Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: Oh, I’m Mijal. Sorry.
Noam: And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to understand the Jewish world. We don’t have it all figured out, as you know. So let’s try to figure this all out together. And we love hearing from you, so shoot us a note at wonderingjews@jewishunpacked.com.
We have an amazing first question and I’m going to go directly to it. So Mijal, get ready. Here’s the question that we have from Elise. Elise wants to know, what is your favorite karaoke song? Mijal, what is it?
Mijal: So I don’t really do a karaoke, Noam.
Noam: Why not?
Mijal: I don’t have the best voice in the world. I have a lot of trauma around it. I’m one of seven kids and everybody in my family has the best voice ever. So I avoid karaoke.
Noam: Do you have an issue with doing things you’re not very good at?
Mijal: Really Noam? You’re going for that right here?
Noam: Yeah, we went directly into the psychology of this. Why don’t you do things that you’re not good at?
Mijal: Um, yes, you know what, Noam, I’ll own it. I definitely have an issue with performing in public at things I’m not good at.
Noam: That’s very reasonable.
Mijal: How about you? How about you, no? How about you? What are the things you’re not good at you want to in public?
Oh, okay, so golf. I golfed once.
Mijal: Really? That’s your example, golf?
Noam: I was terrible. And I’m someone who plays sports. I’m an athlete. That’s my identity, okay? I’m an athlete. That’s right, that’s right.
Mijal: You’re an athlete really. Uh huh. Okay. Yeah okay. What’s your karaoke song?
Noam: My karaoke song? Producers, let’s get ready.
Mijal: Go for it. You’re gonna sing.
Noam: Yeah, I’m gonna sing. Tag team, back again. Checked and erected, let’s begin. Party on, party people, let me hear some noise. DCs and the Alstom’s jump for joy. Get a party over here, a party over there. DCs and that makes, wave your derriere. DC words are getting busy. Woomp, there it is, you remember that? Remember that song, Whoomp! (There It Is)?
Noam: Okay, I’ll give you the next verse. Upside down and inside out. About to show you folks what it’s all about because it’s time for me to get on the mic and make this party hype. Taking you back to the old school because I’m an old fool who’s so cool. Let me get down, let me show you the way. Whoop, there it is. Let me hear you say. Come on, Mijal, let me hear you say.
Mijal: It’s very impressive. I don’t know the song. I’m not American. I probably missed that song when it was really cool.
Noam: Oh, okay, okay. Play that card. Play the non-American card, that’s no problem. My older brother, Chanan, and I used to actually be obsessed with the song, Whoomp! (There It Is) by Tag Team, except he started getting annoyed at me. I’m his younger brother because I overplayed it. And then the second I did too much of it, he started getting annoyed with it, but I still have it. 25 years later, it’s there. So there it is. It’s my go-to, and I’m proud of it. Mijal, you impressed or no?
Mijal: Well, super, super impressed. No, I’m really, you’re not just a podcaster, not just an athlete, but also a singer.
Noam: Yeah, okay, yeah. It’s my next career. Okay, so let’s take this to the next level. I asked you about karaoke, but now I wanna actually have a deeper conversation-
Mijal: Deeper than our deep insecurities and how we share them with the world.
Noam: By the way, I think there are a lot of people in the world that actually feel comfortable doing things that they’re not great at. And those people I actually admire. I haven’t golfed since that first time. That is zero grit on my end.
Mijal: You’re rebuking me that I should just sing every day in public. Yeah.
Noam: I haven’t heard you sing, so I can’t say if you should or shouldn’t. Maybe that’s not helpful. But speaking of singing, this could be something that’s helpful to you. There’s something called artificial intelligence, AI. And you could absolutely do some sort of deep fake where there is someone else’s voice coming out from you and people think it’s you. And that’s what I wanna talk about today. The topic is how we think about the emergence of artificial intelligence. How does that relate to Judaism? How does it relate to the Jewish experience? So, ChatGPT, have you ever used it, Mijal?
Mijal: So I actually have, I think a weird relationship with ChatGPT. I, when it first came out, I had like a couple of weeks that I was like, really nervous about it. Then I convinced myself that I have to use it. I literally said I have to use it like four times a day to get like, you know, then my brain started thinking with it.
