After the Flood strong leadership could have brought blessing to the world: defending the helpless standing up for justice rescuing people in danger. But once Nimrod made that power an end in itself he became a danger to everyone in his orbit and paved the way for future self-serving totalitarian regimes
T
his week the Torah tells how the “take two” of the human race — the new world population that arose from Noach’s offspring after the Flood — initially thrived in a system of equal rights. People lived as nomadic shepherds gradually developing technologies that improved their material existence. Tribal leaders the patriarchs of each extended family guided them in their wanderings. The prevailing spirit in this early society was one of freedom; no man was subjugated to another.
This held true until Nimrod stepped onstage and introduced new concepts that irrevocably changed their simple egalitarian lives. And the world still feels the effects of that revolution today. In the Torah we read “And Cush fathered Nimrod; he began to be a mighty man in the land; he was a mighty hunter before Hashem” (Bereishis 10:8-9).
There were “mighty men in the land” before Nimrod strong leaders whose authority over their tribes was uncontested. But Nimrod is the first person to be mentioned in the Torah as “beginning to be a mighty man.” He was the first to make a supreme and exclusive value of his might viewing it as the be-all and end-all of his existence. And through him the meaning of strength underwent a mutation imbuing it with foreign elements. As long as strong leadership served as a means to an end it could bring blessing to the world: defending the helpless standing up for justice rescuing people in danger. But when one who holds power makes it an end in itself he becomes a danger to everyone in his orbit.
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