R Yitzchok Lowy shared with me a fascinating excerpt from a Chabad Sefer (Hamashpia R Shlomo Chaim Keselman) that predicts AI - and makes a bold claims about the litvish mehalach of limud:
Gemini translation:
“As more time passes and we draw closer to the days of the Messiah, Jews will come even closer to knowing the true purpose for which their soul descended into this world.
In the past, a Jew could have erred and thought that his soul descended to this world to be a ‘wagon driver.’ Days passed, a machine was invented that travels without a horse and wagon [the car], and now no one thinks their soul came into the world to be a coachman.
Similarly, in the past, a Jew could have thought his soul descended to the world to wash clothes. Then they invented a machine that washes clothes [the washing machine], and consequently, the Jew understood that this, too, is not the purpose of his soul’s descent.
Yet, there are still good Jews who believe their souls descended to the world to be great scholars (Lamdanim). A day will come—said Rabbi Shlomo-Chaim—when they will invent a machine that will be a great scholar (he said this many years before the first computer in the world was ever invented). Then, everyone will understand that even study itself, if it is not out of true fear of Heaven and cleaving (Dveikut) to the Holy One, Blessed be He, is not the ultimate purpose of the soul’s descent to this world.
There is only one thing they will never succeed in making a machine do—to pray with ‘service’ (Avodah / heart-felt labor). Because that is the true purpose for which the soul descended to the world: the service of prayer...”
Or in short, AI is here to teach us the purpose of life isn’t learning, because a machine can learn and make up sevaros too!
Obviously, this is a geshmake rip on the litvaks. But when we check into Chabad’s learning, we see that they are not doing that great either, even if they are relying on AI1:
This article argues the straight branched menorah is a historical fact. Not a psak, or a halacha in the future, but that if one would have peered into the second Beis Hamikdash, he would have seen a straight branched menorah. (I clarified this with the author)2.
To quote:
The burden of reconciling archaeology with Torah is not a Jewish burden. If archaeology appears to contradict the halachic reality, it is archaeology’s problem to solve. Halacha settled the menorah’s shape centuries before archaeology had a word to say. It describes created reality as revealed through Torah. Whatever the solution turns out to be, the Torah’s determination of what the menorah was stands untouched.
and:
The archaeologist does not have exclusive rights to the shape of the menorah! It doesn’t fundamentally exist within his domain. There is a Jewish domain, a Jewish source of truth. A different field, with different rules, leading to different conclusions. It has equal access to empirical fact. It constitutes the Jewish factuality, a totally different view on reality with its own justifications.
He concludes:
When people are offended by the Rebbe’s refusal to bow before [archeology/science] the offense is the same offense that idolatry has always taken at the Jew.
This is the Chanukah story again.
Not its superficiality, but its deep meaning. The Greeks did not merely want Jews to stop practicing Judaism. They wanted Jews to understand that Judaism was a subset of Greek wisdom, provincial, primitive, destined to be absorbed into the universal rational order. The Maccabees refused. They insisted that Torah was not a subset of anything. That the G-d of Israel was not one god among many, not even the highest god, but the only G-d—and therefore the ground of all reality, including the reality that Greece thought it owned.
There’s just one huge issue here, which the author elides: It is the Jewish problem to deal with it because a straight branched menorah DOES NOT match the historical reality. (There is not a single archeological record - not one - that depicts the menorah like Chabad claims it appears.) This is the logical equivalent of saying the mesorah says the world is flat, and thus it is a fact, and we don’t even need to answer questions because that is what the mesorah says it is. It is the round earthers who need to answer questions.3
It is classic cult logic. (Maybe outsourcing thinking to machines and focusing on hisbonenus isn’t the great idea R Keselman thinks it is). 4
Anyway, I hope R Tzvi doesn’t take too much offense - I really appreciate Chabad for all their amazing work they do, despite their insistence on straight menorah arms.
In the spirit of the frum blogosphere focusing on gay acceptance and countermyths, I will end off this post with this Chanukah parody song video from Six13!
Related posts:
EDIT: Tzvi Kilov has responded. I do apologize for the tone. (Full quote in comments).
I haven’t read the poll results yet!
The article does say:
Doesn’t this approach risk making halachic fact unfalsifiable? Only if one conflates halacha with dogma. Halachic factuality has its own mechanisms of revision and debate. It simply does not outsource them. It knows its own boundaries.
Which implies the article is not referring to historical fact but instead to psak. But the author says otherwise.
Not-So-Oddly enough, this is how meshichists think too - the rebbe said he is alive, so he is alive, and thus he is not dead even if he is dead.
