthy:a)The disciples of Simeon b.Shetah onceboughtfrom an Ishmaelite an ass for their master. Theydiscovered a valuable pearl on the ass, and joyfullytold their m aster that the treasure would enablehimto live withoutcare. " Doestheowner knowof it ?"asked the master. "No ," wasthe answer; "butweneed not return it." "W ha t " exclaimed Simeon."Am I a barbarian? More valuable than all thetreasures of the world to me would be the Ishmael-ite's acknowledgment of the superiority of our holyreligion, that teaches us ways of righteousness"(Yer. B. M. ii. 8c).(6) A man'shouseis blessedonlyforthesakeof hiswife (Bab. B. M. 59a).c) There arethree who cry,and no notice is takenof their cry . One of the three is he who lendsmoney without witnesses ib. 756).d) Ina halakic discussionbetween R . Eliezer andR. Joshua, a"batkol"(a heavenlyvoice)was heardin favor of the former. R. Joshua said: " The batkol does not concernus; the Law given on MountSinai (Ex. xxiii. 2) commands us to ' decide according to the majority ' " ib. 595).e) Resh Lakish was famous for hisstrength; R.Johanan, for his stately figure. R. Johanan said tothe former: "Thy strengthisfit for thosewhostudythe Law." The other replied: "Th y beauty is fitfor women," upon which R. Johanan said, "I havea sister of renowned beauty; if you consent to turnto theTorah,I consent to your marryingmysister."This was done; and Resh Lakish, who had been agladiator, had many, sometimes vehement, halakicdiscussions with his brother-in-law. When ReshLakish died, R. Johanan was much distressed.Rabbi Eliezer b. Pedat came to comfort him; andwhatever R. Johanan said, his visitor found right,and had a quptation ready in suppo rt of it. R.Johanan then mournfullysaid: "Resh Lakish raisedmany objections to whatever I said; I had to solvethe difficulty, and thus the truth was found, muchbetter than by ready consent" ib. 84a)BmLiOGRAPiiY: See BABA BATRA.

J. su. M. F.BABEL, TOWER OF.Biblical Data: Thestory of the building of the city and the Tower ofBabel as found inGen. xi. 1-9 is briefly as follows:The wholehuman"race spoke one and the same language, and formed one community. This community or clan settled permanently in the land of Shinar, not far from the Euphrates river. Hero theybuilt a city and a tower of such materials as a greatriver-basin would afford andthegenius ofmancouldmanufacture. Apparently this was done to preventtheir scattering abroad and losing their tribal unity,to make a great center about which they mightgather, andtoobtain for themselvesa name. YIIWIIcame downtoinvestigate the purpose of all this unusualenterprise. The self-confidence and unity ofthe people were everywhere prominent. Fearfulthat the accomplishment of this project might embolden them to still more independent movements,


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Babel, Tower of THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA YHWHsaid,"Let us go down, and there confoundtheir language." Consequently theywerescatteredabroad upon the face of allthe earth; " andtheyleftoff to build the city." Thenameof itwasthereforecalled "Babel," because thereYHWHconfounded theone language of theearth,j. JR. I. M. P.

In Ra bb inic al Lit era tur e : The Midrashimgive different accounts of the real cause for buildingthe Tower of Babel, and of the intentions of itsbuilders. Itwas regarded even in the Tannaite tradition as a rebellion against God (Mek., Mishpatim,20, ed. Weiss, p. 107; Gen. R. xxxviii. 9), and thelater Midrashrecordsthat the builders of the Tow er,called nj^Sn Til, "the generation of secession" in.the Jewish sources,said: " HeGodhas no rightto choose the upper world for Himself, and to leavethe lower world to us; therefore we will build us atower, with an idol on the top holding a sword, sothat itmayappearasif i t intendedto warwithGod"(Gen. R. xxxviii. 7; Tan., ed. Buber, Noah, xxvii.etseq.). The building of the Tower was meant to biddefiance not only to God, but also to Abraham, whoexhorted the builders to reverence:thereforethe Bible