I’ll say one more thing here, Noam. I think before October 7th, I was obsessed with AI. Like I was reading anything I could about it. AI and the world, AI and civilization, AI and Judaism. And then October 7th happened and it’s almost like, it’s gonna sound dramatic, sorry.
Noam: That’s fine.
Mijal: It’s almost like the monsters were more human than technological in the world.
Noam: Wow. Why?
Mijal: Well, I think that I was really, really concerned about the potential for great harm that AI could bring. And then October 7th happened, and I don’t think we have the human capacity to worry about too many things at once at the same time.
Noam: Ah, okay, I understand. So meaning you were nervous about AI before 10/7 and then since 10/7, you don’t have enough emotional bandwidth to be dealing with multiple different tragedies and coping with those tragedies.
Mijal: It’s not just emotional bandwidth. It’s also like what’s happening in front of me right now versus I think a lot of people who have deep concerns about AI have like concerns like five years down the line or like 10 years down the line. So it’s almost like you’re dealing with what you know awful things that could be versus like real monsters in front of you.
Noam: So talk me through that, I really want to understand this a little bit better. Before 10/7, what are the fears of AI that you have? And I’ll just tell you how I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it initially, like there is new media. There’s a new method of generating content, generating ideas, generating images.
Is this the type of thing that’s to you, not a different just by degree, but different kind, and therefore it’s like, this is dangerous. It’s not just like paper leads to the radio leads to the TV leads to the internet leads to, you know, WhatsApp leads to, now, it’s a totally different thing called AI and that different thing called AI can do something that’s dangerous? So what does being fearful of it really do for you?
Mijal: So I think what you’re asking is, is this a different quote unquote concern or threat or opportunity, let’s say, than a different technological innovation? So I would say two things. Number one, when it comes to AI, I think at its core, artificial intelligence really brings up a core question about what makes us human . Now that’s one, let me just say one more thing. In general, as an amateur student of history, when you have massive technological change, it tends to come with great social instability. You can look at the printing press and then point to how it proceeded 100 years of war across Europe.
Noam: That’s a good example.
Mijal: In general, that’s the case. I think what makes AI complicated is that a lot of observers are saying, you know all those changes that happened throughout history, this is happening on steroids in terms of the pace of change, in terms of the economic incentives to kind of get ahead of the game and the lack of regulation that’s happening here right now. So I think there’s like real concerns here that yes, we’ve always had change and change has always been complicated. And in this case, change can happen so quickly and it’s a complicated way that there can be like tremendous harm. And we can have these conversations as like just two people, you know, living in America, whatever, thinking about these things and we can also have them as Jews. There’s, I think, very big questions relating to what it means to be Jewish in the world that come back to AI and all that.
Noam: I want to talk about the Jewish thing because the Jewish thing is really complicated. I, this is the topic I want to talk about as it relates to AI and how the world is seeing this. So. On Shabbat, one of the things, there are all these different rules and regulations that you can do certain things and you can’t do other things, and there are different reasons for that. There’s actually biblical texts that say, hey, listen, stop doing work that you do during the week, and on Shabbat, you take a rest, you take a chill, and the way to do that is to resist doing what’s called the 39 acts of creation, what are called the Lamedet Melachot in Hebrew. It’s called Melechet Makhshevet, which means intentional behaviors that you have to kinda stay away from doing, and on Shabbat, you don’t do them.
And so examples of these things that a lot of people don’t do is they don’t watch TV, they don’t travel on Shabbat, they don’t go in a car, they don’t turn on lights. You could have lights on, but they don’t turn on lights.
Let’s say artificial intelligence was able to know, and this came up in an interview with a big rabbi, his name is Rabbi Rimon, that you may have seen, and Rabbi Rimon asked the question about whether or not there’s a smart home, and it knew your thoughts, and it knew if you wanted the lights to go on before you said anything, or the TV could go on without you even doing anything, because it knows how you think about it, and it could actually channel your thoughts to do this. So let’s say the world is now in a place where there is these homes that are smart homes, artificial intelligence gets inside our brains and could guide us to do these certain things without us doing it. Would that be okay or not okay on Shabbat to you and why? What do you think? Yep, yep.
