Show Notes
On Monday, Pope Leo XIV (an unusual place for us to start, but bear with us) released “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” a letter to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on how to preserve human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence. Genesis’ story of the Tower of Babel is a touchstone throughout the document, outlining the Church’s desire to protect human dignity and agency as the tech industry races to build an all-powerful superintellegence: “I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty, and the world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell.”
And the Pope is not alone. Around the world, a surge of religious groups have begun organizing working groups and conferences, public and private, as communities come to fully understand that whatever script they’ve used in the past to address technological change simply won’t cut it in the age of AI.
Some Jews, like Rabbi Zohar Atkins, argue that AI bots will lead to a renaissance in Jewish learning and the democratization of Jewish wisdom. Others are less sanguine. R. Eliezer Simcha Weiss, the representative of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to the Vatican said that, in high-level discussions on AI ethics with the Holy See, he urged the Church to think of AI less like the Tower of Babel and more like the Golem of Prague.
This week on Not In Heaven, our rabbinic podcasters argue whether religious communities should be getting out ahead of AI or taking a more deliberative, wait-and-see approach to the technology.
Credits
Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
Music: Socalled
Support The CJN
Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )
More from Not in Heaven
“Jewish joy” is having a moment. It shows up in grant guidelines, new organizational mission statements and frothy headlines like “This Hanukkah Episode of NPR’s Tiny Desk Is Full of Jewish Joy,” “How to Connect to Your Jewish Joy,” “What Brings Cookbook Author Leah Koenig Jewish Joy” and “Simchat Torah: A road map for Jewish joy.”
You know the scene. Darkness falls. A hush settles over the gathered crowd. The rabbi intones: “The hour is nigh! Yom Kippur is upon us! Atone, turn your hearts toward righteousness, for today our fates are sealed. Who will live and who will die, who by fire, who by water, who by wild beasts?”
For Jews in the pews, the wail of the shofar is the signal sound of the Jewish New Year. But for congregational rabbis, it’s like the crack of a starting pistol, setting them off on a six-week sprint of preparation and facilitation. The role of the pulpit rabbi can be emotionally draining, with unrealistic expectations and a lack of boundaries for their personal lives. Logistics, administration, governing boards and committees take over, leading some to search for a new path.
Eight months after the Conservative movement issued a public apology to interfaith families for historically treating them as a threat to Jewish survival, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), the rabbinic arm of the denomination, released a new set of Jewish legal rulings delineating both the possibilities and limits for including interfaith families in Jewish religious and ritual life, entitled “Gateways Into Jewish Living: Guiding the Conservative/Masorti Rabbi in Supporting Families with Non-Jewish Loved Ones”.
The prospect of summer grilling season might bring a tear to the eye of any patriotic Canadian, but it’s the eye-watering prices in the meat aisle that are stirring up the most emotion this year.