Tower ofBabel.(From theSarajevo Haggadah.)(Gen. xi.1)speaks of theDHPIX D1_i:n,"onespeech,"which is interpretedas signifyingspeechagainst"theOne," against God, and against His one, only follower (compare E zek. x xxiii.24) The passage furthermore mentions that the builders spoke sharpwordsD,-in = DHriNagainstGod, notcitedintheBible, saying that once every1,656 yearsaccordingto Seder 'Olam, 1,656 years elapsed between theCreation and the Floodheaventottered so that thewater poured down upon the earth, therefore theywould support it by columns thattheremight not beanother deluge (Gen. R. I.e.; Tan. I.e.; similarlyJosephus, "Ant." i. 4,2). Some among tha t sinful generation even wanted to war against God inheaven(Sanh.109a, and the passage from the Sibylline Books iii. 100, cited by Josephus, I.e.). Theywere encouraged in this wild undertaking by thefact that arrows which they shot into the sky fellback dripping with blood, so that the people reallybelieved that they could wage war against the inhabitants of the heavens ("Sefer ha-Yashar," Noah,ed. Leghorn,126). AccordingtoJosephusandPirke

R.El. xxiv., it was mainly Nimrod who his contemporaries to build the Tower, wrabbinical sources assert, on the contNimrod separated from the builders (comberg, "Die Haggada bei den Kirchenva88, 89).Six hundred thousand men(" Sefer h12a) were engaged for forty-three yearsJubilees x.) in building thBu ild in g of The Tower had reached sucth eTower, th at it took a whole yearipnecessary building-matetop; in consequence, materials became sthat they cried when a brick fell and brthey remained indifferent when a man fekilled. They behaved also very heartlesthe weak and sick who could not assist toextent in thebuilding;they would not evwoman in travail to leave the work (Greelypse of Baruch iii.). God at first perpeople to continue with their work, waitwhether they would not desist from their dertaking, and when they still continued,ored to induce them to repent (Gen. R.I.e.; Mek., Beshallah, Shirah, 5), but aThe confounding of thelanguagesbeforall hadspokenHebrewthencompelled thup the work, many also perishing on thefor if any one received stones instead throughthemisunderstanding of hisfellowhe grew angry and threw the stones upowho had given them ("Sefer ha-Yashar,part of the builders were changed into spirits, demons, and ghosts walking by niI.e.; Greek Apocalypse of Baruch ii.), awere scattered over the whole earth. ThTower was blown down by winds (SibyJosephus, I.e.; Mek., Beshallah, 4, ed. Waccording to the opinion of others,one-thbuilding w as consumed by fire, one-third the earth, and one-third remained standiI.e.; Gen. R.I.e. 8). In order to convethe height of the Tower, it is said that twho even now stands upon the ruins,trees below him appear like grasshoppremnant of the Tower is said to be at BorAlthough the generation of the buildeTower was much more wicked than that wished duringtheFlood, the punishment owas much more severe, because they werwhile the former lived in peace with onand peace is of such supreme importancespares even idolaters so long as they live (Gen. R. I.e.7). Comp are LANGUAGES, SBIBLIOGRAPHY :Ginzberg, Vie Haggada bvittern,pp. 88, 91-91.J.SK.In Mohammedan Literature: Tstory about Babel had reached Mohammeto bocertain ; but it was in a singularly form and was confused by him with anoabout Khordad and Mordad, two of Amshaspands. The one reference appears(sura ii. 96):"Buttheyfollowedthat which the SatansrecitkingshipofSolomonand Solomon wasnounbe


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397 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA Babel,TowerofSatans are unbelievers, teaching menmagicandthatwhichwas revealed to the two angelsIn Babil,Harut, andMarut.They do not teach any one until they say, ' We are nothing butatemptation, so be not an unbeliever.' The peoplelearnfromthemthatby whichthey may divide between manand wife,yettheyinjurenone thereby, saveby the permission ofGod;they learn that which hurts themselves andprofitsthemnot."