Mijal: So you’re saying the question is if this wouldn’t violate technological, you know, electricity prohibitions on Shabbat, could we have smart homes powered by AI that basically allow us to use a lot of technology that we, that right now we wouldn’t be using? Is that the question?
Noam: With one little caveat that I’m interested in. Less could, because I’m not so interested in your technical answer, but yeah, should. Yeah. Should.
Mijal: Should. Actually this goes back to the two questions that I raised in terms of AI. What makes us human? And then what should be the pace of change in a way that doesn’t destroy some good things? So I think we can ask similar questions about this. What makes Shabbat Shabbat?
Noam: Yes. Great.
Mijal: And then we can have a conversation about law, but also about…You know, you can talk about the spirit.
Noam: Great, great, great.
Mijal: But there’s a second question, which is the first one is what makes Shabbat Shabbat. The second question is, and I think this is where people don’t understand that Jewish law and community, there’s always this like big meta, like sociological questions. The other question is, what is the pace of change that would allow for an old tradition to maintain its potency? You get what I’m saying with that?
Noam: No, I don’t!
Mijal: If for hundreds of years, we kept Shabbat by saying we are not going to use technology. And then like, let’s say that we thought we could maintain the essence of Shabbat with technology through AI. But then the question is like, do we do it overnight? Do we then lose everything? There’s almost this delicate equilibrium when you have something that you’re gonna play with that you gotta figure out. Is this gonna just mess it all up? Because shabbat is so counter-cultural. Do you get now the second question I’m asking?
Noam: It is counter-cultural. I get it, I get it. Let’s crystallize this. Mijal, I’m just imagining a world in which it’s like a fun, dystopian counterfactual. I love counterfactuals. I love dystopian worlds. But so let’s live in this dystopian world for a second, which might not be that dystopian, and maybe that’s your point about the distinction between AI and just the graduation of media from one level to the next. So let’s say there was a world in which smart homes understood the way we thought about everything and could actually turn on TVs, drive cars for us, turn on lights. Yes or no, like should we be celebrating Shabbat with those innovations?
Mijal: So you’re asked, let me put your question differently. If I had a magic, a halachic legal wand that would take away any questions about observance, would I want AI to help us have Shabbat in which we can drive, watch TV, use our phones, all of that?
Noam: Yes.
Mijal: Okay, and no, no I don’t want to. I think we should do it. Oh yes, 100%. And I also think that the question about what’s…
Noam: Why? No, no, now I’m gonna press. I gotta press, I’m gonna press. Why?
Mijal: I’m gonna get there, I’m gonna get there. But let, but let, even if it’s allowed. I’m gonna get there now, one second. But before I tell you why. First of all, I just to make something clear. And I’m speaking as an observant Jew, it’s not only about what’s quote unquote, like allowed. You know what I mean? Like, can I do it? I think we have to ask about is this wise? Is this good? For our communities, our families, our societies. So that’s just, I’m just naming that. So having said that, I think that especially now, Shabbat, this wasn’t why Shabbat was created. Like we are not gonna assume that when it was instituted in the way that it was by the rabbis back then, that they understood that we were gonna live in this world. Having said that, somehow it happened that today in our hyper-connected super-fast universe, Shabbat’s amazing, Shabbat’s a blessing. It’s a way to, to stop, to talk to each other, to connect.
You know, I was speaking to some friends this week and we were venting about different issues. Okay, it doesn’t matter what we’re saying. But we kept being like, how do we fix things? And one person was like, Shabbat. Shabbat just fixes half of these problems. I know that was a very unclear example because I don’t wanna give too many details, but there’s all of these issues with like social media and connectivity and this and that, and Shabbat is precious. Shabbat also not driving, it forces you to be in community, like to be near people to like there’s so many blessings that Shabbat gives us in a modern and liberal era that if we were to you know artificially intelligence whatever uh change Shabbat so radically i think we would lose so much. Do you want to change my mind?
Noam: What you’re saying reminds me of something that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, said. I’m not going to quote it perfectly, but he said, just because you know the rules of a sonnet doesn’t turn you into Shakespeare if you write a play.
