Rosh Hashanah Day 5787

‘As we gather on this Rosh HaShanah, standing at the threshold between what has been and what might yet be, we find ourselves living through a moment unlike any our ancestors could have imagined. For centuries, human beings have created tools that extended our strength, our reach, and our knowledge. Now we have created machines that seem, in some ways, to mimic our thinking itself. Artificial intelligence can write poems, answer questions, diagnose illnesses, and even engage in conversation. It invites us to ask not only what these new technologies can do, but what they reveal about us. And on Rosh HaShanah, the day we return to the deepest questions of who we are and who we are becoming, that may be the most important question of all. If a machine can imitate human intelligence, what remains uniquely human? What is the spark within us that no algorithm can replicate? And how are we called, in this new year, to use our God-given wisdom responsibly and with compassion?’

Do these words ring true? Have you been gripped by excitement and curiosity, or by revulsion and dread at the rapid and seemingly unstoppable intrusion of AI into our lives? On Rosh HaShanah we gather together as our ancestors have done for three thousand years, raising our voices together as a community, in collective prayers for forgiveness and peace. How will AI change us, our lives, our world? Do we have a choice? What does it mean now, in the new Age of the AI Revolution, to be human?

As I sat down to write this sermon, I typed in ‘Rosh HaShanah sermon on AI opening paragraph’ into my computer’s Co-Pilot. The opening paragraph you have just heard was written by … AI. By way of analysis, my helpful Co-Pilot also commented: ‘Why this works: It begins with contemporary relevance, creates curiosity rather than fear, and naturally transitions into traditional High Holy Day themes of identity, moral responsibility, and teshuvah.’

Now you know that AI delivered the opening words of BPS’s 5787 Rosh HaShanah sermon - how does this make you feel? Take a moment to check in with yourself. Do you feel cheated? Or amused? Fearful? Or elated? Are you thinking – that was better than what the Rabbi can do? Or are you experiencing a sense of a loss of trust? ‘If she can use AI for her Rosh HaShanah sermon, how do I know she’s not using AI every Shabbes?

I ‘m happy to share how I feel. I feel robbed of my creativity. I feel inauthentic. I feel that Truth has been stolen from us all. I’m wondering whether Rabbis will soon join the list of redundant professions? I feel a complex mix of emotions, including relief, terror and dread, that each and every day I make a personal choice to avoid AI as much as I can. On these days of Awe, on this Rosh HaShanah, Hayom HaRat Olam, the Birthday of the World, which can also be translated The Day the Earth Trembles, I share the fears of many more informed than me that humanity stands on the brink of self-destruction by entrusting our future to clever machines.

Israeli historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, whose most recent bestseller Nexus, gives a Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, says of humans that we are the most intelligent beings on Earth, but also the most delusional. He emphasises that we need to recognise that AI is not a tool, as my Co-Pilot described itself, but an agent, something that acts. ‘A tool is something in your hands that you have full control over. It can be very dangerous, but it does not make decisions. A knife cannot decide whether it will be used to murder someone or to cut salad… But an agent is an entity that makes decisions. A weapon with AI connected to a drone, for example, could decide whether to crash into this building or that one. AI also has its own ideas: it invents. Thus an AI weapon could invent another, previously unknown weapon.’

Harari examines how information networks are harnessed by both democracies, and by totalitarian regimes to devastating effect. He lays out how AI has discovered that nothing increases social media engagement more than anger, fear and hatred. By way of example, he documents how Facebook algorithms helped fan the flames of anti-Rohingya violence in Myanamar in 2016-2017, contributing to the massacre and displacement of tens of thousands of unarmed civilians. He argues that soon AI will surpass human beings in everything.

‘AI need not be a threat to humanity,’ concludes Harari in Nexus. ‘If proper guardrails are created and maintained, it could be the most beneficial invention in history. ‘But to reach this happy destination, we need to realise that the problem of how to build trust between humans is more urgent and more fundamental than the problem of how to develop AI…. It’s not too late to get our priorities right.’

On this Rosh HaShanah morning, I want to return to the words of my computer’s Co-Pilot function: If a machine can imitate human intelligence, what remains uniquely human?

Hayom Harat Olam. Today, in Jewish tradition, is the birthday of the world.

Lurianic Kabbalah, part of Judaism’s mystical teachings, relates a legend. In the beginning, God said, ‘Let there be light.’ In an act of infinite compassion God poured Godself into holy vessels in order to create the universe. But the Source of All that Is underestimated the power of the light, the vessels shattered and the sparks of the Divine scattered into every aspect of Creation – every rock and every stone; every animal, every blade of grass; every fruit and grain of corn, into every human being. Our task is to raise up those sacred sparks through acts of kindness and justice, through living lives of holiness, liberating each spark to return to its Source in God. This light, the primordial light created before the sun, moon and stars, is the light of the World to Come. The light we glimpse on Shabbat, when we taste Gan Eden, a world at peace when our souls return to the Source from whence they come.

This is the light referenced in the verse Psalm 97, part of the Kol Nidre liturgy in some communities:

א֭וֹר זָרֻ֣עַ לַצַּדִּ֑יק וּֽלְיִשְׁרֵי־לֵ֥ב שִׂמְחָֽה׃

Light is sown for the righteous, radiance for the upright.

Does AI have a soul? Can it nourish our yearning for connection, belonging, transcendence?

We currently have 23 people in our Access to Judaism class, many of them on the path to conversion. From time to time I regale them with, ‘What are you doing here? Are you meshugganers?! In the current climate, most people would run a mile from anything to do with Jews and synagogues?!’

As we gather on this Rosh HaShanah in the new Age of AI, I want to ask all of us –What are we doing here?

At our Access feedback session at the end of the summer term every member of the class without exception said Community was one of the most meaningful and rewarding aspects of their Jewish journey, from the moment they walked in the door at BPS, feeling a sense of welcome, of belonging, of Home.

In his new book the Future Starts with Us, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown argues that the balance between individual autonomy and social obligation has moved out of sync. In a conversation with Jonathan Freedland and Yonit Levy on their podcast UnHoly, Gordon Brown said, ‘We’ve got to make a big effort to reassert that we long to belong, that we’re social animals. We’re part of something bigger than just our own individual interests. There’s a great desire on the part of lots of people to do something that will make their community a better place.’ Linking the weakening of civic association over the past 50 years, with the rise of National Populism across the world, Brown notes there are exceptions to this worrying trend. He speaks warmly of the Jewish community, with which he has a strong relationship, and its exemplary networks and organisations for caring for each other and building strong bonds of meaning and connection. Brown’s book ends with hope, speaking of the many projects and initiatives around the world making a real difference to people’s lives, and to the planet, including many he is himself involved in, such as an organisation bringing education and rights to girls and women in Afghanistan.

What is the difference between optimism and hope? Gordon Brown talks about hope as being robust, realistic and based in action. Brown quotes his friend, the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In his book To Heal a Fractured World, Sacks writes:

‘Optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It needs no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to hope. The Hebrew Bible is not an optimistic book. It is, however, one of the great literatures of hope.’

Does AI have the capacity to hope?

As we look towards the New Year 5787 as individuals, as a community, as part of the Jewish People, let’s have the courage to hope in a better year for all of us.

Ken Yehi Ratzon, So May it Be

Rabbi Lisa Barrett
BPS Rosh HaShanah Day 5787