Here all that is left of the Babel story is the nameand the idea that there separation may be broughtabout. As to Haru t and Marut, the Moslem commentators explain that they were two angels sentdown byGod. to teach men magic, in order to trythem and to show themthedifference between magicand miracle. It is a story of the Jews, continuesthe commentator Baidawi in loco), but to be rejected, that they assumed flesh, were seduced by awoman Zuhara into lust and rebellion against God,and taught her how to ascend up into the heavens.But later Islam embraced this Jewish legend in itsfull extent, and exhausted its imagination in portraying the well at Babil with the rebelliousangelshung in it by the heels and giving lessons in magicto whomeverwouldcome to them (see Lane's "Ara bian Nights," chap, iii., note 14, andAl-Tha'labi's"Kisas al-Anbiyya,"pp. 43e tseq.; compare Cairoed'.,1298).

With so vague a reference in the Koran and w ithafundamental confusionlike thistocontend against,the stories of the Tower and of the confusion oftongues have left little or no mark on popular Islam ; the"Arabian Nights"know nothing of them.Some of the historians know of the confusion oftonguesonly. Thus in Yak ut (i. 448et seq.)and the"Lisan al-'Arab" (xiii. 72) God brought mankindinto the plain afterward called "Babil,"by means ofwinds sweeping them together. There He assignedto each his separate speech, and the winds againscattered them to their appointed lands.In one place Tabari(" Annales," ed. de Goeje, i.220) gives a tradition that Nimrod ruled at Babilandhispeople were Moslems. Butheseduced themto idolatry, and in a single day God confused theirspeech, which had been Syriac, and they became ofseventy-two tongues. In another place (p. 224)Tabari tells the story practically as in Genesis. IbnWadih (i. 17) has a longer narrative on the samelines. Abu, Tsa, the astronomer quoted by Abual-Fida ("Hist. Anteisl.," ed. Fleischer, p. 18), also tellsthe Biblical story of the Tower and the confusion.He adds th at Eber alone, becausehe didnot join theothers in their impious attempt, was permitted toretain the original Hebrew language. This is incurious contrast with the other narratives, whichview Syriac as the original tongue. It is possiblethat the belief, current in all theMoslem world,thatSyriac was the original language, is to be traced tothe influence of the Syriac"Cave of Treasures"andtheArabic "K itabal-Majall,"with theiranti-Jewishpolemics.j. JR . D. B. M.Critical View: Accordingto the modernanalysisof the Pen tateuch, the section Gen. xi. 1-9 is derived from J, or the Jahvisticwriter. The name isthere explained as from a stem-word"balal"(confound). This is probablyafolk-etymology foundedupon thesimilarity of the propername totheHebrew