Mijal: Interesting. Okay.
Noam: And what he’s saying, what I’ve always understood that to mean, is if you reduce the world and the application of Jewish wisdom and even Jewish law. If you reduce it to do’s and don’ts and technicalities, you could know all of the rules and know all of the laws, but you’re not gonna actually produce anything that is beautiful or majestic or wonderful at the end of it.
And so what I’ve always struggled with with that line is, okay, so then what’s the purpose of Jewish law? Isn’t the very purpose of Jewish law to provide us with meaning? To provide us with the way to behave? To provide us with the ability to continue what we do Jewishly and bring that to the next generation. And the second we start messing with the rules of sentences and rules of how to write a great sonnet, and we start saying, hey listen, I’m actually gonna say it’s not Jewish law, it’s not the rules that are guiding my behavior, it’s these meta principles. And the meta principles of, Mijal said, you know, we have to, keeping Shabbat. The rabbis didn’t have this in mind. And so Mijal now is basically saying all of the guidelines that Shabbat, and not just the rabbis, predating the rabbis from the divine word of the Bible, and I think both you and I view the Bible as divine, there’s been this concept of Shabbat from the very beginning. And then the rabbis, what they do is they provide us with the understanding of how to keep Shabbat. Which ostensibly has been in place since the creation of Shabbat was first done by God. And then the rabbis help us figure out how to do that, and they try to figure out what the text means, what the text says, and what it doesn’t say.
Mijal: Okay, wait. Noam, there’s so many layers there. Because you just said, what’s the point of Jewish law? Is there such a thing as meta legal principles we should care about? Who wrote the Torah? Like, there’s so much in there. Like, what? Can you pick out one? Pick out one.
Noam: Well yeah! I’m wondering out loud with you, Mijal.
Mijal: Yes, I know you’re wondering, but you’re wondering too much for me. Just wonder one at a time.
Noam: Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. That’s fair.
Mijal: But okay, you know what? I hate to break it to you, Noam
Noam: I could take it.
Mijal: You can take it. Okay. I think it’s an illusion to think you can have law without… Like this, like, narrow, minimalist notion of law. Is this technically allowed or not allowed without a lot of what you might call, like, meta-legal principles? That’s a whole other conversation about Jewish law.
Noam: Right, so that’s your assumption. That’s your assumption.
Mijal: I don’t think it’s an assumption. It’s an argument. But I think most people would agree with
Noam: Correct, it’s an argument. Right. Well, I don’t care if most people agree with you or don’t agree with you about this. I think what’s interesting,
Mijal: You disagree.
Noam: I know, I’m not saying I disagree either. Our producer’s gonna kill me. She’s gonna say, hey, listen, Noam, taking a position. But what I’m saying is,
Mijal: Take a position, Noam.
Noam: So, okay, so you’ll say it directly. What I’m saying is that I care less about whether or not, if there are 100 great thinkers and 51 think this and 49 don’t and therefore it’s right, that’s less relevant to me. I wanna know, is it right or is it accurate? So there are great thinkers who would say, the distinction between Judaism and Christianity is, at the early days, is actually the submission to Jewish law. As the submission to the behavior elements of Judaism, and saying that it’s actually the laws, actually the mitzvot as they’re called, that distinguishes early Judaism from early Christianity. And therefore, as it relates to AI, well, the answer to the question is, if that’s the case, it really is the distinction of Jewish law from everything else. Then guess what? It would be allowed. Because what emerges from a strict adherence to Jewish law without the meta principles leads to the allowance of many more things potentially. That’s weird.
Mijal: It’s only weird if you define Jewish law the way you’re defining it.
Noam: Okay, tell me how to define it differently.
Mijal: Because, I mean, okay, so when you just started bringing in like early distinction between Judaism and Christianity, so I hear you’re already making a binary between, here’s the strict law that has to do with behavior, and I’m not mimicking your voice, right, sorry, Noam.
Noam: No, but let me hear the mimic. Mimic, mimic. Karaoke!
Mijal: And here’s like, I can’t, I would have to bring in like the athlete, the athlete, the karaoke. Okay, here’s the strict law that has to do with behavior and here’s like the spirit, the meaning. And you’re almost like saying, well, if you’re going to take the spirit of Shabbat now to overcome, you know, the law, then what’s up with Jewish law?
