The episode of the construction of the Tower of Babel, edification destroyed by God at the dawn of the history of Humanity has become the paradigm for the lack of understanding between people: they do not understand each other because they speak dissimilar languages. It’s not just a question of vocabulary: the problem lies in the concepts and in the meaning that we give to words. Indeed, the tower collapsed because those who were building it stopped understanding each other. Also, the completion of this building had become an obsession that, according to the Midrash, contributed to giving the individual greater significance than to the loss of a brick or the death of another human being.

What could have been the purpose of the building of this Tower of Babel? One possibility is that it served as a reference for people to find their way back to their place of origin since due to its height it could be observed from afar. On the other hand, as a consequence, it would stop populating the rest of the earth, since all would be concentrated in the same area of ​​the globe.

It is also pointed out that the Tower could serve to spy on people Because from its height one could have a panoramic view of the region. It would be a kind of control tower. (I remember that During our first visit to Havana in 1988, we were impressed by a tall structure within the complex of the Embassy of the Soviet Union: the feeling we had was that it was a kind of lookout tower from which one could make out every step of the town’s population).

Perhaps the main intention of this episode is to illustrate that man wanted to assume the role of the Creator: he felt very powerful because of his skills in the field of construction.

The man may have thought he could create another universe, just as God had done. Furthermore, the insistence on uniformity was a sign that they wanted to perpetuate their pagan cults and stop any alteration or change of their ritual.

It is clear that diversity allows and promotes growth and development. The confrontation of a diversity of ideas and thoughts, the adaptation to climatic extremes, and the unequal manifestations of nature, for example, demand an intelligent and creative response for every situation.

The idiomatic confusion that God produced so that men desist from the construction of the Tower of Babel had a didactic purpose. It showed that language is not necessary only to designate objects and to name feelings.

Language is a way of thinking. He or she who speaks  Spanish thinks differently from those who speak German.

Language reflects the cultural heritage of society: it expresses its idiosyncrasy. The technocrats responsible for the Tower of Babel probably thought that when the cusp of the Tower reached the sky they would discover the essential secrets of nature. They would then become gods. However, millennia later, at the beginning of the 21st century, the authentic scientist recognizes the enormity of his ignorance, he is aware that what remains to be learned is far greater than what he knows already and that there probably exist some kind of limits to human knowledge.

While the construction of the Tower was a demonstration of the advanced technology of the time, society continues on the move because of ideas and ideals that have always been present.

The basic notions of happiness and joy, satisfaction, and spiritual enjoyment are not the necessary consequence of new technologies.

Modernity has provided the means to alleviate the use of physical force at work, as well as indispensable tools for research in different areas. Yet love and hate, envy and altruism, meanness and generosity, feelings, emotions, and passions continue to be the factors are determinant in greater and deeper spirituality, and capable of giving greater meaning to the human presence on the planet.