We offer below some remarks on the possibility of space travel by the renowned 18th-century Cabbalist, Jonathan Eybeschütz. The excerpt was translated from the original Hebrew by Shabtai Rosenne, who, as an ambassador of Israel and legal advisor of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, has recently been in the United States serving with Israel’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Rosenne, submitting the little treatise, notes that a recent report of a United Nations committee on the “Peaceful Uses of Outer Space” had this to say: “the Committee considered the relevance to space activities of the United Nations charter and of the statute of the International Court of Justice . . . ; it observed that as a matter of principle those instruments were not limited in their operation to the confines of the earth.”

Jonathan Eybeschütz (b. Cracow, 1690; d. Altona, Germany, 1764) was from his early youth known as a Talmudist and at twenty-one became head of the famous Yeshiva at Prague. But he soon turned to Cabbala; and when, in 1750 (after having served as rabbi of Metz), he was elected rabbi of the important triple community of Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbeck, he carried on his miracle-working, including the writing of Cabbalistic amulets for women in childbirth. An accusation by the already controversial Rabbi Jacob Emden of Altona that Eybeschütz was a follower of the false Messiah Sabbatai Zevi precipitated the famous controversy between the two rabbis that lasted for years and involved the Jews of all Europe in what became a virtual pitched battle between Sabbatians and Talmudists. The King of Denmark was called on to arbitrate. In the end Eybeschütz was vindicated and confirmed in his office by the Hamburg Senate. In addition to five Cabbalistic works, Eybeschütz published annotations on the Shulchan Aruch and many popular homiletic writings. The present selection is part of a much longer commentary on the Tower of Babel story which appears in Eybeschütz’s Tiferet Yonatan—“Commentary on the Pentateuch.”—Ed.

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Now this is the matter of the Generation of the Flood and of the Tower of Babel.

They aspired to build a tower which would reach to the heavens. Must we understand from this that they were so ignorant as not to know that, according to the science of building, this would have required foundations broader than the sphere of the earth?

But their calculations were based upon the natural sciences, which teach that rain falls from the steam and vapors rising up from the earth and its foundation of water. From this are formed the clouds, out of which the waters descend. The origin of the water is not in the heavens at all.

Indeed, a theory has already been put forth, based on actual observations, that the clouds, being the heavy vapors rising from the earth, do not reach a height of more than five miles at the most. That being so, it also follows that those vapors which are lighter than particles of water do not rise any higher because, were they to rise higher, then the clouds, which are heavier, would themselves be higher above the earth. That is why the Generation of the Flood planned the Tower to rise above the height of the clouds.

And thus they made it so that the rain could not fall on them, and when the Bible uses the expression “with its top in heaven,” you have here hyperbole.

Where is the difference? For it is known that the Lunar Sphere is also a place of habitation, as is the Earthly Sphere.

It has already been learned through flying devices, in the form of a mast laid breadthwise across the earth, that the wind ascends from the earth; indeed all winds rise from the earth below. That is why I have written that Noah would not have gone on a boat to the middle of the Ocean because certainly there was no flood there.

Indeed what could be the object of a flood in the Ocean? Should he not have taken a boat and not the Ark? Moreover, at that time the shipwright’s art was unknown; and there is a further difficulty that the Almighty would have commanded him to take a boat and not the Ark.

And even if we believe that the Ocean encompasses the world from end to end like a tube, and that on one side of the world are the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe and on the other side the New World called America, the question arises how did Man reach the New World before the flood without boats? And if you say that before the flood men were not there, it follows that neither was the flood there, because it would have been without object. Where is the redundancy? Because if Scripture says that where no flood was is called “pure,” then it follows that the New World is pure, since the flood did not fall in the New World.

But as I have written, so be it, namely: the flood flattened the earth so that while it lasted no wind at all could ascend from the earth, wherefore Noah could not have sailed a boat to the Atlantic Ocean since in the place where he was at the time of the flood there was no wind, and it is impossible to sail without wind and that is the explanation for my statement that the winds ascend from the earth below.

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And the idea of the flying device was that the wind would blow into the mast and thus lift the thing higher and higher, so that it would not return to earth unless strong and heavy air in the immediate vicinity of the earth would press on the thing and force it downwards. Therefore engineers traveled in it, and by discharging gunpowder (known as pulver) with force in the firing barrel, propelled it higher and higher until they observed that it had reached the point from which it would not return to earth at all. No such device has ever been found on the earth, although according to the way of nature it should regain the earth by the shortest possible way. On this basis they judged that the device first rose above the thick and polluted atmosphere by the force of the gunpowder, and when it had reached that point, the gunpowder would prevent it from coming down.

Therefore, should it be possible to bring any flying vehicle above this layer of thick air, it would continue ascending on the wind till it reached the Lunar Sphere, because the wind would always be carrying it over and above; and the higher you go the stronger is the wind, and treatises have already been written about how to make such a vehicle to reach the Lunar Sphere.

But the principle is that the vehicle should pass out of the heavy air, and that is what the Generation of the Flood and the Tower of Babel were after. Also, they wanted to establish their habitation on the Lunar Sphere where they would be saved from the flood. That is what they hoped to achieve with their vessel. How could they raise their airship above this heavy air? That is why they planned to build the Tower of Babel so high that it would protrude above the air and from its top they would launch their vessel on its voyage to the Lunar Sphere.

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