But I disagree with you though. I think that Jewish law has always incorporated within it questions about society, about community, about change. About human psychology. So I think we might just have different definitions of Jewish law. I’m not even saying forget Jewish law. I’m saying a process around Shabbat and Jewish law and AI would actually take into account some of these broader considerations. And I have been really lucky to learn with some rabbis who’ve invited me to understand that when, you know, legal decisers, whatever, they don’t just think about what does X text think about Y? They think about what does X text think about Y and its application at this moment in society with all of the different factors.
Noam: Yeah, I like that definition of the application of Jewish law. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits has, he’s a great modern-
Mijal: Who’s Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, of blessed Memory was…
Noam: Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits is a great, one of the, by the way, a blessed memory was a great, correcting me, I like it, was, she’s correct. Mijal is correct.
Mijal: Thank you. Now that should be the name of our podcast, by the way. I like it.
Noam: Mijal is correct, but I’m actually, I’m actually very close to agreeing with you based on what you said because I agree that it is the meta principles that ultimately guide Judaism and Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits was the type of person who was a great religious thinker. By the way, here we go again. I think he lived from 1908 to 1992, but he applied extra legal principles relatively, and he demonstrated those extra legal principles, meaning principles that are not just, here’s the law, here’s meta principles, that they’re part and parcel of the Jewish system. And that’s really what you’re saying. And I wanna get practical, very practical. Would you be willing to watch TV on Shabbat?
Mijal: No, no.
Noam: Why not?
Mijal: Because I belong to a community that conceptualizes the practice of Shabbat in a certain way and I treasure it tremendously.
Noam: Okay. Right, so that’s not my answer. That is a really interesting answer. I think your answer is fascinating, Mijal. I think it’s really, really interesting because what you’re saying is the community has a real influence and impact on individual behavior.
Mijal: 100%.
Noam: I think that’s a really compelling thing for at least me to think about.
Mijal: So I’ll tell you, we need to have, I think we should have an episode on kashrut and keeping kosher because there I think we can have a really interesting, I think that was one of like our early conversations now of the podcast.
Noam: It was. I’m nervous that conversation, but we’ll get there. But I don’t watch TV on Shabbat.
Mijal: Because?
Noam: And because I am going to contradict something that I said earlier, but as Walt Whitman said, we contain multitudes. The idea is, for me at least, Mijal, earlier I was saying basically Jewish law is a fundamental distinction that makes Judaism Judaism, and other religions other religions and like in a very fundamental way. and I the way I view Jewish law right now is that it ought to have a real influence on our lives and my life in a very particular way, me. But it’s not the only thing that I think about when I think about my Judaism. And so it actually could have for me a, it actually could have for me something that makes my life and its relationship to Judaism stricter, and sometimes it could be more liberal. But this is an example of stricter, because I view Shabbat, like you said earlier, Mijal, as the ultimate gift. I could actually get emotional about Shabbat because I think of my life as like this intense six days of service, of work.
Mijal: Oh, you get to be intense now. Sorry.
Noam: Yeah, I get to be intense. That’s why we could get along, Mijal, because I have quite the intense side also. So, I’m not sure you have a playful side. But we’ll get there, we’ll see. We’ll see. Ha ha ha.
Mijal: Noam, Noam, Noam Weissman, okay wait you are totally avoiding answering the question because i don’t i still don’t know why you wouldn’t…
Noam: But I’m going to get to it.
Mijal: Okay go for it.
Noam: Because I think it’s a gift. And I think that six days we work super hard. We do a lot of work, whatever it looks like. We’re working for 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours, whatever it is. And then Shabbat comes and it’s just this oasis of time that people like Heschel spoke about, this great religious thinker, 1907 to 1972. And
Mijal: That is obnoxious. Sorry. Heschel called Shabbat a palace in time.
Noam: A palace in time,yeah, a palace in time. That’s what it is! And so whether or not it would be allowed or not allowed, or whether or not my community said it was allowed or not allowed, I would not watch TV on Shabbat. I don’t watch TV when I’m alone in a hotel room on Shabbat. I wouldn’t do it, regardless of my community.
