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One of the basic themes of biblical monotheism is that diversity on earth testifies to unity in heaven. Reality is not a ceaseless struggle of contending elements - the ultimately tragic vision of paganism, given its highest expression by the Greek dramatists and philosophers. Instead it is a divinely ordained harmony - one that existed at the beginning of creation and will eventually be restored at the end of days. This is the theme of many Psalms, and of the culminating chapters of the Book of Job. They are summed up in the following verse:
How many are Your works, O Lord,
In wisdom You made them all;
The earth is full of your creatures. [84] 126
Diversity is particularly significant in the case of persons:
For this reason, man [i.e. the first human being] was created alone to teach that whoever destroys a single life127 is as though he had destroyed an entire universe, and whoever saves a single life is as if he had saved an entire universe. Furthermore [the first man was created alone] for the sake of peace among men, so that no one could say to another, "My ancestor was greater than yours" . . . [Yet another reason] was to proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, for when a human being strikes many coins from one mould, they all resemble one another, but the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned every man in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow. [85] 128
Thus: one who is not in my image is none the less in G-d's image.
Judaism has a special blessing for human diversity, as the next passage indicates. It also notes that one of the conditions of being a leader is respect for the diversity of those he leads:
"Moses spoke to the Lord saying, Let the Lord, G-d of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation." Halakhah: If one sees a multitude of people, one should say, "Blessed are You, O Lord our G-d, King of the universe, who knows their innermost secrets." For just as their faces are not like one another, so their temperaments are unlike one another, each having their own . . . This was Moses' request of the Holy One, blessed be He: "Sovereign of the universe, the mind of every individual is revealed and known to You. The minds of your children are not alike. Now that I am taking leave of them, appoint over them a leader who will bear with each of them as their temperament requires." [86] 130
According to Maimonides, diversity is fundamental to the human condition. It is what makes mankind a "social animal": 131
It has already been fully explained that man is naturally a social being, that by virtue of his nature he seeks to form communities; man is therefore different from other living beings that are not compelled to combine into communities. He is, as you know, the highest form in creation, and he therefore includes the largest number of constituent elements; this is the reason why the human race contains such a great variety of individuals, that we cannot discover two persons exactly alike in any moral quality, or in external appearance. The cause of this is the variety in man's temperament, and in accidents dependent on his form; for with every physical form there are connected certain special accidents different from those which are connected with the substance. Such a variety among the individuals of a class does not exist in any other class of living beings; for the variety in any other species is limited; only man forms an exception; two persons may be so different from each other in every respect that they appear to belong to two different classes . . . This great variety and the necessity of social life are essential elements in man's nature. [87] 132
How is this human diversity related to the Noahide and Abrahamic covenants? Crucial here are the writings of two of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the nineteenth century, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) and R. Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (=Netziv, 1817-1893).
Hirsch's view appears in his commentary on the covenant with Noah after the Flood. The question he poses is: how does G-d ensure that "never again will I curse the ground because of man" (Gen. 8:21)? What changes does G-d bring about in the human condition to ensure that the world will not again be engulfed in violence as it had been before the Flood? Hirsch's answer is twofold. First, G-d shortened the life-span of human beings. A limit was thus set to the time for which any generation, even the most evil, could hold sway. The second was the creation of a diversity of nations and cultures:
If we add to this diversity of individuals, the still greater diversity of nations, which the new arrangements for the earth effected, and also the hindrance to communication brought about by the division of the earth into continents and countries which will only be overcome after thousands of years; if we think how, thereby, for thousands of years no degeneration spread universally all over the world, and how, just as in the quicker change of the generations in the individuals, so thereby the wider development of nations was started in which new nations with fresh unvitiated powers always take the place of degenerated, enervated ones: then . . . everything is said by which G-d started a completely new phase in the development and education of mankind. 134
. . . [B]y the changed position and conditions of the earth, we are informed of the plan for paving the way for education, namely that evil should not again increase as before but that men should separate into greater diversity, and thereby the spread of evil, both in individuals and nations, would be paralyzed . . .
