babbling Babel

 וַיֹּאמְר֞וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵ֗הוּ הָ֚בָה נִלְבְּנָ֣ה לְבֵנִ֔ים וְנִשְׂרְפָ֖ה לִשְׂרֵפָ֑ה וַתְּהִ֨י לָהֶ֤ם הַלְּבֵנָה֙ לְאָ֔בֶן וְהַ֣חֵמָ֔ר הָיָ֥ה לָהֶ֖ם לַחֹֽמֶר׃
    
     וַיֹּאמְר֞וּ הָ֣בָה׀ נִבְנֶה־לָּ֣נוּ עִ֗יר וּמִגְדָּל֙ וְרֹאשׁ֣וֹ בַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וְנַֽעֲשֶׂה־לָּ֖נוּ שֵׁ֑ם פֶּן־נָפ֖וּץ עַל־פְּנֵ֥י כׇל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
     
The Netziv points out that the first pasuk here seems entirely redundant.  Who cares about the process involved in building the migdal Bavel?  Who cares if is was made of bricks or sticks and stones? 
    
Netziv suggests that the Torah mentions the brick furnace because that furnace has significance -- according to the Midrash that is where Nimrod threw Avraham as punishment for Avraham's rejection of idolatry.  The problem with this approach is ikar chaseir min ha'sefer -- the Torah mentions the furnace, but leaves out the entire back story (see Netziv who addresses this issue).
    
Malbim and Seforno see the two pesukim as reflection two groups of people or two stages in a progression.  At first, people simply wanted something better than tents or straw huts to live in, so they said to each other, "How about we try this new thing called a 'brick?'"  Folks were then able to build houses, to build cities.  But then along came another group of people, or people reached another stage of working with this new technology called the "brick," and they said why should we stop at houses?  Let's build a great tower, let's set up a centralized administration of big government. The rest is history.  Technology, whether it is bricks or the interweb, needs to be carefully managed.  What starts out as a good thing that can fill a need can quickly become misused.
    
Looking a little closer at the pesukim here, what is striking is the amount of dialogue that is going on.  "Va'yomru ish el reyeihu..."  "Va'yomru ahav niveh lanu ir..."  Why not just tell us that the people made bricks, the people made a tower, etc.  Why introduce each stage by telling us that there was a conversation that took place?
    
Furthermore, when Hashem punishes the people, he says, "Hein am echad **v'safah achas** l'kulam v'zeh hachilam la'asos..."  Again, the focus is on language -- having one language is the cause of wrongdoing.  Why not ban hammers since they used hammers to build, or ban bricks, since it was the use of bricks that started this whole process?  Why is it language that is identified as the source of the problem?
    
Man was created as a "ruach m'malela," with the exceptional capability of speech.  I know someone who is constantly talking about their job: the work, the frustrations, future plans, etc.  The entire "ruach" that gives this person chiyus is invested in their job.  Instead of just a means to make a living, their job is their life.  What a person talks about is who they are.  (Hashem gave us Torah sheba'al peh to do with our mouths for a good reason.)  The dor ha'palagah was not just interested in using technology -- they were interested in talking about technology, in investing their chiyus and ruach into technology.  You can just picture one of the people there saying to the other, "Did you get the latest brick 2.0?  I mean, how can you live without it?"  It's the "va'yomru lo," not the bricks or buildings, not the ipad or the interweb which is the problem.  Therefore, Hashem's punishment was addressed at language, not at bricks or ipads.
    
Sefas Emes (5632 and a few other places) quotes a play on words: the teivah of Noach = words of Torah.  What the Sefas Emes does NOT mean is that a person should withdraw from the secular world into an ivory tower of holy books/words.  Aderaba, what he means (look it up!) is that everything in the world, even that which appears as secular, is really a teivah that contains within it a spark of G-dliness.  But you have to look inside -- outside is just a bilbul, a mabul, a flood that drowns out the true meaning of things.  This is what the dor ha'palaga missed.  They were focused on the outside -- they settled in Shinar=Bavel because their words were just a bilbul, just noise, just an endless parade of tweets and posts, but lacking any true meaning and content.  The Torah says to go into the teivah, go find depth in everything.  Do you think you can find depth in a 200 character dashed off comment?