Mijal: You see, I feel commanded by my community even when I’m alone. But that’s a whole other conversation.
Noam: Ah, well. And I have no interest in being commanded by my community one way or the other.
Mijal: Really?
Noam: Yeah.
Mijal: Wow, okay. For me, it’s part of the covenant. It’s a Jewish people.
Noam: Yeah, for me the community could be both rewarding and oppressive at the same time.
Mijal: So we both wouldn’t want to watch TV, even if it was on and even if we could get around it.
Noam: I didn’t know when we started this conversation where I would land on it. But yeah, I think that based on—thank you for helping me process this, Mijal—I think that based on what I was saying about the way I approach Jewish law in general, even though I was saying that it’s a distinguishing factor from Christianity, I now hear myself reflecting what you said into the way I think about it, which is that it’s actually not the strictures of Jewish law that would guide me here. It’s the meta concepts that help understand how I think about Judaism. And therefore I think of Shabbat as this, like you said, palace in time. And they’re-
Mijal: Heschel said.
Noam: Okay, that Heschel said, it’s a palace in time. And therefore I think that the way the rabbis put together the legal system, based on their understanding of biblical law, I think that they had it right. And regardless of what AI does, what we’re doing right now is the most remarkable and beautiful thing that Judaism has to offer. And it’s our service of that, not what Judaism is offering, but it’s our service of that. That’s incredibly meaningful.
Mijal: Okay, but let’s name some difficult questions, which we’re not gonna get to, but I don’t wanna pretend like this was simple, okay?
Noam:Noam: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Mijal: What happens when there are cases in which AI would actually bring in more people into Jewish community and Jewish meaning? Like if, for example, I know that like I have a lot of colleagues who observed Shabbat a little bit differently, who started broadcasting their services in shul, and we can talk about the pluses of that. There’s like hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t have gone to shul, who now get to like learn Torah and observe in a way they couldn’t before. We can talk about new medical needs and how AI could help on Shabbat. There’s like a whole host of ways in which I think TV feels almost too simple because TV is not great and we watch too much of it like in the world. But we could probably come up with case studies that are difficult in terms of just like different values there.
And then, other thing I’ll say now, we started talking a lot about Jewish law and I feel like we just skimmed the surface. I have spent so much time thinking about metal logic principles, but mostly because unlike you, Noam, I, as a traditional woman who is a feminist and who adheres to traditional law, this question of like meta-halachic principles, it’s one that I’m pretty obsessed with because very often these are the principles that end up influencing what my community that I love so much decides women couldn’t should do in communal life. So does that make sense what I just said? Like they are complicated, like all these like big principles about what our community should look like.
Noam: Right, but I think that’s so interesting because it’s the exact same application of whether or not Jewish law on its own, without the extra halachic principles, could lead to either a stricter or more liberal interpretation of your behavior, depending on the scenario.
Mijal: Yeah, 100%. Although again, I don’t know if I believe the Jewish law is ever without principles.
Noam: Okay, well, but you know, can I tell you why I love this conversation, Mijal?
Mijal: Okay, why?
Noam: I’ll tell you why I was excited to have this conversation. Because we did not talk about anti-Semitism. We did not talk about how other people treat the Jewish world. We did not talk about how our identity is shaped by external factors. We talked about how our identity is shaped by internal factors, whether or not that’s the individual or the community. And the influence or impact of artificial intelligence, which is the ultimate external figure, how that influences and impacts how we think about our own Jewish identities and Jewish behaviors. And that is interesting.
Mijal: Yes. Yes, exactly. All right. Well, this was great. Um, I feel like we just scratched the surface though, of like both AI, Jewish law, Shabbat, like all of those things. Would you exchange your rabbi for ChatGPT?
Noam: Yes, I’ll speak to you later.
Wait, you’re sure? Who’s your rabbi? Is your rabbi listening?
Noam: No, not my actual rabbi. My actual rabbi, I would never, no, no. But, you know, but, but I wouldn’t mind if some community rabbis were replaced by ChatGPT, and AI. All right, that was too, that was too much.
Mijal: You and you will bring us a list next time. The list of the rabbis that you’re going to change.