"As for you, be fruitful and multiply; swarm on the earth and multiply on it" . . . G-d gave a special covenant, a special dispensation, to the different climates and countries . . . It would accordingly be a description of a diversity and infinite variety of human races, and moreover "on the earth" and by the earth, under the influences of the various lands . . . Noachian mankind is given the mission to spread over the whole world, and under the most diverse conditions and influences of climate and physical nature of the countries, to become Men and develop the one common real characteristic of Man: a diversity and a multiplicity which appeared to us in the above connection as G-d's new plan for the education of mankind, to avoid the necessity for any fresh total catastrophe. The diversity is to balance the deficiency and so pave the way to progress to the goal. 135
According to Hirsch, the degeneration of life before the Flood, in which "all flesh had perverted its way on the earth", was to be rendered impossible in the future by the diversity of cultures. If one became corrupt, others might retain their moral codes. No single regime could prevail over all humanity, threatening its future. Hirsch applies the same logic to the fact that the sign of G-d's covenant with Noah after the flood is a rainbow:
By it [the sight of the colours of the rainbow] our attention would repeatedly be directed to the fact that, in spite of all differences in the degree of human development, G-d would never again decree the downfall of the whole human race, but that its future education to its godly purpose was to be founded just on these differences and varieties of humanity. For is the rainbow anything else but the one pure ray of light, broken up into seven degrees of seven colours . . . and from the one to the other, are they not all rays of light, and combined all together, do they not form one complete pure white ray? Could not this perhaps be meant to say: the whole manifold variety of all living creatures . . . above all, the whole variety of shades in which henceforth the purely "human" would show itself in the races of mankind . . .G-d unites them all together in one common bond of peace, all fragments of one life, all refracted rays of the one spirit of G-d, even the lowest, darkest, most distant one, still a son of the light? 136
Hirsch's theory is reminiscent of the ideas of two political thinkers, Montesquieu and Madison. In The Spirit of Laws (1748), Montesquieu argued in favour of a confederate republic (i.e. a political union of several small states, not unlike the amphictyony of twelve tribes that characterized biblical Israel from the days of Joshua until the creation of the monarchy in the days of Samuel and Saul) on the following grounds:
If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme power, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in all the confederate states. Were he to have too great an influence over one, this would alarm the rest; were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped, and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation.137
Similarly, in The Federalist Papers (1787-8), James Madison argued that the best way to contain the destructive potential of any political order was to ensure that various factions counterbalanced one another:
Extend the sphere [of the republic] and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength and act in unison with each other . . . The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. 138
Like Montesquieu and Madison, but extending the idea to humanity as a whole, Hirsch suggests that the division of mankind into separate countries and continents, nations and cultures, was the best defence against the global rule of evil.139 R. Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin uses a similar idea to understand the sin of the builders of Babel:
Since the views of human beings are not the same, [the builders of Babel] were concerned that no one should have a contrary opinion. They therefore took care that no one be allowed to leave their city, and those who expressed contrary views were condemned to death by fire, as they sought to do to Abraham. Their "shared words" became a stumbling-block because they resolved to kill anyone who did not think as they did. [88] 140
Netziv's view is that Babel was in danger of becoming the first totalitarian state ("the attempt to impose a man-made unity on divinely created diversity"). The "unity of speech" of its builders threatened the natural diversity of human opinion. They refused to allow dissidents to leave, and sentenced to death those who expressed dissenting views. While they were building the city, the people were united by a common purpose. The danger was that, had they succeeded in building it they would continue to impose uniformity:
"The Lord said: If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them" (Gen. 11: 6). [This means], If they complete the tower, they will come to the further stage of forcibly preventing anyone disagreeing with their plan [that all should live in the same place], leading to murder and violence which will destroy society completely. [89] 141
Netziv adds, in this context, an arresting interpretation of Jeremiah 2: 33-34 in which the prophet delivers a criticism of Israel:
How skilled you are at pursuing love!
Even the worst of women can learn from your ways.
On your clothes, men find the lifeblood of the innocent poor,
Though you did not catch them breaking in. [90]
Netziv comments:
The meaning is that there were in his [Jeremiah's] day groups who prided themselves that they had more love and peace than anyone else. The prophet says that it was not so. On their clothes was the blood of the innocent poor - not because they had stolen from them but because they [the poor] were not part of their group. Sectarianism leads to murder, and the way to praiseworthy peace only comes when people are careful to do no evil to those who are not members of their group. [91] 142
Utopian-sectarian communities may pride themselves on their harmony, but it is secured at a price: their indifference at best, or at worst hostility, to those who do not share their views. Netziv's analysis echoes Aristotle's - and more recently Karl Popper's 143 - critique of Plato's Republic. A community must allow space for diversity - such is the Netziv's view, and he held to it consistently throughout his writings. Elsewhere he argues that the Second Temple was destroyed because, even though the Jews of that time were "righteous and pious and laboured in the study of Torah", they "suspected all those who behaved differently from them in the fear of G-d, as being Sadduceans and heretics". The result was "the destruction of creation and social order [churban habriyah veharisut yishuv ha-aretz]"144. For the same reason he opposed separatist communities within Orthodoxy.145 A Jewish community must, within the parameters of halakhah, make space for difference - all the more so, humanity as a whole. 146
Hirsch and Netziv differ in their emphases. Hirsch stresses the need to prevent the global dominance of evil; Netziv is concerned with the preservation of liberty. Yet they concur in seeing difference as an essential part of the Divine script after the twin calamities of the Flood and Babel. To be sure, it was not lechatchilah but bedi'avad; not part of G-d's plan from the beginning, but the only way of rescuing humanity from disaster while preserving their freewill. They would have concurred with Tom Paine's remark in Common Sense (1776) that "Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise." That is what the post-deluvian order is from a biblical perspective. Ideally, human beings would live together in harmony; neither the division of languages nor the political process would be necessary. But though the Torah is predicated on ideals, it recognizes the reality of human behaviour ("The Torah was not given to ministering angels"147 - but to human beings with all their faults). The sequence of episodes of Genesis 2-11 tell of how G-d, constantly grieved by the way human beings destroy the order He has created, must Himself lower His expectations of mankind until the end of days.
Thus, after Babel and as a response to it, G-d divides mankind into a multiplicity of languages and civilizations ("Come, let us go down and confuse their language . . . That is why it is called Babel - because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world"148 ). The result, as Rav Kook makes clear at many points in his writings, is that each civilization has something distinctive to contribute to the project of mankind:
The Holy One, blessed be He, dealt charitably with his world by not putting all the talents in one place, not in any one man or in any one nation, not in any one country, not in one generation or in one world; but the talents are scattered . . . The store of the special treasure of the world is laid up in Israel. But in order, in a general sense, to unite the world with them, certain talents have to be absent from Israel so that they may be completed by the rest of the world and the princes of the nations. [92] 149
Each people has its own purpose and destiny which constitutes its distinctive vocation and contribution to the perfection of the world. Each nation, through its character and attributes, ideas and history, has something unique which it bestows on humanity as a whole. [93] 150
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