That frustration, that sense of futility, echoes through a powerful passage in Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis.

Rabbi Abba kicks things off with a stark proverb from Proverbs 27:22: “If you crush a fool among the groats in a mortar with a pestle, his folly will not be removed from him.” Ouch. But what does it mean?

Rabbi Abba bar Kahana jumps in to unpack it. Imagine, he says, someone trying to improve barley by pounding it relentlessly in a mortar. They think they're making it better, refining it. But even after all that effort, after raising and lowering the pestle again and again, the barley remains… well, barley. “His folly will not be removed from him,” repeats the proverb. The essential nature of the thing, or perhaps the person, remains unchanged despite all the pounding.

This image of futile effort isn't just a random thought. It's a lens through which to view two pivotal generations in the Torah: the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion, who built the Tower of Babel.

Think about it. The generation of the Flood was so corrupt, so filled with violence and wickedness, that God saw no other option but to wipe the slate clean. A catastrophic reset. But even after the Flood, after the world was seemingly "purified," humanity quickly reverted to its old ways.

And then comes the story of the Tower of Babel. “The entire earth was of one language and of common speech,” the Torah tells us. This sounds idyllic, right? Unity! But according to Bereshit Rabbah, even this seeming harmony masked a deeper problem. The people, unified in their language and purpose, decided to build a tower reaching to the heavens – a direct challenge to God's authority. This was only two years after the Flood, a blink of an eye in historical terms.

So, what's the connection? Both generations, despite experiencing either divine judgment or unprecedented unity, failed to learn from their past mistakes. They were like the fool in the mortar, endlessly pounded but never truly changed. Their "folly," their inherent flaws, remained stubbornly intact.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Are there aspects of human nature that are simply unchangeable? Can we truly learn from our mistakes, or are we doomed to repeat them, like the barley in the mortar, forever being pounded but never truly transformed? It's a sobering thought, but also a call to self-reflection. Maybe, just maybe, by recognizing our own potential for folly, we can avoid becoming another generation destined for a metaphorical flood or a crumbled tower.