When the Torah Falls, Who Picks Us Up? From the Tower of Babel to the Ballot Box©

Parashat Vayera - 2026/5787

Rabbi David Baum

What do we do when a Sefer Torah falls? That is the question we’ve been asking ourselves since last Shabbat. But there was a second question I got that was even more interesting. If I was at shul but I was outside when the Torah fell, what does that mean? And what they were really asking me was, “Rabbi, do I have to fast for 40 days? I wasn’t even in the room!”

As you know, if you read your email, we came up with a communal response to the Torah falling. It involves learning and tzedakah. We decided not to hold a communal fast. If you want to know the reason, please stay afterward. I’ll be teaching a lunch-and-learn where we’ll look at sources on how we have responded to a Torah falling, from the Talmud until today. But that’s for later. I want to focus on that second question: what’s behind it, and what lessons we can learn from it.

First, we have to go back to last Shabbat. There was an audible gasp when the Torah fell. Everyone was cheering and happy. We were just throwing candy, then silence fell over the room, and everyone fixated on this inanimate object. And I thought to myself, “But how do we react when people fall?” It could be a physical fall, someone falling on the floor. It could also be an emotional or psychological fall.

I think it was a couple of weeks ago that there was a horrendous story. A soldier was rappelling down into a football stadium. Something happened, and he fell. He didn’t die right away. They took him to the hospital. What do you think they did? Did they continue the game? In fact, they went on with the game.

There was another story about four years ago. A safety for the Buffalo Bills named Damar Hamlin. He collapsed on the field, and everyone saw it. He had some sort of cardiac incident, and the league wanted the two teams to continue the game. And guess what happened? The players refused to play. They ended the game right then and there.

These two stories reminded me of something we read a couple of weeks ago at the end of Parashat Noach. It was the story of Migdal Bavel, the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11:4, we read about the tower’s purpose. Why are they building this tower to the sky?

They say, “Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves, or else we will be scattered all over the world.” Nivneh lanu ir umigdal verosho vashamayim. Vena’aseh lanu shem, pen nafutz al penei kol ha’aretz.

On the surface, the text suggests that the people wanted to come together to build this tower higher than any of them could have built alone, and that God prevented the power of human unity by confusing their speech. But it’s actually a lot deeper than we think.

The first question we ask is whether building the tower was a sin. And if so, what was their sin? What’s wrong with this? Surely God could create and destroy the earth. Why would God be scared of human beings building a tower that was supposed to reach the heavens?

But the rabbis give a different interpretation. There was someone in charge of this building project. He was an emperor named Nimrod. Nimrod was the great-grandson of Noah. He’s introduced as a gibor, a man of might, or a hero on earth. He was a mighty hunter, and according to the Midrash, he developed a following and became a king and emperor. Nimrod uses his generation’s intelligence and this new technology to change the tower’s purpose.

The rabbis said that Nimrod did all of this to promote idolatry, which is the worship of other gods. But interestingly enough, there’s no god mentioned in this story other than Hashem, the one God. So how do we make sense of this? I thought about it and said, “The gods Nimrod was trying to create were human beings, or really, just himself.” He wanted to be at the center of everything.

During the construction of the tower, the builders promoted the idea that bricks mattered more than people. There’s a well-known midrash in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer that teaches that when a man fell from the tower as they were building it, no one paid attention. But if one brick fell, everyone would start weeping and crying. “Oy to us! When will another one be hauled up in its place?” The rabbis look at this and say that the real sin was putting bricks over people.

Every year, rabbis give sermons about the idea that we are all created in the image of God, b’tzelem Elohim. But the image of God is very complicated. It’s a very abstract idea. Everyone knows what a Sefer Torah looks like. It’s right here. And everyone knows how to treat a Sefer Torah. We have laws about it that we follow.

There’s a beautiful teaching in our tradition that each one of us is like a Sefer Torah. The Sefer Torah is made from animal skin. Our bodies are like the parchment, and our souls are the letters written on it. And I’ve thought about this. Can you imagine looking at every single person as if they were a Sefer Torah?