To be fair, litvaks make the same arguments too:
A few points:
1. You are painfully overconfident about the archaeological evidence. In your discussion with me, you called the round-branched menorah a matter of "eyewitness testimony," which is laughably false. There are straight-branched menorahs in the historical record. There are also multiple mutually inconsistent rounded shapes. The Arch of Titus menorah has pagan imagery on its base and doesn't match the halachic sources in multiple respects, and thus cannot possibly be an accurate depiction of the actual menorah, a fact you seem unaware of, given that you cited it as evidence in our initial exchange. If that depiction is false, who knows what else is false, and who has the right of it? This is not the settled slam-dunk you pretend it is.
2. You still do not understand the essay. It is not about "mesorah" versus evidence, or faith versus archaeology. It is about the unearned imperialism of modern rationalism, the assumption that secular empirical methods are the only legitimate way to ascertain truth, when in fact they rest on faith commitments of their own. Every epistemology has foundational beliefs it cannot prove. No one is an exception. The correct framing is not "faith vs. evidence" but "faith vs. faith" or "evidence vs. evidence." My essay argues that Jews should favor, and indeed, trust Jewish ways of knowing because they are Jewish, since no evidence is neutral or authoritative on its own power. You seem to think you are an arch-rationalist arguing with a religious reactionary. You are mistaken. My position is closer to postmodern epistemology than to fideism. I am saying your ground, as a rationalist critic surveying historical artifacts, is as unstable as anyone's, which means we are free to choose our framework, and no framework can claim ultimate rational authority over the others. I am, in this sense, more of a skeptic than you are. You also keep insisting that I'm conflating "psak" with "historical fact," as if this distinction is something I elide or am confused about. But that distinction is the very issue under dispute. My essay argues that halacha speaks, sometimes, to fact, to what actually was. You assume that "historical fact" is a neutral category and "psak" is just a religious ruling that either doesn't touch it or is somehow vying on a level playing field. This assumption is precisely what I'm contesting. You cannot refute my argument by reasserting the premise I'm rejecting.
3. Scientism, the faith belief that scientific-empirical truth is the only truth, is absolutely a purveyor of cult logic, and a far more successful one than any Jewish group. If "cult logic" means "unfalsifiable framework maintained by social pressure," it has no special moral advantage over any wagon-circling religious orthodoxy.
4. R' Kesselman's point actually connects beautifully to my essay. The one thing a machine will never be is Jewish. A machine can simulate reasoning. It cannot have a neshamah. It cannot stand at Sinai. It cannot be addressed by G-d in the second person. It cannot speak and say naaseh v'nishma in turn. Even when it "speaks," it is not an act of self-disclosure. Similarly, the Jewish way of knowing isn't a method that any amount of discourse can synthesize from the outside. It's an ongoing particular covenantal relationship. This is precisely what's special about the Jewish way of knowing fact (ie, Pshat, and especially Psak Halacha). Eternally so.
5. As I already told you directly, AI did not write my essay. It is part of my writing process, as it is for many writers today, and I am not ashamed of this in the slightest. I notice you nevertheless present it as a "gotcha" to your readers, without mentioning that we already spoke about it. While I may use AI to explore ideas and how to frame them in writing, so far nothing has disabused me of the impression that I have thought about this issue for far longer, with far more attention, and far more seriously than you have. And I did it without calling anyone names or slandering movements.
6. I don't know if this reflects a difference between how one conducts oneself in my world versus yours, but to my knowledge, I have been nothing but polite and forthcoming in our exchanges. My essay was not addressed to you, did not mock your worldview, and made a positive case for a position. You have responded by squeezing it for mockery, calling it "cult logic," and attributing it to AI. You have now been unable to resist attacking Chabad on other issues multiple times in our brief exchanges. (I should note, by the way, that your understanding of meshichism also seems both sociologically and Judaically ignorant, if I am not to treat these comments as mere offhand catharsis but actual points.) If this is the quality of discourse you would produce in my comments section, you've answered your own question about why I don't leave mine open. If you are trying to make me feel ashamed, you have not succeeded. I appreciate that you appreciate Chabad's nice social work.
The narrow mindedness of some people never fails to surprise.
Rabbi Kesselman knew of two approaches to learning - the cold academic style that can be replicated by AI, and the 'yiras shamayim' - 'tefila ba'arichus' as depicted in Kuntres Etz Chaim. And wonder upon wonders, his futuristic picture knew only of Chabad winning the argument.
Learning as done in Yeshivos can also never be replicated by AI. Nowadays, AI is definitely too primitive, and its mistakes and confusion, as well as its ignoring prompts or twisting them, make it a pretty much useless tool. But even as it advances, it will not be able to learn Torah. Centuries of Torah learning have taught us that Torah is not a clinical science, nothing can be proven absolutely, and everything depends on the person behind the sevara. The Ramban makes this point in his introduction to Milchamos Hashem, but it should be obvious to anyone who learned.