Claiming Our Human Lineage

It’s only 2026 and I already have AI fatigue. Not the cognitive fatigue that is caused by overuse of AI due to the brain’s inability to process so much information at once, but fatigue of talking about AI. There are a lot of unexplored aspects of AI—including theft, its validation of existing thought frameworks that uphold cissexist white supremacist patriarchy, and its environmental impact. Among these, is the lasting impact AI can, and maybe at this point, will, have on Torah—what it means and how we learn it. (I’ve been especially grateful to my friend and comrade David Zvi Kalman, a scholar and Jewish futurist who has been probing religious leaders to grapple with the impact of AI far before this heightened moment, and who has found precise religious language to describe AI and its promises/perils.) 

And even as I appreciate any instrument that can instantly translate a comment from any medieval commentator (acronyms and all) with accuracy, I’m not ready to bring this instrument into the bet midrash. At least, for that purpose. 

Questions about AI and its role mitigating sacred knowledge should push us to more deeply consider what we think it is to be a human being in pursuit of Torah.

When asked whether one can consult an AI chatbot for halakhic rulings, my teacher, R’ Ethan Tucker connected this case to an earlier source in the Talmud that declares: קָרָא וְשָׁנָה וְלֹא שִׁמֵּשׁ תַּלְמִידֵי חֲכָמִים הֲרֵי זֶה עַם הָאָרֶץ / “One who reads Torah and learns Mishnah but does not attend to scholars, this person is considered ignorant (an am ha’aretz).” This seems outrageous! How could someone who has learned so much be treated as if they know nothing? But as R’ Tucker explains, “There is something about their lack of interaction with another human being–perhaps specifically a teacher, a mentor, maybe someone with some degree of holiness or piety around them that makes the bits and bytes of data that they know…worthless.” 

In this spirit, our Sages in Pirkei Avot declare “attending to scholars” one of the 48 ways we come to “own,” or fully embody, Torah. Rashi comments that “attending to scholars,” this prerequisite to real learning, is none other than the practice of studying gemara, because “gemara is dependent on sevara, which is expressed when the sages would gather to explore the reasons behind the Mishnah, and they would explain together, and immerse in this study—a process which is exemplified in the gemara that our later sages (Amora’im) compiled.” Learning happens when our sevara is invited into the room, when we sit together across the table or the Zoom screen from each other and enter the state of flow that we know to be transformative. On another daf, Rashi defines gemara itself as “the content of the oral teachings [mishnayot] as they are taught to him from his teacher and from his teacher’s teacher.” This—not a book—is what Talmud is, Rashi reminds us. If your learning is not relational and your knowledge is not rooted in a lineage or community, something is missing.

Of course, we need to carefully balance our understanding of this with our awareness of how exclusivity and power can render many people unable to access learning that connects them/us to a lineage in this way. Many of us have had to turn to books when there was—or still is—no one there to teach us. But being true students of Talmud means finding the relationships that can hold our learning and growth, making our Torah real.

This is because Jewish learning is not about learning stuff. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. We are hungry for gemirna: I hear from SVARA-niks every day yearning for more skills, more facility with the text, more concepts and principles at their fingertips—more learning. Learning in our yeshiva—or in any yeshiva! —will not be able to give you more knowledge than a chat bot can. Over the course of this academic year in the Gemirna Kollel we’ve moved through four dapim (pages, front and back) of Talmud. There are 2,711 dapim total, and ChatGPT can recall any sugya from any page. 

As David Zvi Kalman speculates: “In fifty years, I can imagine Jewish learning having a new reputation which is now only a glimmer in the eye: A focus on the craft of learning itself, on the joy of discovery and interaction with human teachers and other human learners. Learning that is allowed to be slow and inefficient. Learning that rewards carrying skills inside your brain.” These skills inside of our brains, hearts, and bodies are what we cultivate in the bet midrash every day, slowly and steadily, with vulnerability and care.

We know that the content of our learning is not the real story—the “stuff” is the icing on top of a process cupcake (to borrow a metaphor from Benay): a sugya about blessings is about how to make up new traditions, a sugya about saving a life is about how to override Torah when you need to. And learning is a craft that shapes us into the most human version of ourselves—people who are able to demand transformation from our tradition and from the world around us. 

Machines will always be better than us at recalling stuff (and, in many cases, even producing stuff!). But yeshivas can center our learning on gemara: learning sevara from each other, from our teachers, and letter by letter claiming a place in our very long, very human lineage.