I bring this up because we are just days away from Election Day, and we’ve just followed the recent election in Israel, which will probably keep going for another month. Many of the battles of election season play out in the streets or at the ballot box, but today they also play out online, especially on social media. And of course there’s TV and the calls you get all the time.

The bricks of the Tower of Babel today are the zeros and ones of binary code that make up our digital world. Zeros and ones, just like bricks, are neutral until you set them in the order you want. In other words, just like back then, we can build whatever we want. So what are we building? What type of society do we want to build?

That’s what brings me to this week’s parashah, Vayera. We read about these two sin cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. In today’s reading, God decides that these cities are irredeemable, and God thinks aloud. “Shall I hide from Abraham what I’m about to do?”

God explains that Abraham is special, that he will be the father of this new nation. And God adds, “For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of God by doing what is just and right.”

I thought about this. Why is God thinking out loud here? Perhaps God is having doubts. “Is this really what I should do? Should I punish every single one of my creations?” And God shares the plan with Abraham.

What does Abraham do? He says, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?” And Abraham starts bargaining with God. “Well, what if I find fifty righteous people?” God says, “Fine, I’ll stop it.” Abraham says, “What about forty?” Sure. “What about thirty?” Okay. “What about twenty?” They get to the number ten.

One thing I noticed here is that Abraham does not give up. He refuses to give up on the possibility that there could be righteous people living in those cities. He can’t save the cities, but he does save Lot and his family. He gives them a chance.

And I think back to these two leaders, Nimrod, this emperor, and Abraham. Nimrod was willing to sacrifice human lives to build his vision of the world. And Nimrod thought he was doing a good thing.

There’s a psychologist named Dan Ariely, and he did an experiment where they gave people a chance to gamble. They said, “We’re going to give you a secret so you can cheat and beat the house. But it’s for your own gain.” Some people cheated, but a lot of them didn’t. But when he said, “It’s for a charity that’s going to change the world,” everyone cheated. We do these things because when we think we’re going to change the world for the better, we’ll do anything.

And we see that today. We see it a lot. There’s a new movie that just came out where you can see the whole story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. For those who remember, it was a billion-dollar scheme that was going to change the world. And in the process, they put people’s lives in danger by giving them bad diagnoses. The thinking was, “In the end, we’re going to save more lives, so it’s okay to sacrifice these lives.”

And I think about Abraham, who was willing to challenge God to save even ten lives. He wouldn’t give up. Both were trying to build something, but only one of them understood that people mattered more than the project itself. To Abraham, even a handful of lives mattered, and it was worth the risk to try to save them. We know what happens, but imagine if God had said to Abraham, “You’re arguing with Me? I’m going to go find someone else.” But God didn’t.

And so I return to that question. “I didn’t see the Torah fall, so does that mean I have to fast?” And here’s my question back, because you know rabbis have to answer with questions. If you didn’t see it fall, are you still responsible for the Torah?

My answer is yes.

We cannot stand on the sidelines and give up our responsibility to one another, whether it’s here in our congregation or as citizens of this country casting our votes. We all share responsibility for what we build together. Each one of our votes is like a brick. We’re building something, and every brick matters. The mayor of Boca Raton won his last election by five votes.

Each one of those bricks represents a human being created in the image of God. And when election season is over, some will celebrate and others will be disappointed. But we must never make the mistake of those who built that tower, valuing the bricks more than the people.

When a Sefer Torah falls, we rush to pick it up. And when a human being falls, shouldn’t we do the same?

And a little piece of advice. Jews vote more than any other group in this country. But young people vote less than any other group in this country, and many young Jews follow that trend. So I’m sure everyone here has made a plan to vote, but if you have a child or grandchild who is old enough to vote, remind them that their voice is important, that they are a part of this country, and that voting is how we show our responsibility to each other.