Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/111

 93

The Tower of Babel The memory X.

of the righteous shall be

for a blessing

(Proverbs

7).

and again,

A

And

good name in the

rather to be chosen than great riches.

is

same

spirit the rabbis

•

taught that the great

man

needs no tombstone to cause his name to be remembered. His wise words and his deeds of loving-kindness are his

And

monument.

lasting

they also

said,


 * 'There are

three

crowns, the crown of the Torah, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of royalty; but the crown of a good

name

surpasses them

And to

this

all".

story says even more, that

God merely by

we can

not get up

trying to get there, by saying, "I will do

God and pray to him day and night". would mean thinking only of self and one's own It would be just like the people desires, and not of others. man fell from the tower and was care a not if did who brick fell down. Even the desire to if grieved a killed, but wicked, when we think selfish and get up to God becomes

nothing but think of

For

this

only of

self.

Surely

God

did

not

intend

that

we should

Of course we must think of God a great live in this way. deal, and pray to him for help and strength to do right, and thank Him for all the happiness and blessing He bestows upon us every day. But we must also do the work which He has intended us to do, and particularly the work which He has chosen Israel to do. By our words, and even more, by our lives, we must teach the world all that God's life on earth means, and thus help all men to live better and nobler.

We

can get up to

too, to get there.

God ourselves only by helping others, God does not want that only a few, but

His children, whom He loves equally, should come Him. We can not be truly good just by going off Such lives are altoby ourselves and never doing wrong gether useless and wasted, and miss entirely the purpose for

that

all

close to