stem or to the event that occurred at Babel. TheBabylonian language, probably indigenous to thisregion, gives the true etymology of "Babel." It iscompounded of " bab " (gate) and " iii" (God), literally, " thegate of God." It shouldbenoticed, too,that this name was given to both the Tower and thecitj-,and that the cessation of bu ildingEty- operationsis referred to in connectionmology: with the city only, the tower not evenGate beingmentioned. The recordsofGen.ofGod. x. give a picture of the settlement ofmankinduponvarious portions of theearth's surface. This "tab le of the nations " is anethnographical map of the ancient Oriental world.The exact time of its preparation can not, with thepresent data, be fixed. The location of the greatmajority of the peoples has been determined. Ithas been noted, too, that the inhabitants of thesecommunities, districts, provinces, and cities spokedifferent languages. The questions, how men werescattered from one common center to all these sections of the ancient world, and how they happenedto speak diverse tongues, are answered by the insertion, after ch. x., of Gen. xi. 1-9.Up to the present timenoancient documents, giving aparallel legend,such as thoseof the Babylonianaccounts of the Creation and the Deluge, have beendiscovered. But another class of facts may pointinthe direction of answering the above question. Philologists have not yet solved the question as to thecommon origin of all the languages of mankind;but scientists agree that the physiognomy, the physiology, the psychology, and the religious nature ofman are practically the same all over the world.This is not an absolute proof of the unity of therace; but it points to a dispersion of menfromacommon center, and as the descendants of a commonstock.There is general agreement that the Tower ofBabel wasin lower Babylonia, not farfromthe RiverEuphrates. Two principal locations are givenin theliterature of the subjec t: (1) the ruinsPosition of Birs-Nimrud at old Borsippa, southofBabel, of the site of oldBabylon;and (2) theruins within the circuit of ancientBabylon itself. In the first case, Nebuchadnezzar(in his Borsippa inscription, cols. i. and ii.) tells howhe repaired and finished a "zikkurat," or tower,which had been left unfinished, ataheight of42 ells,by a former king. This tower, dedicated to Nebo,was called"E-zida"(Enduring Temple or House),and consisted of seven stages or stories. The conspicuous character of the present-dayremainsof thisTower has attracted attention since the time of Benjamin of Tudela (about 1160); and many scholarshave found in this mass of ruins the remains of theTower of Babel of Gen. xi. The latest expositor ofthis view is John P. Peters ("Jour. Biblical Litera

ture," 1896, xv.IWetseq.).The second view is that the ruins of old Babyloninclude the site of the Tower of the record. Thenarrative itself speaks ofacity and a tow er; and, asstated above, the cessation oflabor ismentioned withregard to the cityonl}'. The name" Babel"wouldmost naturally connect this event with the cityof Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, too (in his Borsippa

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BabenhausenBabylon THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

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inscription), states thathebuilt andfinishedat Babylon"E-sag-ila"(Temple of Heaven and Earth), thedwelling of the god of gods,Marduk;Nebuchad- and likewise the story-tower,"E-temennezzar's an-ki" (Temple of the Foundation ofBor sipp a Heaven and Earth). Of this latterIn - he says (Rawlinson, "Cuneiform Inscription, scriptions of Western Asia,"v.34, col.i. 53, 54): "E-temen-an-ki, the zik-kurat of Babylon I built anew," and adds immediatelythereafter: "E-zida,the lasting house,belovedof Nebo, in Borsippa, I built anew." The same language is used with reference to the construction ofboth of these edifices. This being so, there must bea preference for Babylon as the probable site of theBabel ofGen.ix. 1-9, the ruins of which answer therequirements of both a towerand a city. SeeBABY-LOXan d SIIIXAR.BIBLIOGRAPHY H. Rawlinson, in Smith-Sayce,Chaldean Genesis,pp. 171etsea. For the critical analysis of the eleventhchapter of Genesisandthe variousproblemsconnected withthe tradition of the Tower of Babel, see Budde,BihlischeUrgesehichte, and the commentaries of Dillmann, Strack,Holzinger,and Gunkel;J.P. Peters, as above.J.JR. I. M. P.

BABENHATJSEN:A city of Hesse, district ofStarkenburg, Germany. Jews are reported to haveresided here as ea rly as1320. At the request of thenobleman ArrosiusvonBreuberg, certain Jews wereplaced under the ban, and all intercourse betweenthem and Christians was strictly prohibited. Thereason for this measure is not stated. In 1337 theJews were cruelly persecuted duringthe AKMLEDERraids. At the time of the Black Death (1349)the Jewish community was again subjected to persecution.From1643to1672 there wereat no time more thansix Jews resident here, and these paid an annualprotection tax of 60 to 70 gulden. Between 1710and 1719 this tax amounted to 110 gulden. TheJew Daniel of Babenhausen obtained the protectionof the Palatin ate in 1648. In 1829 there were 80Jews resident here; in1875there were92;and thisis about the number at the present day.BIBLIOGRAPHY : Salfeld,Des Nttrnberger MemorbuehesMar-tyrologium, pp. 238, 281;Besehreibung der Hdnau-Mun-zenbergischen Lande,p. 57; Lowenstein,Gesch. der Judeninder Kurpfalz,p.28;Engelbert,Statistih des Juden-thums im Deutschen Beiche,p. 52.G. A. F.

BABINOVICHI: Towninthe district of Orsha,government of Mohilev, Russia. In1900,in a totalpopulation of1,143the Jews numbered about 800.G. H. R.BABLI HA-SOLOMONB .JEHUBAH. SeeSOLOMON B. JEHTJDAH.BABOVICH, SIMHA: Head man of the Karaites of the Crimea in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and president of the Karaite Councilof the city of Kozlov, Eupatoria. The exact dateofhis birth is unknown, but he was probably bornabout 1785. His surname is spelled bysome " Bibo-vich"(Gottlober, "Bikkoretle-Toledotha-Karaim,"p. 179), and by others "Babovich" (Eben Resheff,"Abne Zikaron," p. 102, and Deinard, "MassaKrim,"p. 20).Babovich did not distinguish himself as a scholar,nor did he write anybook; but he was famous for

thework he did for the benefit of the Karaicially in regard to their po litical and socialRussia. He was a man of wealth and awork of ABRAHAM FIRKOVICH, who acchim to Jerusalem in 1830, and who wTaswith the education of Babovich's children.In 1827 Babovich went to St. PetersbJoseph Solomon,hakam of the Karaite coof Kozlov, to petition the Russian goverfree the Karaites from military service. Tsion wassuccessful; and itwason this occSolomon wrote his "Sefer ha-Zikaron,"anHAMBEX JOSEPH SOLOMOX HA-HAZAN cohymn in honor of Babovich.In1829Babovich corresponded with Jo stGerman-Jewish scholars in regard toahistKaraites; and it was owing to his encouthat Firkovich gathered all the materialhistory.K.BABSKI REEVES ("Babski" [Poliswomanish; "refues" [Hebrew], remediename applied in Yiddish to domestic and tious medicine. Common folk among theRussia and Poland believe in peculiar remdiseases and maladies, some of the remedieing of drugs or physics and some ofmagicEspecially peculiar are the latter, which aally prescribedoradministeredby apracticacalled "ba'al-shem" (master of [God's] n"guter Yid"(good Jew),to Whomsuperstand women apply for the conjuration of toof wounds, or of an evil eye("'ayyin hafor the exorcism of an evil spirit("dibbuk Of the" segulot" (superstitious remediethese folk, particularly curious are those for-the relief of preg nant women and thadren. For instance, a well-known practisthem is "Bleigiessen," or what may be" plumbomancy,"whichisdivination fromassumed by molten lead dropped into wateis resorted"to in cases in which illness of women or that of children is due to frightout"what object was the cause of the amedicine-woman, muttering a psalm or antion, throws moltenleadinto a vessel full and from the resemblance of the form thus by the metal to a particular animal, she divthe cause of fright was a cat, a dog, a horsThe popular guides of domestic and supmedicine among the Russian and Polish Jew" Sefer Zekirah"(Book of Remembrance), Zechariahof Plungyan, and the "Mif'alot (Works of God), which latter is a collectionedies prescribed by R abbisYoel Ba'al-Shemtaliof Posen, and others.Herefollow afew items contained in the tises: To alleviate pain of dentition, suspethe neck of the child a tooth of a horse or and smear the throat of the child with bchicken-fat ("Zekirah," p. 80, Warsaw, 1protect a child from an "evil eye," let it wper or silver tablet with the letternengrait ib. p. 84). In case of m easles or smallten peas, throw them upon the patient, and-I^P DJH ST1K pKlW pSINIVJ Pitt D

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